Putting AI at work for an enhanced customer experience

As my husband was unwrapping an Alexa that he’d recently brought back from a conference, my son immediately jumped at the chance to test it out. “Alexa, what is the valency of chromium?” he asked. “Sorry, I don’t know,” came the answer. “Dumb robot,” my son scoffed.

This incident may sound irrelevant but I wanted to draw your attention to the expectations the next generation has for AI. So what’s next for AI? As Stephen Hawking said, “creating effective AI could be the biggest event in the history of civilization or the worst. We just don’t know.” How are lives going to change? How will workplaces, home, cities, businesses change? The sky is the limit.

Take, for example, two very important aspects of the business value chain – Customer experience and workforce development –and how AI could impact them.

Enhance Customer Experience with AI:

Customer engagement with business is changing dramatically. Tech-savvy customers are looking for:

• Interacting and doing business with a digitally mature organization – consumers are more inclined toward online or in-app communication
• Consistent omnichannel experience – consumers are looking for intelligent, integrated, well-executed platforms that provide a personalized consumer experience
• Self-service journey – Many buyers seek to manage their exploration and purchase journeys on their own terms via channels and platforms that are convenient for them.

Because customer experience involves qualitative aspects, such as perception, reaction, and the emotions that consumer experiences while interacting with the company, its brands, employees, and entire customer engagement concept have to be analyzed and executed from the ecosystem perspective. Only then will they enhance the end user experience.

Let’s consider the example of oil retailing. The retail agent has a 360-degree view of the customer, including their demographic profile, loyalty card details, favorite gas-filling outlets, average spend on auto consumables and accessories, purchase patterns (for groceries, beverages and home products), the type of vehicle used (budget, sedan, luxury, two-wheelers, gas, battery, hybrid, etc.), payment preferences, data from partners, and even social streams. With AI, this content then can form building blocks for creating a revenue-enhancing customer experience capable of predicting products not only for the oil retailer but also for the automotive and retail industries, which are part of larger partner ecosystem network.

Develop a trained Workforce with AI:

A retiring experienced workforce, the perpetual paucity of time, and digital disruption are inclining modern knowledge seekers toward online education models.

Modern Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are all the rage these days. AI can be thought of as prescribing courses based on which zone of globe participant belongs to, whether it’s raining there and he/she has to be present at home to take care of kids and thus would like to attend an online course. Organizations can leverage technology to understand preferential inclination of an employee to pursue a course and then track the success of implementation of the same in the practical field. It can further suggest upgradation of knowledge based on assignments the employee is pursuing in the organization. Hence a lifelong learning curve can be charted out with full-time work culture.

At the Georgia Institute of Technology, students were fascinated by a new teacher’s assistant named Jill Watson who quickly and accurately answered their requests. What they didn’t know was that Ms. Watson was actually a computer equipped with an IBM-AI system.

Taking a cue from the above example, the manufacturing industry could, with the help of digital twins and AI, devise sessions to educate its workforce during off-office hours. This would not only help organizations boost employee productivity in safety-critical scenarios like Oil Rigs, Underground Mining etc, but also reduce the time spent on training.

AI can do wonders. The opportunities are endless, but only if we – business and IT work in tandem to devise an ecosystem of partners. Connect with me on LinkedIn to further the discussion on how Capgemini can help your business grow.

Kumkum Datta

Expert in Business Process Improvements, Business Solution Architecture in Plant Maintenance and Supply Chain Management

I guide and coach Delivery team to Business Value Add initiatives ,build solutions to influence Customer’s Operational metrics. Business Process Re-Engineering through Application developments & Analytics is my passion.
As domain SME ,I contribute in creating storyline for Sales community by linking business pain with Capgemini’s solution portfolio. Regular contributor to training sessions on emerging technology trends & impact on business.
Worked with engagements like Statoil, Engie, Schneider, Siemens, Rockwell, Covestro, Atlas Copco, Nyrstar, etc.