The ActivateCX Podcast

How Brands are using AI to Keep Customers

• Frank Rogers • Season 3 • Episode 45

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Learn how AI Conversations Improve CX: https://activateCX.arroyo360.com/ai

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Want to improve customer experience, learn how AI contact center solutions can help? In this video, we interview Maja Shaefer (CEO and Founder of Zowie.AI)! Together Frank and Maja dive into the world of Conversational AI and more directly how ChatBots are improving customer experience, boosting your sales and lighting up customer support performance. 

Maja also addresses common concerns about bringing AI into your CX plan. At the end of the day, learn how to keep your customers and become sustainable against competition with this compelling value proposition?

Contact Arroyo360 to get clarity on approaching AI in a way that makes sense for you. Don't forget to subscribe for more tech updates!

Maya, welcome to the show. I. Thank you. Excited to be here. Thanks for having me, Frank. You're more than welcome. So, conversational ai, which for viewer clarity is a one word catchall for chat bots and voice bots. We're seeing increased adoption for customer experience. Why do you think that is? Is it better tech advances? Is it societal change? What's the combination? It's both actually like, because we have so much you know, greater tech right now, over the past really two years with the rise of generative ai the customer expectations are also way higher. I would say higher is not even the right word. Like different, right? Mm-hmm. Like right now, because of chat, GBT and all the other, LLM chats, people understand what's possible. Like how the experience really should look like. So they have the same expectations towards brands. So they're not okay with waiting for, you know, with clicking for an IVR or waiting on the phone line, or , waiting for reply for an email for 24 hours or worse. They expect immediate service and they expect it to be human-like, Hmm. So yeah, the expectations are are crazy, but for, for a good reason, this is the expectations that people should have. You're so right. I mean, expectations have changed. Radically. And in fact, all the studies out there on the subject of consumer behavior really have a tendency to indicate that there's no tolerance. There's no tolerance for a bad experience. People who have gone to a brand maybe for years have one bad experience and they'll literally abandon the brand. Or fundamentally, when the business is not available on multiple channels, and maybe they're a, Gen Z person, they'll say, maybe this isn't the company for me. A hundred percent. You know, I don't have kids, but my friends do. And they are teenagers and stuff. Like they even in just , daily life, they don't want to. Look for things. They don't want to look for a tuna can in, in the kitchen cabinet. They want it to basically appear. Yeah. This is the real story that I heard from my friend. That's the reality. The younger people, they don't want to search, they don't want to look for things because they're used to their world where it's given to them. Mm-hmm. And chat GPT only strengthening this, right? Like. I have a question and I got an answer immediately. Mm-hmm. This is just a new world that we live in. Yeah. It's a world where you don't have to have the answers, but you have to have really good questions. Right. That's true. Yeah. From your perspective, how is conversational AI changing the relationship maybe between the business and the customer? I mean, it's changing the way how we communicate with brands, right? Customers expect this conversational experience. I'm sure we're gonna chat about it, whether it should be a human agent or a AI agent, it doesn't matter. Okay? They expect conversational experience. Mm-hmm. And whoever delivers on this conversational experience is the winner. Because think about it, it builds deeper relationship with your consumer if you can talk to them. I love this example of how it used to be 20 years ago when we would go to a store and we would talk to a real representative and they would. Tell us what should we choose, et cetera, et cetera. But even better example, I think is let's say financial services. You would go to a bank, let's say you want to take a loan, you would talk to a representative. They would know everything about the process. They would know which form to fill. They would know how the process looks like. Mm-hmm. So they would take all their heavy lifting on them. You just signed a paper and now you go to the some kind of financial services side, and you have to, you have to understand the processes. You have to understand how to actually do this. You need to learn how their navigation looks like. You need to fill out all the, you know, thousands of forms. It's on you as a consumer. Mm-hmm. And now it's shifting. It's on the brand again, because my expectations is that I go there, I say, or I type what I want and I get it. Mm-hmm. And I think it's pretty exciting. And for brands that adapt those kind of services, technologies the, the, the customer satisfaction ends. Ultimately the revenue is way higher. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think what you just described is fundamentally taking the friction and the waste of , potentially the process of negotiating whatever it is. I want to buy this or help me with this particular problem, or I want to apply for this particular service at a bank. It has a lot of weight to it that could be there from compliance, but regardless, it's just something that is pain and suffering for the customer. When we look at AI , and maybe thinking about bringing this into an organization, you really can't do that without a strategy or a plan. You just can't just drop it in there. what challenges do you see companies facing as they look to incorporate conversational AI into their customer experience, but maybe any general strategies they should consider? Yeah, I see two major challenges. First is more business related related. Second is more organizational, rel related. Let's start with the second one. The data. Like there is no good AI without data. Mm-hmm. And most companies don't actually have this written down. They don't have the right knowledge base, they don't have processes written down, so they, you know, it's just someone knows something. Right. Like case from this department knows how to actually do the return. But it's not written down. It's not like, or maybe it's just some plain language without really rules how to who's eligible for return, who's not. This is what machine needs to do this heavy lifting for mm-hmm. The end customer. To really make your AI helpful, you need to have procedures. You need to have processes, you need to have knowledge. And I think this is what, right now, every company struggles with, and everybody tries to , catch up because without it, like you, cannot really implement ai. It's not that hard. It's just the, the job that we all have to do to,, catch up with what's needed for a successful project. And another one is a relationship between. Technical department and the business department. Mm-hmm. In this case, it's probably customer service, right? Yeah. And it's kind of connected to the knowledge base because it's, it's a technology and you know, you need to access some systems. You need to get to the API of your CRM of your return management system, stuff like that, right? Mm-hmm. So we need that. Tech team to, to make this happen. And at the same time, he needs the business department, in this case, customer service, to actually provide this knowledge. Yep. To write down the business processes. And they have to cooperate together. And the big question right now in the industry is , who actually should own this kind of project? Whether it should be tech department, C-T-O-C-E-I, CIO, or it should be the business department, let's say customer experience. And I, I think there is no perfect answer to that. Bringing something new like AI to your organization requires cooperation, so. Yeah, I couldn't agree more on both of those points. I mean, ultimately knowledge inside of a business is incredibly tribal and maybe 10% of it is documented outside of your core. Maybe some policies and procedures that you may have on your website or maybe internally for hr. But outside of that, things are relatively random. So I think that there is a evolution that occurs inside of a business. Maybe a little bit of challenge at first, but then over time, the building of a knowledge base inside of your organization, which is incredibly sustainable because if you think many times, people will lose staff and walking out the door is just gobs of knowledge and experience that someone else is gonna have to reestablish inside of the business because there is nothing there to support it. So. I think that's huge. when it comes to rolling out conversational ai, is there a concern maybe, that businesses should have regarding an overreliance upon automation? Is there a sweet spot people should be looking for? Well, I don't think we have this problem yet. You know, we are really at the very beginning of the kind of adoption curve. It seems like, oh my God, everybody's adopting ai, yet they're stirring to, okay, so we are not there yet. Like our jobs are completely taken over by AI and stuff like that. Not yet. And I don't think that. Businesses should be concerned when you deliver really human-like experience to your consumers. Should you worry? I don't. I don't think so. Mm-hmm. You should actually focus on your business, like your sweet spot. Your sweet spot is probably building the best possible product for your customers, whether it's technology or, t-shirts or whatever beauty products. Focus on that because this is ultimately your business and this is where your resources should go to deliver the best possible solution to the whatever problem you're solving for your consumers and customer service or like whatever interface you serve your customers with. Does it matter? Like is it your core business? It's not so automate that. Mm-hmm. And I think it will, the impact of it is, will be amazing because those businesses will be able to focus their resources and focus on stuff that matters. I. Which is their domain, domain expertise. So yeah, I like that. Don't, don't overthink that. Yeah. Keep the main thing. The main thing. Yeah. I like that. I think there's a large bit of wisdom that you just dropped in there What additional pearls of wisdom do you have to manage resources? Foster upkeep just think of constant improvement in that conversational ai. Yeah. I think that again business leaders kind of overthink ai. I know it's a new thing but it actually behaves a little bit like a human being, right? You train your AI agents, like you train your agents. It's not like you employ new person to your team and you give them some knowledge and you're , okay, we are done. I'm going to whatever LA and I forget about you. No. Right. Like I have to constantly train my employee. I have to give them feedback. I have to do performance review. I have to. Look from time to time, what is their progress? And this is very similar to how we train AI agents. Of course there are many benefits to AI agents, and they're of course way more efficient and faster and blah, blah, blah, but they require attention. So when we think about, okay, what is the future of customer service teams , what is the future of head of customer service? We still will need people that will train the AI agents as they train human agents today. Coach them, train them, give them feedback. Make them better every day. Teach them new processes because, well, your company also changes. So while some, roles will disappear. New roles will appear. And I believe that companies today have to adapt to that and think about, okay, what skills my employees need to adapt AI and then make us very successful with ai. Mm-hmm. So for example, it's even changing for me, in my organization we hire more and, more generalists. People that can think about , just solving problems. And it's way less about specialization. It's more about how you can what kind of problem solver are you, can you just learn new things super quickly? Because the times when, you know. Let's say you graduated let's say five years of experience. You feel like a specialist and you are over 30, and you don't have to learn anymore. Anytime you think mm-hmm. Like you are over. It's, it's the end of that. You'll need to learn for the entire life, new things. That's the kind of world we live in is exciting because it means that. We'll probably be just younger and younger because I think it's proven. I don't have stats in front of me, but I'm sure it's proven that when you learn new things, you kind of keep yourself young in spirit, and so your brain just is better. So. Exciting. Exciting. I like that perspective on it. So, there's a lot of obvious benefits that probably are out there in the ether around ai, whether it's being able to economize on the amount of staff that's required to be forward facing your business or putting your staff in a better position to handle the more complex sale or the more complex support, From the standpoint of, maybe outcomes or benefits that you haven't expected that you've discovered along the way in being involved with conversational ai. Ai, what stands out the most to you? I think something, it could be obvious that the customer experience is better and customers are more satisfied when you serve them well with conversational ai, it doesn't matter whether it's conversational AI or really human being, but. There is no company on earth that would be able to serve all customers in no time 24 7 in all the languages. Mm-hmm. So that's why we say, okay, it's the conversational, conversational AI revolution that brings this amazing customer experience and, that satisfaction is way higher. After implementing genai in customer service, it's, it's not surprising to me. Okay. But it's surprising to many business leaders because they think, okay. Customers actually want to talk to humans. They, don't care. They care about whether their problem is resolved or not, and whether they are treated in a nice way. And if the AI agent is trained well, and understands your brand voice, understands your company culture, and can serve your customers like your best human agent, well. Believe me, your customers will love that because they get their problem solved in no time. They have an amazing experience that is you can replicate because it's very scalable, so they're happy. And this is simple. That's simple. So I think human beings fundamentally are this is part of my English background, but to, place it terminology wise are wonky and pear shaped. Like we have a lot of variables in us that make dealing with us, variable in its own very nature. You're originally from Poland and you're a global ai expert and leader. From the standpoint of how companies work to ensure that their AI is sensitive to diverse languages and maybe cultural nuances, how, how does one approach that particular topic? This is so important. It's not that important in the US right? Because we usually build AI agents in English and that's it. But when we work with customers in Europe or in different parts of the world it's one of the most important requirements. So the AI agents not only talks in different languages mm-hmm. But understands thoses nuances. So I recommend everyone if you are launching your AI agent in a different language that you don't know. Let some native speaker experience this because sometimes the nuances are so, like, niche, you don't get it even if you know the language. Well, so one of the challenges that we encounter and we solve for our customers is the gender neutrality. That is very important in some of of the languages including Polish, Hebrew in English, we don't have this problem. When I say frank said something it doesn't matter whether Frank is male or female. Mm-hmm. But when you say it in Polish or, or Hebrew, you have to say whether it's male or or female. Mm-hmm. And you can implement gender neutrality, but it's. Quite a challenge but very, very important for customer experience. So these are the challenges that you may be not thinking about, but are important for this amazing customer experience and high satisfaction score. So yeah, that's a challenge we solve that. And there are many others but yeah. Mm-hmm. Yes. That's great. That is somewhat of the nuance experience side of the conversational ai, but then there is another dimension to it. Maybe the other side of the coin, per se, that speaks to privacy, ethics, security, compliance. It's more the risk management side of it. How much time do you spend really looking at that in a function of design or consideration for a client? A lot. Remember as a European, we all think about security and legal and stuff like that. Yes. So we spend a lot of time on all those things, especially that European Union, you know, constantly thinks about new ways how to, not really easier, but that's good. That's good. Actually because. Security and the data protection, et cetera, et cetera, is one thing. But when you think about how businesses use AI agents today in introducing conversational experiences, one of the biggest challenges is of course, hallucination. And we all experience this and we, we've all seen like the examples in the internet and like big dramas. So we need to make sure that we deliver, experience without hallucinations for our customers, because we work mainly with big brands. And , even if there is 99% accuracy, it's not enough, right? Like you have to be 100% sure that this person's eligible for a return or you, this person can exchange and. This amount of money, right? There is no room for mistakes. So how to combine those two words like generative AI that is creative and at the same time processes that you need to follow. So. For us, that was one of the biggest challenges and the area that we invest the, the most time and effort into. And we've eventually design an approach. We call it the decision engine. You design your business processes in z and z follows this process. So you don't design a conversation, you design a business process, let's say this return return process and z. Follows the process and when, where we use generative ai, then we use generative AI to generate the response. Right. So it's actually what generative AI lambs are meant for, for generating texts. They are great at it. So this is the, the best of two words and how we combine combine them to make sure that our customers receive this 100% accuracy and at the same time, this very much conversational experience that consumers love. So I think this is one of the biggest challenges right now in the market. Interesting. Have you seen a shift in the industry from working fundamentally at first , on customer support related subjects, moving more into business revenue and sales as a part of the user stories that are being employed. I see even more so like customer service, sales with customer service. This has been in the market for the past few years, really even before Gen ai. People are trying to achieve this with customer service agents, selling products, et cetera. And this is still a thing, right? But something that we see more and more often, especially in, in bigger organizations, is that companies think about actually replacing part of interfaces. So conversational experience is so well re received by, by the consumers that they actually, they, they want just this experience. Like they don't want to scroll, they don't want to search. We talk about Gen Z, right? So why, why would you develop an interface, web interface or mobile interface for password reset? You can do it via. Conversational experience. So this is kind of the shift we we see right now. And of course it's including the sales experience and customer support experience, but we see kind of beyond what's what's happening. And it's super, super exciting because it means that actually every product line. Every product department that you have right now will build their own AI agent, if that makes sense. That serves their purpose. And at the end of the day, it'll serve the end consumer via single interface, whether it's chat, it's some, you know maybe social media, et cetera. So, yeah, the, there's just more and more use cases, which is, which is exciting but could be overwhelming for some. So if I. Were to recommend something just go with, with customer support as your first use case because this is the simplest way to, to save money and to introduce Gen AI in your organization. I agree. I think that's the path of least resistance. Let's segue into maybe having you grab the crystal ball here which may be a little bit clearer for you just because of where you sit in the industry and what does the future landscape or customer engagement look like? With the rise of voice spots and chat bots, how, should businesses prepare for this evolution? What are you seeing out on the forefront that gives you some level of excitement? Yeah, I think it's a mixed experience, right? That you would just chat and talk to an interface that could be on your website or in your mobile app. Mm-hmm. And you do the job, right? Like you would say what you want and it's done. And this is the, the future that we see and we already implement with our customers. And I, think it's extremely exciting for consumers, for businesses that will save a lot of money on implementing new interfaces, new buttons, new dropdown menus. Like you don't have to do that. Just give your customers and AI agents that that's what they want to achieve with your business. That's it. That's the future. No clicks, just conversations. Yeah. I think maybe that's part of the thing that in education may be lacking, I'm not quite sure. Maybe just through social people are adopting this particular attribute or capability, but the ability to ask a really good question, having verbose questions that provide background so that the AI can fundamentally pull out the intent and understand clearly what that person is getting to. I think all this stuff is super exciting. Maya, thanks for being on the show. Thank you so much for having me, Frank.

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Frank Rogers

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