Supercharging Personalization with CX AI

Personalization can be a delicate balance for organizations: do too little and risk customers getting annoyed at receiving irrelevant information; do too much and risk customers becoming suspicious over what you know about them. Customers now expect a heightened level of personalization and are thus more willing to divulge information about themselves. But they want to make sure they’re getting something out of it. In other words, organizations need to anticipate customer needs and inject tailored information at the right time to keep customers happy. If this sounds like organizations need to predict the future, you’re not wrong. But with customer experience AI, it’s not as hard as it sounds.

As an avid cyclist, I want businesses to know this about me so that I receive the latest and greatest suggestions for upping my cycling game. When I log in to my Amazon account, for example, I get recommendations for products that normally wouldn’t be on my radar. I’m willing to share my information to get this tailored content. Similarly, I will rate a restaurant because I want the app to know what I like and make a good future recommendation. The umbrella of personalization extends further than merely being able to recommend a product or service. It also means organizations can tailor how they interact with each customer. For example, if I use WhatsApp to contact an organization, it can then recognize that as my preferred mode of communication for future interactions.

CX artificial intelligence makes personalization easier for organizations in a variety of ways. AI pulls the entire customer journey picture into view, enabling companies to know individual consumers and tailor interactions with this knowledge in mind.

Here are ways organizations can hyper-personalize customer interactions:

• A cloud CX platform underpinned by CX AI:Companies should have all their CX data in one place. The cloud platform acts as a gold mine for CX leaders, centralizing all interaction history. Organizations can pull up consumers’ past interactions to be better informed going into the next interaction—and eliminate the need for customers to repeat information. CX data can train the CX AI to deliver valuable insights to companies. AI learns the ins and outs of a CX organization, enabling it to offer the most relevant and specific recommendations.
• AI routing:AI can understand a customer’s personality and communication preferences, then match that customer to the best agent or self-service resource for their needs. If they prefer a warm, friendly interaction, they can be paired with an agent who can keep up the conversation. If they want a just-the-facts approach, they can be routed to the best resource—agent or otherwise—for that style as well.
• AI-powered sales effectiveness models:Organizations can use AI to recommend products or services based on customer preferences—travel companies can recommend specific travel destinations, for example, based on whether a consumer likes the beach or mountains.
• AI-powered customer satisfaction models:Organizations can monitor sentiment during an interaction to coach an agent in real time on how to progress. If the customer is getting upset, the AI can pinpoint options for the agent to turn the call around, like building rapport or demonstrating ownership.
• Intelligent bots: Generative AI has elevated the level of service a bot can provide. GenAI adds a powerful layer of semantics on top of the responses generated by CX AI. This means that bots can now speak just like a human agent would. It is becoming nearly impossible for consumers to recognize whether they are speaking with a human or bot.

There is one more important step that organizations can’t skip if they want to implement CX AI. They need to make sure they choose the right technology. CX AI must be domain-specific and created with the proper guardrails, including elements like brand language. This ensures that the insights and knowledge that AI delivers are relevant, accurate, and appropriate. This can’t be stressed enough. If organizations don’t implement the right AI, they risk their brand’s reputation and thus their customers’ loyalty.

CX AI is making it possible for organizations to develop a much deeper relationship with their customers. Even for larger companies with millions of customers, CX AI makes it easy to record and retain important information about each customer and deliver a hyper-personalized experience. The time when customers had to repeat their information ad nauseam to an organization’s contact center will soon be a distant memory. CX AI is allowing organizations to focus on what matters most: making every interaction as seamless and perfect as possible. 

Barry Cooper is president of the CX Division at NICE. He is responsible for sustainable customer success across all customer-facing operations, including sales operations, professional services, customer support, and cloud operations.