Digital Engagement Blog

Check out this roundup of perspectives and insights that cover digital, mobile, chatbots, AI, and similar topics with a focus on customer service and customer engagement.  This is what I am reading, and I thought you might find it useful too!

Chatbots vs Humans in the Contact Center

 “Two of the biggest trends in business today are heading on a collision course….On one hand, every major technology company is investing heavily in artificial intelligence (A.I.), promising a better, cheaper, and faster way to “engage” with consumers. "

Traditional chat solutions create a CX that’s essentially a phone call with typing instead of talking.  It’s a strictly linear experience tied to a single session that begins and ends on a single device.  That may be a good fit for a customer journey that follows a nice straight line, but that’s not how consumers buy anymore.

Consumers jump between a mesh of digital devices

Today’s digital consumers live their lives differently, and they expect to engage differently. 

Your Customers Are Digital

By 2020, mobile commerce will make up 45 percent of total e-commerce (BI Intelligence) and require a different strategy than today’s online web strategy.  On the service side, Gartner says 35% of all support will take place on a mobile device by the end of next year.

The velocity of technological change is accelerating. New technologies are emerging that will reshape customer service as we know it today.  Many of these technologies are being tested and even deployed as part of the contact center stack by leading companies.  And these technologies are already driving significant benefits for early adopters.

Forrester Report

To help us understand these changes, Forrester Research recently released a report entitled “Plan Now For Customer Service In 2021. “  This report (on our recommended reading list) explores five technologies that are expected to transform customer care over the next five years.  

Today there is a lot of hype and buzz around Chatbots, artificial intelligence, and cognitive computing making it difficult to understand what is actually feasible and what can actually have an impact on your business.

TechCrunch recently said, “What’s really surprising is that, despite all this hoopla, it’s hard to find a single chatbot that’s actually a really good product.

Of course, we can wrangle over the definition of what makes a good product, but in its simplest terms, a great product would have three traits:

One of the biggest challenges businesses face today is how to win, serve and retain the digital consumer. 

Mobile, digital and IoT are forcing major changes in digital strategy, business models and value chains.

Rules and frameworks that worked five years ago are under direct attack. So how does a business develop a digital strategy playbook?

Customer engagement has changed; it’s never going back.  And it’s driving the need for digital transformation.

Like many, your organization may be stuck in the past, relying on old ways to engage with a new type of customer with dramatically different expectations.

It’s OK. That can work...for a little while.  And, it has to; it’s not easy to drive wholesale change across a large organization, especially when it can affect culture, technology, processes, and other things core to the fabric of your organization.

I just returned from a few days at the Shoptalk conference where 3,000 people came to explore nextgen commerce.  I thought I’d share ten takeaways from ShopTalk that look at how digital is disrupting commerce.  I found trends here that will likely impact all industries.

You’ve heard about the Age of the Customer. That’s a customer environment that goes beyond traditional customer care; it is about establishing a context for an enterprise’s consumer-base. As consumers equip themselves with more devices, and those devices connect to each other, consumers create a personal ecosystem, called Digital Context.¹ Gone are the days when consumers are comfortable adapting to preconceived engagement protocols. Today’s the day about engaging with consumers when they want, how they want – their choice trumps the enterprise – and it results in a win-win scenario if done right. That’s Digital Context in a nutshell.

Enterprise contact centers play a key role in digital consumer engagement strategies. Enterprises need first to empower customers, and secondly to ensure that their customer care representatives are able to take up the conversations that have begun via digital channels. They’ll need to understand that these conversations are no longer one-off quick fixes; they’re part of an ongoing effort to build a better and more sustainable relationship with the customer over time, like tiles that make up a larger mosaic.

Digital engagement is continually evolving and changing. (Well that's an understatement, isn't it?)

And so, if you’re not staying up-to-speed on consumer research, behaviors, and trends, you could be falling further and further behind. But have no worry! Consider these three components in your Digital Engagement strategy, and you'll be able to keep yourself in the fast lane: