Why companies must correct course on Gen AI to protect brand rep

A recent Qualtrics XM Institute study found that organizations worldwide are putting $3.7 trillion annually at risk – a year-over-year increase of approximately $600 billion (19%) – due to bad customer experiences. 

One example is the "doom loop," which results when customers have to navigate a cycle of organizational systems and prompts with no resolution. The phrase was recently highlighted by the Biden administration to crack down on bad customer service and other time wasting offenses named in the new "Time is Money" effort. 

With more complexity, the likelihood of a poor virtually assisted outcome also rises, and the brand’s reputation may be impacted. Getting this right is extremely important for retail brands – our research has shown that the retail sector tops industries with the worst customer service. 

The capabilities of AI, especially generative AI and generative answering, have immense potential to help retail brands fix poor experiences, ranging from improving customer information routing to driving better matched creative resources (e.g., how-to guides, videos). But, while a handful of retail brands are starting to observe successes with their AI experimentation, there are many retail brands that are still wondering when they’ll see ROI on their AI investment. 

The multichannel customer service experience is broken

What is preventing faster adoption rates? One challenge is that brands have spent years building various channels on different technology platforms that don’t talk to each other. These different channels don't offer complete experiences due to the fact that they use different sources of content, which means shoppers need to go to various channels to get the complete information they need. 

This introduces a lot of friction in the experience and creates difficulty for building a connected experience and executing AI, and particularly gen AI, properly. Delivering a more connected approach to customer service is a foundational requirement. 

Customers should have the luxury of choice and should be served in their preferred channel. The solution is to offer a unified experience, regardless of channel, along the entire service journey. 

A unified and connected digital experience will set retailers apart from those that still have disparate groups within their internal customer service organization, or those that have both an online presence and a physical store.

Brands must map their path to the retail customer experience of the future

The customer experience of the future will be a guided one in which brands are able to leverage all of the many data points related to both the customer and the product to serve up relevant information or issue resolution.

Imagine a shopper with a question about a product they ordered -- a bot might be able to quickly begin that communication by naming the purchase and knowing that the product catalog has the information the customer needs. 

Now imagine if the customer needs further information from an agent and the system is able to summarize and carry forward the issue to the agent to help them quickly and easily solve their issue without having to start over in another service “doom loop.” Matching a brand's capabilities to provide support with customer expectations is key, and gen AI can offer that seamlessness.

So, how can retailers win over the majority of consumers who may be weary of virtual help?  And how can brands drive ROI and the quality customer experience that Gen AI is capable of?

Gen AI can bridge the experience gap 

Retailers must walk in their customers' shoes, identifying friction points and identifying where and how AI can be leveraged to remove friction. They should do the evaluations necessary to understand frequent customer requests and what types of inquiries could be self-service in general and for peak shopping events. This insight can then be utilized to create a more unified customer experience.

For example, when a customer is looking for products and related customer service options online, they might also be evaluating a DIY option. This provides an opportunity to connect what people are buying with contextual information, such as best practices for creating an outdoor kitchen for a shopper looking to source individual components. By providing product information that is complementary, retailers can create a full and guided experience.

All in all, brands should not be looking to gen AI to reduce their service-related costs if it’s not providing the answers a shopper needs. Layering gen AI on top of bad processes is only going to make the customer experience worse, and push customers away as a result. Having an AI-experience strategy and implementing the operational steps necessary for achieving that vision, is how retailers can harness this incredible opportunity.