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Integrated enterprises need to optimise the use of AI for better CX


Johannesburg, 25 Jul 2022
Archana Arakkal, Machine Learning Engineer at Synthesis.
Archana Arakkal, Machine Learning Engineer at Synthesis.

To get the most out of AI and ML to better meet changing customer needs, enterprises need to start integrating their business units, operations and datasets into a more consolidated entity. 

This is according to Archana Arakkal, Machine Learning Engineer at Synthesis, who was speaking ahead of a webinar on the Customer Service of the Future, to be hosted by Synthesis, AWS and Salesforce next month.

Every engagement between the customer and the brand is part of the overall customer experience, and customers expect a great deal more of this experience than they did 10 years ago, says Arakkal.

“For example, traditional marketing and advertising has had to evolve beyond the old ‘spray and pray’ approach, since customers now expect hyper-personalisation,” she says.

“Marketing is getting smarter about targeting customers based on their personal needs, their digital footprint, what platforms they use at what time of day. Customers aren’t blind – they know brands have customer data on what they have bought before, their location and interests, so there is an inherent expectation that when they are targeted with a product, it will be a product that makes sense to them.”

While marketing and advertising are becoming better at personalising offers, there often remains a gap in their understanding of the customer – in the silos of data within the various brand business units, Arakkal says.

“For example, if a customer is irritated with the brand and has logged a call with the help desk and not had appropriate assistance, then at that moment they are targeted with advertising for the same product they are complaining about, it’s a very bad experience. Every touchpoint is a place where you can add value or detract value for customers. Marketing shouldn’t operate in a silo – it’s important to consolidate these different touch-points across the enterprise because customers don’t understand entities with disjointed business units.”

Arakkal says the need is starting to surface now to integrate systems across sales, help desk, marketing and operations. “Traditionally, enterprises have had disjointed environments that tended to work in silos, but work needs to be done to integrate them into a seamless environment with a consolidated, holistic omnichannel approach. From a technical perspective, this is possible, but in reality, there are many facets to be addressed – including operations and people – in order to achieve this.”

She notes: “One of the biggest problems we have when business units are siloed is there are often different representations of the customers. Operationally this could be taxing, if you are trying to understand who this customer is. Unifying touch-points enables the operations side to understand the customer better. This is where AI and machine learning are so useful, because one of the biggest problems in recommending things to customers is we don’t really know who they are. However, rolling out AI needs to be a phased approach. You can achieve value at the onset, but with a consolidated view of data sets you’re able to optimise your AI investment and provide more value.”

The Customer Service of the Future webinar will take place on 16 August, with AWS, Salesforce and Synthesis outlining their tools to overcome obstacles and transform the customer experience, including Amazon Connect, Salesforce Service Cloud, real-time telemetry and smart chatbots.

The event will examine how organisations can use personalisation, machine learning and artificial intelligence to better manage their data for genuine customer understanding. Arakkal will outline how Synthesis, AWS and Salesforce connect and optimise the customer experience, with local use cases. 

To register for this event, click here.

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