Cognitive technologies in the form of interactive text response applications, such as chatbots, are beginning to take centre stage, Ebrahim Dinat, COO of Ocular Technologies.
He says two truths abound in today's contact centres:
- Customer expectations continue to grow.
- Businesses that meet these expectations hold the competitive-edge.
A question that many businesses still churn over, however, is whether it is necessary for customers to have human interaction to raise the customer expectation.
In her blog, "Automatic for the people! How cognitive technologies improve customer experience", Chris O'Brien, digital content manager at Ocular's software partner, Aspect, notes: "We know that customer preferences are continuing to shift toward the desire to resolve issues through self-service applications. We also know that more and more, consumers would rather not pick up the phone at all if they can conduct interactions via text or messaging instead of voice. Because of this, we're seeing cognitive technologies in the form of interactive text response applications - like chatbots - begin to take centre stage."
At the start of the year, the Deloitte review "Cognitive technologies: The real opportunities for business", noted: "Because cognitive technologies extend the power of information technology to tasks traditionally performed by humans, they can enable organisations to break prevailing trade-offs between speed, cost, and quality."
The consulting company defines cognitive technologies as products of the field of artificial intelligence. They are able to perform tasks that only humans used to be able to do. Examples of cognitive technologies include computer vision, machine learning, natural language processing, speech recognition, and robotics.
Thoroughly examining thus how cognitive technology can be utilised to enhance the customer experience should be an earnest boardroom discussion and adequately budgeted. It is also important that decision-makers scrutinise the solutions available so that they do not make an ill-informed decision. The bottom line though is that cognitive technologies will be a fundamental element of the consumer experience across industries, from banking to retail to manufacturing, health care, media and more. They have evolved over numerous decades and employing them today places business ahead of the curve.
A recent Aberdeen Group study, "Cognitive customer experience: The future is here", highlights the current adoption of cognitive technologies used in customer experience management (CEM) programs and reveals that planned spend on cognitive technologies is on the rise.
"Their report goes on to point out that implementation of cognitive technologies can play a key role in elevating customer expectations. By incorporating proactive machine interactions at relevant stages of the customer journey, companies can transform traditional ways of addressing consumers' needs, offering solutions that go above and beyond simply responding to requests," O'Brien points out.
Seeking and investing in the right solution thus has a positive effect on both business profit and customer loyalty. In fact, cognitive technologies can even lead to further and greater business opportunities.
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