Effortless Experience in the AI Era
As organizations move toward an AI-focused customer engagement model, the concept of what makes an 'Effortless Experience' is dynamically evolving. Matt will unravel the practical implications of this evolution, showing how AI is not just a tool but a catalyst reshaping the customer engagement landscape.
Welcome everybody. We're excited to get going here. We're just a couple minutes
early.
So we're going to wait as people kind of flow in over the next few minutes and
we'll get going
here promptly at nine o'clock Pacific time. So feel free to settle in and again
we'll get going
here in just a minute.
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All right, I'm excited to get going here. We'll wait for just another few
seconds while people go ahead and stream on in. But if you can, I'd love to
know who we have in our audience this morning.
So open up that chat. Want this to be as interactive as possible. And so put
that to everyone on that chat and type your name if you can and where you are
from. So I'm going to say I'm Gabe and I'm coming from Boston right now.
Gabe Morrison, Boston. Feel free to open that chat. Type your name and where
you're from just so we can kind of get a flavor as to where some of our
audience is is people trickle in as we get going here. So we got Rob coming
from Denver, Mike from Austin, Denise Cleveland.
I love Cleveland and he's welcome, Mike Connecticut, Nashville, Nate coming
from New Jersey. Awesome. Looks like we got good representation from across the
nation here. So let's get going. I'm Gabe. I'm the chief marketing office here here over at
Customer and boy, am I excited today? I think it's going to be an awesome event
AICX virtual summit. I'll be your moderator for the next hour on this
groundbreaking event. My background. I've been at customer now four years.
Had an awesome ride and excited to talk more about that as we get into it.
Today I feel like boy we're at the crossroads of innovation so much great stuff
happening and artificial intelligence so much great stuff happening in customer
experience.
And today we'll be talking about both of them. Now, for the next five hours.
Yes, yes it is five hours. We'll be embarking on this journey.
There is going to be some great insights discussions there's going to be
groundbreaking ideas our agenda.
It is crafted to really cater to a wide spectrum of interests expertise levels
whether you're a CX practitioner customer support manager.
A tech enthusiast or even a founder I think there's going to be something for
you today.
A couple of housekeeping items that I want to make sure everybody understands
before we dive in. So first is how to join this session so below this page, you
'll find the entire agenda for that AICX summit look each session has a little
button.
Join session that will be great out until about two minutes before the session
starts once that session is available. You just click that little join session.
You can watch the rest of the piece.
Secondarily, when the upcoming sessions are three sessions will be available
every 30 minutes, starting at 1pm Eastern.
That's 10 o'clock Pacific the ability to watch sessions. All sessions will be
available to watch on demand following their release time.
Next, each of the chat tracks will have their own dedicated chat. Okay, so the
chat, it just makes it better so feel free to engage with others the intending
the events speak to the speakers.
We want this to be valuable for you. We are doing the keynote right now so I'd
love for you to stay in this keynote session.
And the most sessions are about 15 to 30 minutes. As you look through that
agenda, just want to highlight some of the amazing speakers and partnerships
that we have you've got Lindsay Kalinsky from Kendo, my friend Nate Brown co
founder of CX accelerator he's going to be joining me just a minute Andre Nag
ral, co founder of
CX Yana dot CX Chelsea Jones co founder from Shopify plus agency Chelsea and
Rachel co, so many great speakers, partners, they'll be joining today we want
to make sure you share their opinions with you as we dive into some of these
things that I'm going to hear from our co founder Jeremy surreal the CTO at customer,
followed by a keynote from my friend, Matt Dixon, and I want to just touch a
little bit on that.
Matt Dixon, the author of the effortless experience the challenger sale.
Matt and I will be discussing the principles of the effortless experience. It's
been published just a little bit now but still one of those timeless classics
mats on the forefront of AI so bringing together some of the is experienced
and CX, I think will ultimately drive a lot of engagement as we go forward so
excited to dive in thanks everybody for joining and with that.
I want to bring in our first keynote session.
As I mentioned Jeremy surreal. Let's see if we can get him on it as we do that
I will go ahead and quickly introduce.
Jeremy, how are you doing and thanks for joining.
Good doing well. How you doing.
Yeah, so I got to just give a little background on you.
We often refer to him as Jay here so rumor has it it's about 25 years and
customer experience is that true J G's 25.
I'll leave it there. Yeah, but you know I've been working with J now for four
plus years.
You know he brings an interest he's not just a tech whiz you know again he is
the CTO and co founder, but one of those real in depth guys when it comes to AI
and customer support.
And again not just customer he's a serial entrepreneur with the likes of best.
com and others so Jay really appreciate you getting jumping on I'm excited to
dive into this topic and want to start just big picture and get some of your
thoughts on this
And again, we've now got over a couple thousand people who are tuning in to
this event.
AI seems to be one of those topics that is trending everywhere the level of
interest for this events and everything else AI is crazy. What do you think
makes AI CX so captivating to the people that they're dedicated, you know
potentially
Today and outside of this to learn more about it.
Yeah, yeah, look I think the short answer is, you know people realize that AI
can have a profound impact on the customer experience right and they want to
hear from other leaders or their peers on you know given how fast things are
moving.
You know just in the past week I've heard statements from, you know really
prominent people kind of put things into perspective for me, you know folks
like Tomas Tungus, VC and co author of winning the data, who said, you know
every company is going to be an AI company right that text and chat you eyes are the
new user interfaces that are going to change software.
You know you got Goldman Sachs projecting AI to increase GDP 300 times more
than the PC.
You know just the past week alphabet CEO during the Google Gemini announcement.
You know saying that the transition was seeing right now with AI will be the
most profound in our lifetimes bigger than mobile or web.
So, you know I think CX leaders are looking for ways to improve the customer
experience.
They want to hear from industry experts and learn about, you know what others
are doing to take advantage of this moment.
I think the audience understands the critical role AI is going to play or is
playing and shaping the future of customer support.
They're not here just to learn about AI but to understand how it could be
seamlessly integrated integrated into their business to, you know, enhance the
customer interactions streamline processes drive growth etc right so
in many ways I think this somewhat really is a reflection of the industries
eagerness to embrace and leverage AI meaningful ways. Yeah, no doubt I mean
that those are some great quotes I didn't realize that from all have to check
that one out.
Would you say can you say it was more profound than what was that more proof so
the alphabet CEO, you know during this most recent Google Gemini. Yes, yeah,
yeah, which is had some amazing results in comparison to GPT for that the
transition we're seeing right now with AI be the most profound in our lifetimes
bigger than mobile and web. I mean those are big words you know I've heard him say a couple
things like that but you think about I mean does that risk does that resonate
with the mobile.
I'm thinking iPhone I'm thinking the internet in 2000. That's you know where do
you stand. I mean those are both words.
Yeah, look I think I think it's obvious there's some there's you know as I
mentioned a moment sort of happening down and we know we've seen it.
You know when we say the 25 plus years we've seen I've seen things like that
before. And they were pretty game changing things that you know companies have
taken advantage of and you know made things better, made experiences better,
have impacted our lives.
And we're seeing that happening right now as we speak with AI.
So you know that's why I think a lot of people here a lot of the audience is
excited.
Yeah, and look I think with that kind of context. If you haven't already and I
know most people are here for that but with those types of bold proclamations
it's something I don't think you can avoid I mean it's something you have to
figure out you have to find ways
to bring it into your business. I think as as Jay said so Jay I wanted to just
put the script a little bit and get your take on this one you know as a co
founder here customer and see too you're obviously at the forefront of shaping
you know AI and this overall customer experience landscape. Talk to me just a
little about or elaborate a little bit on on customer that's customer with a
case strategy and initiatives in utilizing AI to enhance and transform that
customer experience and maybe touch on some of those
things that are really important to us.
Sure. Yeah look I think customer strategy simply centers around our customer
data platform plus AI. Right so our approach is about you know strategically
weaving AI throughout the platform to unlock the full potential of customer
So, you know we want to enable organizations to leverage AI, not as a feature
not a standalone feature but you know as an integral part of their entire
customer support ecosystem right so we're focused on embedding AI in
a way that enhances every touch point and every interaction for all users. It
could mean you know anything from AI driven insights that guide and user
interactions to automated processes to free of agents right so at the core, it
's
really important to help the data. All right, so by enabling organizations to
leverage the customer data that they already have our platform empowers
organizations to you know understand their customers better, anticipate their
needs, enable
engagement, deliver personalized experiences at scale, you know so you know in
essence it's really about enhancing human interaction versus really placing
that right so
I love that one man because I do feel like there's still this conversation
around it must have been the Terminator movie or something right but it just
feels like the replacing conversation is just, I don't even want to talk about
I love the point on enhancing human interactions and it does seem like there's
a lot you can do on the agent side and there's a lot you can do on on the
customer side but to your point it is all about the data and it feels like yes
now
with the easily accessibility of AI, everyone's got AI the question is what can
you do with that AI so I love the focus on data but if I had to do a follow up
I'd love to know just on the on the deeper dive approach what
what is that data when you bring that up, how are you referring to that what
are some examples maybe of why this is important and how customer maybe is
doing this a little different.
Yeah, yeah, I think by the way you made a great point right like everybody has
access to pretty much the same level of AI today don't they I mean am I wrong
and saying that it seems like they're kind of a hundred percent correct right
and so
you know, you know, when we talk about data right let's dive deeper in data so
you know, when we talk about data really it's it's specific to each
organization right so many cases.
It's order data from like let's say apps like Shopify or Magento, it may be IOT
device data status information etc could be reservations flight information
rental car data, whatever data is really important to the organization, that
would be at the core
of the customer experience right so
I actually believe that, you know, customers have really organizations are
really come somewhat complacent with customer experience tools that are really
focused on more what I would call reactive support right they had their lacking
context and information
their high effort, you know, usually result in a subpar, you know customer
experience right so we've always been about addressing that gap, you know, with
our customer data platform right so the ability to ingest more than just
conversational data
you know we've seen it's enabled organizations to literally see their customers
for the first time in many cases right not just those that have had, you know,
issues that they've emailed in about, for example, so customer really enables
organizations to unlock the full potential
of that customer data, automate processes minimize the gap of information and
actual insights that typically exist between a business and a customer right
and so, if you think about it in order to anticipate customer needs and be
proactive
you know it's essential that organizations have the visibility and control
throughout the entire customer journey right so that's why, you know, why are
we so excited about AI, is that if further enables organizations to unlock the
power of their customer data
more intelligent experiences across every role right so, you know, for example
it's not just about, you know, an intelligent chat bot for end customers, right
it's, it also powers agent assistance tools to improve efficiency of agents and
their effectiveness of agents right
and then more confidence in their interactions maintain an organization's brand
tone etc. It enables opportunity for data analysts or supervisors to, for
example, let's say, use natural language to perform complicated data analysis
they want to better understand trends with their customer data or make critical
decisions decisions that impact the overall experience right it increases
opportunities for say admins to create more powerful workflows and business
rules and search filters to enable more proactive engagement opportunities
and that's a great information right so, you know, the real magic happens, you
know, where when data is really integrated with AI across the platform right it
's not just about data meeting technology, it's really about like creating this,
you know, creating that synergy
and then you're going to be able to do business users with intuitive tools that
enhance their effectiveness effectiveness right so thereby enabling them to
deliver exceptional customer experiences
I mean that's a lot of practical examples I think of, if when you have the data
how AI can start to actually make a huge difference in that I'm getting hit by
a couple audience members for questions I want to jump to those the first one
is just around safety
You know, obviously AI's potential and customer service it's, it's undeniable
we're talking about that yet a lot of projects aren't hitting the mark, you
know, when you think about safety
How do you make sure that you manage and find that balance between delivering
results but also doing it in a, you know, safe and coherent manner. Yeah, yeah
great question.
Okay, in terms of safety right if you sort of break it down you know you go
things like bias fairness data privacy, you know, on the data privacy side.
So, I think we take seriously a customer right across all product development
not just anything specific to AI, right we implement regular privacy reviews,
apply privacy best practices, you know, privacy by design within the
development processes
So, but as it relates to AI, some examples, we, you know, we're addressing
privacy include things like data minimization right, collect in minimum amount
of data necessary to avoid excess data, which could potentially be misused
right
Anonymization, you know, anonymized data were possible to protect identities,
but you know still enabling meaningful analysis.
And then we're going to have vendors, you know we've entered into an enterprise
agreement with open AI that had significant data protections, including things
like zero data retention.
We've also signed a BAA with open AI which enables us to offer, you know, all
these amazing features to our HIPAA organizations right.
So, I think ethical AI, you know this is definitely a new and evolving area for
for many folks.
You know we're we're looking at implementing a multifaceted strategy to address
things like bias and fairness right so our strategy is to, you know, refine
data for diversity, implement bias detection and mitigation measures provide
transparency to our
into our systems, and here obviously adhere to privacy regulations follow
ethical guidelines, conduct continuous monitoring, you know, implementing like
evaluation tools so we can monitor things and empowering user control.
So, you know, our commitment is to deliver a power interactions not just to
have, you know, excellent customer service, but also to uphold a high standard
of fairness privacy and ethics.
That's so important I appreciate you kind of diving into that I think that's a
great question that came from john I wanted to I want to hit one more question
and then Jeremy will we'll let you get back to your day job here.
This one comes in from Tina and it's a great just kind of high level questions
it's just about, you know they're starting their their transformative path on
AI and wondering what advice you'd give to leaders who are starting you know
who are beginning and trying to really
find success, but also confidence with AI.
Look I'd say, you know one, I think the winning formula is really remembering
that the real key to success in AI is not just about the technology.
Right, about utilizing tools to unlock the true potential data.
All right, so I just one of many tools.
I think the solution should be able to tap into large data sets, offer levels
of control and customization to meet their business needs.
You know, it shouldn't be a fancy add-off right it should be a core component
that significantly enhances the quality of customer interactions and
experiences.
I'd say to, you know, focus on real impact.
You know, basically, I mean I don't mean to laugh but no there's so many shiny
objects out there you know it's like it's hard to.
It's hard to now start to like find stuff that actually makes a difference
because they're also fun.
Right, absolutely, you know so look focus on real impact right don't succumb to
your point to every shiny AI tool.
Try to remember you know the goal is about solving a problem right real ROI
right so there's so many tools today.
They're in growing right it's really important to prioritize those that
genuinely improve the business metrics.
You know I'd say I'd say three and you know related to your your last question
I think balance speed with safety.
Right speeds obviously important.
But it's equally vital vital to maintain balance right so protecting privacy,
addressing data concerns should be really at the forefront of the journey.
Yeah, look, such good content Jeremy more questions coming into the chat but
but I've got to keep going we got a tight schedule we've got a couple other
things to do including my friend and expert Matt Dixon so Jeremy.
Thanks so much for sharing your invaluable insights I'll let you get back to
steering the ship and customer.
And we'll move on to the next segment of our session. Thanks Gabe.
Okay, take care. Okay, as Jay exits, we didn't want to take just a minute I
know everyone's anxious to get Matt Dixon on but I just want to take one minute
and bring on to now he's become a friend of mine Nate Brown.
We did just a little activity here and Nate let me know when you're on but we
went out to our audience and our customers and we just said, hey who makes a
big difference to you in the CX space who's really a thought leader who's
pushing things forward
and who's contributing to helping you as a business create exceptional customer
experience.
And we did we put it out for a vote and I got to admit Nate Brown came out as
the winner Nate come on now.
I appreciate that so much Gabe and I was thrilled and surprised to be nominated
. I don't feel in any way worthy of this distinction it is it is just a cool
deal so
I don't think for everybody who participated in this little activity we want to
thank you that they just you guys spend so much time, mornings nights trying to
help people further the customer experience so again congratulations to
everybody, but want to take
a look at Nate so Nate you're the founder of the CX accelerator it's a virtual
CX community helping connect customer experience professionals at every stage
in their career.
Again congratulations but while we have the I just wanted to get kind of your,
your quick take on on on something here you're such a big community guy and I
think that community enough itself has really helped push the idea of AI and CX
forward
you know how can people take advantage of the CX accelerator community why did
you build it how is it helping people move forward.
Yeah well thank you so much for that Gabe. I mean it's amazing what we get to
do right now is CX professionals I mean I love thinking about CX is making
people's lives better and easier.
Yeah so as AI comes into the mix here we have these incredible new pieces of
the puzzle that we get to fit in and create a bigger fuller picture than what
we ever have before so I mean that's why CX accelerator got started in 2018 I
mean I personally felt lonely in the work.
I just, and that burnout that burnout was just knocking on the door right and
there was many others who were feeling the same and so just having that
accelerating starting point to kick off the fact that this work is incredible
what we get to do the ways we get to serve people is remarkable
and even more so today and even more important today than ever before I mean we
have this epidemic of loneliness going on like people are desperate for
community so what is AI do it helps us to find our people further out in the
corners of the universe
and then move them in more effectively and serve them better so I mean that's
why this is cool that's why this is exciting we get to cultivate meaningful
communities inside of our organizations give people a good sense of identity do
things for them that we've never been able to do is just awesome
Yeah, yeah and look I think you're at the forefront of that and I can't just
stress that enough and it's one of the reasons I've enjoyed working with Nate
recently is
I don't know I'm not an expert at AI I'm not an expert at CX but I know that
there are people who are good at this sort of experience that and so don't do
it alone if you're feeling lonely find a community find a partner find somebody
to help you because
I'm more convicted than ever we can figure this out alone. I'm not sure I can
figure out where to find the door here but you know there's a good recommend
jumping into it Nate I know you're at the forefront of that
Nate just before I let you go you know in just a short sentence same thing I
love Tina's question to Jay what advice would you kind of leave people as they
start this journey on AI and CX
Yeah I mean stop asking the question how to compete against AI that's not the
question it's how do we find ways I love that word unlock that Jeremy was using
Yeah, let's unlock connection let's cultivate meaningful connections and we
have to do that by bringing out the very best of our people and the very best
of this technology
So you get to maintain your curiosity you get to dive in deeper than ever to
figure out how these puzzle pieces fit together it's a brand new era it's
almost exciting gay because we've made a lot of mistakes as CX professionals in
the past right
We haven't caused CX to stick inside organizations the way any of us quite
wanted this is a refresh this is a starting point for us again to do it better
Yeah it does almost feel like a refresh I like this. All right awesome Nate
again thanks for jumping on real quick love your pleasure
Thank you. By the way Nate has a session must see here in just a little bit
diving deeper into this idea of community and again a heartfelt congratulations
. Thank you. Thanks.
I thought leader award winner so Nate have a great day. Thanks for joining us.
Thanks everybody have a great conference.
All right, we made it. We made it. All right now to the main part of our main
events. I'm extremely excited for what comes next is a live session called the
effortless experience in the AI era with our keynote speaker
Matt Dixon so as Matt jumps on that I'm going to embarrass him and do just a
quick intro here. Look one of the world's most foremost experts when it comes
to customer experience groundbreaking research.
frequent contribute to the Harvard Business Review author of some of the most
important business books in this past decade.
One of those being the effortless experience challenger sale. He's got others
more coming down the pipe he's now currently the founding partner at DCM
insights it's a petite consultancy firm focusing on data back research to help
companies attract
retain retain and grow customers.
So much goodness I think coming from Matt again this newest book I think you
maybe touch a little bit on it here is going to be called the Jolt Effect how
high performers overcome customer indecision.
That was this September of 2022 so I've known Matt now for a long time.
I'm not sure if he cares but honestly you can't like get enough of him when he
speaks it's captivating when he's in person you feel like you're sitting at the
feet of great.
So whenever I get the chance. I usually want free consulting that's usually
what I look for from that but ultimately he's always every time I call him he's
visiting customers in a foreign country, just everywhere so so excited Matt to
have you on board and how the heck are you
doing.
I gave it's always good to be with you we haven't known each other for a really
long time. And it's always always great to be following what you guys are doing
a customer and be reconnecting for events like these so thanks for inviting me.
Yeah, yeah appreciate it we got a lot of audience members who are tuning in to
hear kind of the latest and greatest so let's dive into our quick fireside chat
here wanted to focus to your influential book I feel like it's like the Bible
of you know of
the
It's just the standard.
It's now been published just a little bit in the past but would love for you to
take us through the core premise or the foundational thesis of the effortless
experience and how it shaped our understanding of customer service over the
past few year.
So this book the effortless experience came out in 2013 actually so it's
literally a decade old now, maybe just over a decade and a couple months, which
makes me feel really old.
You are getting old.
No, no I thoroughly regret accepting the sensation. So, but, so this this work
came out about a decade ago we we started this I'll just take us back in the
time machine you know we were, is probably back in like we started the research
in like 2007 2008 so if we go in the way way back machine and we think about
time in customer service in sort of customer experience I don't even know that
that term was used very broadly back then, but certainly we think about
customer service as a functional area.
You know that was, that was a time when a lot of executives will really focus a
lot of companies really focused on net promoter in this stuff you know all the
research had come out around how much cheaper and more cost effective it is for
a company to keep and grow a customer versus
getting a new customer right. So this was new stuff back then, and there you
know so companies are scrambling they're starting to head down this mps path or
thinking about what they can do to drive greater levels of customer loyalty.
So they're looking at you know rethinking their brand messages they're pricing
their value propositions their sales approach their product, efficacy and
quality.
I started to get kind of turned towards customer service and you know customer
service leaders sort of asked the question you know what can we do to help the
company advance its loyalty objectives.
So we started a study that eventually became the effort was experienced way
back in like 0708 and really the question we're trying to answer was had
actually nothing to do with customer effort what we were specifically going
after was, you know we all look we all know in the world
customer service, the way you drive customer loyalty the way you you know get
that customer to not just be satisfied but to be loyal meaning they come back
to you over and over again right they don't turn out.
They buy more from you they spend more give you more of their hard earned money
, and they say great things about you to their friends or family their co
workers etc.
And customer service is you got to go beyond what the customer expects you to
do you got to do more than what they expect you to do you got surprised and wow
them and delight them.
That was just kind of a pillar of all of our belief set in customer service,
you know way back way back when it's our research study was really designed to
understand you know what are the best ways to surprise and delight customers in
a service interaction.
Because there's lots of stuff you could do everything from you know apologizing
profusely to smiling through the phone to you know giving away freebies and and
you know out of warranty service and make an exceptions and so on and so forth.
And so there's lots of stuff you could do but what are the most effective
things to do to surprise and delight customers and what we found was those who
those folks who know the effortless experience, the big shock to us was that
companies who exceed customers expectations
are exceeded, or actually no more loyal than those whose expectations are
simply met so that was a little bit of a gut punch. It was wasn't at all we
were trying to find out.
So we started to unpack this a bit and we found that it wasn't just that
delighting and surprising customers had sort of a reach as a point of
diminishing marginal returns, but rather that most service interactions
actually don't delight customers at all they actually make customers more
disloyal not loyal so we're kind of drilling a hole in the bottom of the
loyalty bucket with bad customer service.
And as we kind of unpack the layers of the onion if you will, what we found is
that the real key to mitigating that disloyalty to plugging the whole of the
loyalty bucket is actually reducing what we call sources of customer effort.
So it's stuff like, you know, when we send our customer to a self service
option, they get turned around and confused and then they pick up the phone to
call or when they call in, and they get the rep they talk to can't help them
they've got to be transferred
or they've got to be escalated to a manager or supervisor, or when they repeat
themselves, or when they have to, you know, call back over and over again to
get a chase down an answer to their problem, or when they feel like they're
treated
generically and robotically, not like a person with real wants and needs and
likes and dislikes.
You know, all these kinds of things lead to this, what we call, it's basically
customer friction or customer effort.
And what best companies have realized is that winning at the loyalty game in
the service channel is about minimizing the amount of effort your customers
have to put forth to get their problems resolved.
And the easier we can make it, the more good we do by our customers, and the
more likely they are to want to stick around, spend more money with us and say
great things about us.
So the book ended up being kind of a discussion of that, those surprising
findings, but more of the point we started walking through the walk readers
through the practices that low effort companies use to minimize customer effort
There were four big ones that we called out. The first one is really embracing
self service and providing more of a seamless sticky guided experience to the
customer when they're in the self service channel because today's customer,
that's the first place they go.
They want to solve the problem on their own if they can. Secondly, we talk
about this idea of not just solving the issue the customer contacts you about,
but forward resolving the issue they might call you back about so thinking one
step ahead for our customers
using a concept called next issue avoidance. The third technique was about it
really gets into this kind of zone of personalization and tailoring.
And we called it experience engineering, how do you use a language in a purpose
ful way to really minimize the effort the customer feels they are putting forth
during the experience, even if, in fact, they're putting forth a lot of effort
they feel like it's an easier experience that maybe it actually is.
But it's really is about appealing to that individual in personalizing and tail
oring that experience and the last approach we talk about the fourth one was
about how do we actually reduce the level of effort for our people for the
people who work in the service organization.
And we provide them with the right capabilities the right tools right
technologies the right training and support, even the right metrics the right
coaching the right training, so that they feel like the job is easier for them
to execute.
And when the job is easier for them to execute that translates into delivering
a lower effort experience for our customers so those are the big things.
And then the last thing I'll say gave just as part of this recap is a lot of
people, it's funny to me that even 10 years in now, there are a lot of people
who've never read the effortless experience but they are familiar with the
customer effort score, which is a metric that came out of that research,
which is really about trying to identify where are those friction points in the
experience to help leaders and companies identify those those points of
friction, those moments of high effort, so we can go do something about it and
create more of a streamlined experience for the customer.
I love it, I love it I think you basically don't need to go by the book and
that you got saved it's 20 bucks.
No, I'm I think follow up on that I mean it's so relevant but I'm curious,
because I'm traveling around more and more and I still feel like, you know, to
your point maybe not everybody but still a lot of people bring that up is kind
of like one of those books in customer service that you just have to have on
the show.
Why do you think it was so groundbreaking I my thought was originally it was,
it was kind of going against the grain with some of those loyalty scores and
those guys and it was a little, you know, customer sat actually sucks you need
to be doing that was maybe my thought because it was like
I'm not sure maybe I'm doing it wrong and so it was one of those almost didn't
lie at the moments but why do you think people have kind of hung on to it is
that that core anchor on the bookshelf.
Yeah, it's a great question I think maybe a couple reasons one is, I think your
point it was sort of a different message than people were hearing there's a lot
of, I mean you pick up any any book any article any blog post listen any
podcast around customer experience customer service and it's
a big thing of like you got to go above beyond you got a delight you got to wow
your customers and should be clear we're not arguing that delighting customers
is a bad thing in fact if you like but we are saying, be careful where you
spend your delight dollars right so you
spend them where the product, you know you sold the customer isn't working and
they have to call in for help or a or if they've reached out to you for help
through digital channel that's a place to make it easy but there are lots of
other great places to spend your delight dollars like a great brand a great
product compelling sales experience a great pricing model delight your
customers there but when things go wrong make it easy for the customer to get
back up and get back on track.
So just to clarify that point but I do think that you know what preceded the
book we actually wrote an article in hpr called stop trying to delight your
customers and that I would say we got no shortage of hate mail for it was it
was a little bit kind of click baby but I think what
they realize is you're not saying don't all your customers you're just saying
the way to delight your customer is not maybe the way we think and that there
are better ways to do it like making things easy that that in fact is really
delightful for a customer when that experience is easier than they thought it
was going to be. So I think it was that kind of cognitive dissonance for folks that everyone was
saying a and we're kind of saying be now I will I will say is well though I
think what's interesting is most service leaders in service in executives.
It wasn't like we're coming out and saying CAT really spells dog like and it's
totally different from what you thought but it was speaking to something I
think that leaders knew deep in their gut.
You know we just kind of gave language to it and I think importantly we use
data to back it up so you know there's a lot of it I've always felt that this
is a an irony not just in customer experience and customer service but also
actually in sales, another area that as you know I spent a lot of time
researching and writing about, but these are functions where there is more data
available to us than any other corporate function out there, but ironically
there's not a lot of science based or database research that's done around
customer service customer experience or sales.
And there should be there should be a lot more so I think the fact that we came
out we said something that was a little bit different from what everyone else
is saying that it was backed up by data in that resonated very deeply for with
leaders and managers
and we struggled for a long time trying to get paid for that, you know let's
wow the customer less delight them let's surprise them and every turn and just
didn't see it working in this was kind of gut punch but not in a way that was
kind of controversial to them but in a way that again gave language to
something that they knew deep down but never had language to express before.
Yeah, I love that and I think that's still that research component we need more
of that we need more of that I need to get on that.
And then we'll have a question as well. One more question on the book. You know
, reflecting on the significant advancements that we've been talking about even
just today.
Knowledgey in these you know, certainly in the last year but even over the last
decade.
This might be a non question but if you were to rewrite the book today.
What kind of chapters do you think you'd update or, or change.
Yeah, yeah.
So, you know this is one of those things that I feel like every is said 1000
times a day but especially right now in this, as I was listening to the opening
keynote and discussion in this kind of hyper compressed period of change that
we're in right now with
AI and all the advancements we're seeing on the technology front. So it's a
little bit, you know, tried to say that but it is true. If we just look back
over the past 10 years since the book came out.
I think what I would say is that the practices at their core are rooted in
things that customers are looking for so they are looking for.
So they're looking for us to guide them through the self service channel they
're looking for the self service channel to actually do what they wanted to do
not to waste time there get frustrated and then say darn it now I gotta pick up
the phone because I couldn't solve my problem on my own.
This is the last thing I want to do is wait in a phone queue and talk to a
representative who I know is just going to read me the company policy and I'm
going to get upset and I'm going to demand to speak to a supervisor.
I think I'd much rather solve this on my own but the digital channel failed me
or next issue avoidance this idea that look our customers. They don't know what
they don't know we deal with these problems all the time so don't just solve
the thing they're asking you to solve.
Think one step ahead for your customer.
These kinds of things that we discovered I think are are kind of basic truths
of the sorts of service experiences customers want.
I think what's different though today is the way that we can accomplish those
things and I think it's a.
An amazing time right because I think back when we wrote the book.
I don't know this was like pretty manual stuff I give you one example so we
wrote the book.
We talked about this idea of next issue avoidance again this idea thinking one
step ahead for the customer and we profiled a telecom company Canadian telecom
company that spent a year with like a team of like 10 business analysts going
through all this transaction on the call data and trying to piece together the the family tree
of issues so customers are calling about this issue.
What are the issues they tend to call back about within a short time frame that
are kind of related to that original issue and how do we then train our
frontline people that hey if customer calls in about issue a.
Then take the extra time and forward address issue B because 80% of the time
the customer gets off the phone then they call us back the next day because
they you know with a with a follow question.
I mean think about the manual work it took to get to that answer.
The amount of data available unstructured and structured data that we can
actually go through synthesizing learn from in a much shorter period of time
using AI based capabilities is far beyond anything we wrote about 10 years ago,
but the basic principle still remains
important to customers want you to think one step ahead for them. They don't
know what they don't know you as a service provider as a as a company they're
doing business with you deal with this stuff all day long so think one step
ahead for your customers but use AI to identify what those
issues are and then in real time, your representatives. Hey customer mentioned
this take a couple extra seconds and tell them that too because they're
probably going to call back within the next 24 hours with that question.
If we want to think one step ahead for our customers, you know that doing that
stuff and accomplishing that stuff is just so much easier today.
One thing I will tell you and I think this is a kind of brave new world of
customer experience and customer service measurement.
As I mentioned we wrote about the customer effort score.
This is probably the one part of the of the book that I think would change
really dramatically and what I would tell you is I don't think that measuring
effort is the wrong idea.
It's a great idea, but I'll tell you the fundamental premise of that was that
we would use a survey to go out and ask our customers how much effort did you
put forth to get this problem resolved how easy did we make it for you to get
your issue address and you're asking them to survey and they're in there.
It's an effort to respond to the survey.
That's right.
I mean to me to be doing a bunch of times but I'm like something sounds wrong
statement. Yeah, it may have actually been you gave but somebody told me a
number of years ago like a smart guy did ever dawn on you that asking somebody
how much effort is itself a high effort experience and I was like,
Oh darn it's actually like I didn't realize that but but look I mean there is
no reason that we should be asking our customer like especially customer who's
gone through interaction obviously frustrated obviously this is more of a
burden than they expected right.
And we're capturing all that data right you just even take a call recording but
it could be a chat interaction it could be an email based interaction.
It could be just mining the click stream pattern on the website that we can
tell there this is taking them longer than it should.
They're going back and forth the scroll speed is not what we'd expect whatever
it is.
We can figure that out. So in today's world I think what what progressive
companies are doing is using all the data they have available to them to
predict the effort level a customer would have indicated on a survey but
without having to ask the customer to fill out a survey.
So that's like the cold fusion so think about this like experience and service
leaders. They always struggle with the low response rates on their surveys, you
know, not surprisingly because everyone surveys are customers all the time
about everything at every touchpoint.
So we're on the secular march towards zero in terms of response rates, but what
if you could have a hundred percent sample size so in other words, every
interaction with the customer digital live voice.
A sink or synchronous kind of chat interactions or email kind of a synchronous
email ticketing exchanges.
We could take that data and we could project from it. You know what gave based
on what he said on the call or based on that chat interaction or based on his
click stream pattern.
We think he had a high effort experience now. We can use our survey for
different purposes reaching out to you and saying gave based on your last
experience.
We don't think this one as well as either of us would have hoped. So please let
us know what we can do better and more importantly what can we do to make this
right for you right now.
That is a survey that gets a hundred percent response rate because the customer
is like, holy smokes, this company like they understand how frustrated they
heard the frustration my voice.
They saw the the turnarounds I was performing the acrobatics I was performing
the website. They know this was a frustrating experience.
It's like they get it, you know, and they want to do better and they want to
help me. So that is a different use of a survey.
Again, that gets us out of this kind of survey fatigue and frankly as you said
high effort experience it asks the customer to effectively repeat themselves.
I think it hits both the AI, you know, there's there's some potential
intelligence there and then there's the effortless, you know, there's a CX I
love that that's a great example.
More modern or forward thinking.
I want to keep the rapid questions kind of coming. I've got 50 more for you
here.
Great.
I'm going to get into about 15 minutes. No, but I'm I, as I was going through
some of the sessions today seeing the talk track some of the titles.
A lot of this idea about radical personalization by utilizing you.
But how important is the human elements to our ecosystem as we continue to
innovate here.
You know, it's massive and I think it's, it's the bar for that is going up like
every literally every second of every day, meaning that I think in the past
customers were what they expected was actually a pretty generic and robotic
experience with a company.
But the more that customers are interacting with companies that get it and get
them and deliver that tailored and personalized experience.
The more they don't give the rest of us any quarter right there's no slack for
those companies that don't.
And so it makes those of us delivering a generic and robotic experience kind of
stand out and not in a good way.
Now, again, I'll share a, again, it's going to sound super old school in the
world of gen AI, but we wrote about a company was a mortgage lender out of the
UK that taught their representatives to use active listening skills to be able
to do that. And so I think it's a very interesting skill to be able to diagnose the
customer's personality type and they, they, it was generic right it was like,
Hey, before I answer your question, can you fill out this like, like 30 minute
Myers Briggs survey and then I'll, yeah, it wasn't that it was just listening
to the other
customers are trying to weigh they articulate their issue. The level of
frustration or maybe staccato and how they deliver their requests to us and how
they interact with us, and then being able to diagnose which one of these four
basic kind of customer personality types
is that I'm going to talk about with and then tailor my resolution delivery
accordingly, right the way I might deliver to this type of personality
different from how I might deliver to that type of personality now.
This is old school stuff, but back in the day what this company found was a
couple things first of all they they reduce callbacks dramatically because one
of the big reasons that customers call back is they feel that disconnect with
the person they're engaged with like this person's not really getting
like it's it's inauthentic it's robotic it's generic versus this person knows
where I'm coming from and they're speaking my language right that is so they
found a reduction callbacks but there's this other thing they found, which is
their attrition rate of their frontline representatives also went down
dramatically
and that's interesting because what they found was teaching their represent
those skills, allowed them to take better control of the interaction to deliver
a better experience for which they got thanked by the customer instead of
getting yelled at by the customer turns out it made the job of the heck a lot
more fun for them.
So how in the world of gen AI again same kind of concept but imagine the power,
you know through perhaps a chat a synchronous chat interaction through an email
based interaction in a voice interaction for AI to be able to pick up on
indicators that we're dealing with this kind of customer or that kind of
customer and then provide a bit of coaching or suggestion to our
representatives to help them tailor in the moment so
I like to know I don't think of this as micromanaging people and I think there
's this danger when we talk about our frontline reps which is like AI tell them
what to say what to do you know how to do it.
I like thinking this as as kind of for fans of the Iron Man movies, it's like
Jarvis to Iron Man right so there's still the person at the core, but it's but
the person Iron Man this case surrounded by this really powerful suit of armor
this super computer
guiding what to do how to do it providing suggestions advice watch out for this
watch out for that.
And again not usurping their their the human element but rather complimenting
it in a really powerful way and I think I'm done well.
That's really where some of the new AI capabilities turn our frontline people
into like Iron Man Iron Woman when they're interacting with our customers
providing phenomenal insight that you know the human ear can't pick up on it on
its own right, and that just provide that kind of superpower to our frontline folks and
make the job easier for them make them more successful, make the job more fun,
and actually more rewarding and engaging because look our service
representatives.
They don't like being yelled at by customers anymore than customers like
yelling at service reps is not anything anybody enjoys our service reps want a
job where they're thanked for thank you get thank you for making this way
easier than I thought it was going to be
thank you for getting me and understanding where I'm coming from about this,
this was awesome send me to the survey I want to give you five five now now do
the survey.
You know I still love the analogy that the Iron Man Jarvis thing I'd like
Jarvis on my shoulder in my life you know I travel I just had to travel
yesterday and my flight was delayed and I didn't know about it Jarvis could
have been helpful on that front so I think both customers and agents would like
something like that
how powerful would that be if we can continue to move in that direction where
again it doesn't necessarily replace but it gets to this level where it becomes
, you know, wingman style type thing where you really kind of help guide and
direct it.
Speaking on that same front just thinking about the future then you know, where
do we go from here how do you anticipate AI will continue to evolve the concept
of effortless experience are there emerging technologies or trends I think you
've been a couple with this idea of like sentiments and even, you know, maybe
understanding the effort score without actually serving. Is there other things
technologies trends you believe will be particularly influential as we go on
here.
Yeah I mean I think one of the places that companies have struggled with for a
long time is kind of with virtual assistants and chatbots and you know
technologies designed to, you know, ideally kind of siphon off low complexity
issues at the very least right in in maybe best case triage issues and get it to the right live
agent or live representative. But I think that we're entering with these gen AI
powered virtual agents chatbots, a an exciting time where these technologies
can actually now start to handle not just the simple
like do you have the sweater in purple or do you when am I when is my device
going to arrive or what have you or what your refund policy like the real kind
of, you know, binary black and white questions, but more sophisticated
and you want questions like think about the kinds of stuff you can ask in a gen
AI engine like a chat GPT is just phenomenal right is this complex stuff it's
sophisticated stuff it's nuanced, and to be able to compress so much
information and digest it really
and like near real time and serve up really deep insight and suggestions and
guidance customers. This is a really I think exciting time where these virtual
agents will be able to take on a lot more.
And at the very least then equip it this this interaction this issue needs to
go to a live representative, the quick that live representative with way more
depth of insight around what the customer context is what they're trying to
accomplish etc. So the again the customers feel like that to repeat themselves so I think that
is one area that you know we've seen a lot of I think fits and starts around
virtual assistants and chatbots and I think that this technology is going to
suddenly bring some of this
the promise of this to bear for both customers and companies. I think the other
piece I would say same kind of technology but think about how companies have
struggled and reps have struggled for a very long time with clunky and antiqu
ated knowledge bases to go through
in some cases, you know thousands of knowledge articles and tons of content
when they're searching for the answer to a complex customer issue. So they can
serve it up to a customer and get that customer often on their way and get
their problem fix.
And then you know you're going to get the knowledge of the customer issue and
you're going to get the knowledge of the customer issue and you're going to get
the knowledge of the customer issue and you're going to get the knowledge of
the customer issue and you're going to get the knowledge of the customer issue.
And then you know that capability for a representative you know what what ends
up happening I think or happened if you will up until recently is that that was
the recipe for a rep typing it into the knowledge base I get the no search
results.
And then I put the customer on hold I lean over the cue ball and I asked my
colleague who has five years more experience hey, where is that article about
how to solve this thing or there is a solution for this right because I'm
getting no hits.
And then you know that's the term instead that's what you that's you know for
some reason that's what it's tagged to.
Instead of that a natural language capability that serves up much better
information and again your real time to our representatives that makes them
much more self sufficient and reliant.
And then of course we talked about the measurement side I think the measurement
side is going to be very much a great new world of the death of low response
rate misuse survey instruments in the rise of like deep customer understanding
across every interaction, allowing
companies to then really identify not just root cause systemic drivers drivers
of effort, but to identify those customers who had really bad experiences and
get back to them in intervene before they go on X or before they go on
Instagram or before they go on LinkedIn and bad
because a lot of brand damage intervene really quickly find out what went wrong
what you can do better how to make this right before any of that bad melting in
suits.
Man, some powerful stuff and truth I don't think we're too far from some of
that stuff you know we I don't think so now we've been playing around a lot
with the knowledge base stuff and it's incredible here custom of the taking
that from what was this you know down down to this
So many questions coming in through the chat I gotta ask a couple of these one
that's I'm sure here you know do you have any thoughts on capturing customer
emotion on a live session to evolve the experience and real time you know some
of the stuff we chatted about it maybe
So there's a very close interaction where is that where is that wing you know
that's tapping on the folder and saying oh it's actually there.
I mean those those technologies certainly exist and I mean there's there are
multiple ways that companies are using to if you will divine or surface
sentiment during an interaction in real time to provide that representative
with some some indicators
And that's happening quite well the customers customers upset you know we got
to get this back on track.
Now historically I think the two ways that companies have or technologies have
accomplished this are one based on kind of a tonal inferences right it's like
though it's not what the customer saying it's the way they said it.
It can work but I think one of the tricks there is weeding out false positives
or negatives so for example false positive, you know I'm not yelling at you I'm
just speaking loudly because I'm in a subway station and I want to make sure
you heard me
Right that's not that I'm upset.
It's that I just want to make sure I'm being heard.
The other way to do it is of course through sort of textual analysis right or
syntax based analysis so it's not how things are being said but what is being
said that of course in the age where my kids say things that I don't really
understand is also prone to false positives
and negatives where it's like oh that's a bad thing that you just said to your
mom or dad right that's not a good thing that was not a compliment.
So, you know we got it we got to tune our syntax engines to be able to pick up
on the utterances.
But you know in general again to complimentary technologies.
We've we've heard success stories on both fronts in terms of surfacing that
those indicators.
Again I think it can be powerful as a co pilot to the representatives to to
pick up on things that you know again maybe.
Whether because we're distracted I'm in the knowledge base I'm trying to find
the answer to your problem I'm reading the notes from your past interaction I'm
looking up your history of business you've done with us.
And so I'm not picking up on what you're saying exactly the way you're saying
it.
So it could be really helpful to me to have an always on AI powered engine.
And then pick it up on all the things being said and the way they're being said
, and then indicating to me even in a simple way like a frowny face a smiley
face a neutral face.
This is how this customer is trending right now can be really powerful co pilot
to that representative.
I love it I think you got to see more of that you begin this.
Harvest is definitely going to be in play.
Let me end with this just this question I've asked it to a couple of the
keynote presenters but.
A lot of organizations just beginning to incorporate AI into their customer
experience strategy and.
We've had a ton of different topics today but maybe in summarization or maybe
that leave behind you know people always want the one thing they can do today
to kind of speak.
Business but what key advice would you offer to ensure that they.
You know say true to the principles of an effortless experience but also start
down this journey of incorporating AI into their customer experience strategy.
Yeah I think the this all starts from I think and this is going to vary by
company and by industry and what your product is and who your customers are and
what markets you sell it to right so there's a lot of variation here.
I think the most important thing the starting point for companies is around
measurement right you got to understand what are the things causing the
greatest friction and it might not be that one customer who wrote that really
angry letter to the CEO.
It don't fall victim to the squeaky wheel thing right.
How many times one person changes the whole person and you know and that that
becomes a fire in it and you got to put it out it consumes a lot of time and
energy and resources but where can you do the greatest good for the greatest
number of people the second thing I would tell you is.
Remember is a little bit to this idea of like making the job easier for people
low effort starts at home and so if your job is hard to perform for your
frontline people.
And if they don't have great technology they don't have great training and
coaching and support from you as an organization if the job is hard.
Don't be surprised that they can't make the experience easy for your customers.
The jobs got to be easy for them to transfer that low effort experience that
they're having to your customers.
And so think about the things that you're doing that are getting in the way of
your people having an easy experience in their roles.
I love it great takeaways.
Matt it's so fun to catch up with you always great to you.
Still doing a lot of great stuff for the industry so get appreciate all you do.
For the audience as we wrap here.
I know there was some additional questions we'll try to gather those and either
have Matt or someone on the team respond.
Know that there are 30 other sessions today that is three with a zero.
Most of those are talking about AI practitioners about how it's utilized in
customer experience.
So please do tune in I think some of your questions will be answered there as
we dive into technologies best practices practical advice except for so Matt
again thanks so much for joining and for the audience.
Have a fantastic day.