Customer Service - Treasure Data https://www.treasuredata.com Mon, 07 Jul 2025 22:31:17 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.2 https://www.treasuredata.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/cropped-cropped-td-favicon-270x270-1-32x32.png Customer Service - Treasure Data https://www.treasuredata.com 32 32 The Role of AI, Data and Personalisation in Transforming Customer Experience https://www.treasuredata.com/ai-data-personalisation-in-cx/ Mon, 07 Jul 2025 21:35:47 +0000 https://www.treasuredata.com/?post_type=resources&p=524082 How organisations can effectively utilise customer data, harness the power of AI, and deliver personalised experiences at scale.

The post The Role of AI, Data and Personalisation in Transforming Customer Experience first appeared on Treasure Data.

]]>

The Role of AI, Data and Personalisation in Transforming Customer Experience

The Role of AI, Data and Personalisation in Transforming Customer Experience

In partnership with Engage Customer, we’ve explored how, in today’s rapidly evolving landscape, customer expectations are higher than ever. This comprehensive report delves into how organisations can effectively utilise customer data, harness the power of AI, and deliver personalised experiences at scale. Discover how these three elements come together to shape more perceptive and intuitive customer journeys, and understand why achieving this harmony is crucial for lasting success.

Our exploration of this topic has spanned across various platforms, including an episode of Engage Customer Talks featuring Condé Nast, a thought-provoking Focus Group, an engaging podcast featuring Greene King, and a comprehensive survey circulated within the Engage Customer community.

Within this supplement, you’ll be able to read more about our key findings, as well as catch-up on-demand on our activities.

Trusted by Enterprises Around the World

AB InBev logo Mitsubishi logo CNH logo Subaru logo Stellantis logo Suntory logo Watashi by Shiseido logo Stanley Black and Decker logo Sony logo SMBC logo Royal Caribbean Group Logo Pokemon International logo Nissan logo Yum! logo AXA logo Little Caesars Logo LG logo Fujitsu logo AEON logo Credit Saison logo Canon logo Honda logo Asahi logo Danone logo Nestle Logo Hyundai logo Panasonic Logo Yamaha logo

The post The Role of AI, Data and Personalisation in Transforming Customer Experience first appeared on Treasure Data.

]]>
Data-Driven Customer Service is Essential For Great CX – Here’s Why https://www.treasuredata.com/blog/data-driven-customer-service/ Mon, 19 Aug 2024 23:10:00 +0000 https://www.treasuredata.com/?post_type=resources&p=522583 Learn why customer service so important for customer experience, and how you can develop the right data management strategies to empower your support teams.

The post Data-Driven Customer Service is Essential For Great CX – Here’s Why first appeared on Treasure Data.

]]>
Great customer experience (CX) is demanded by every one of your customers, but too often, the work to create those experiences is left to the marketing or customer experience team. The reality is that customer experience comprises all customer interactions with your company, from marketing to customer service and support. 

Customer service support has traditionally been reactive, but with the availability of data, artificial intelligence (AI) predictive technology, and new digital tools like chatbots, along with growing customer expectations, customer support is becoming more proactive. As a result, it’s playing a greater role in improving customer experience and loyalty.

Successful organizations are exploring new ways to improve customer experience by collaborating closely with their customer service and support teams. But why is customer service so important to customer experience, and how can you develop the right customer data strategies to empower your organization with the right insights?

The Impact of Customer Service and Support on Experience

Sometimes there is confusion between customer service and customer experience. Where customer experience relates to all interactions and experiences with a brand, customer service and support relate to efforts to help customers use a brand’s products and services. In short, customer service is an element of customer experience. 

Customer service has the ability to impact the customer’s overall perception of the brand positively and can drive loyalty and retention. But it depends on the quality of the service. Gartner talks about value enhancement in customer service to drive loyalty. Brands that provide only basic customer support mitigate disloyalty, but that doesn’t ensure their loyalty, nor does it ensure retention or create advocates for the brand.

A brand that provides value above and beyond the basic support experience and helps customers improve and increase their use of products and services can boost loyalty.

Great Customer Service Improves Customer Loyalty and Retention

HubSpot’s State of Customer Service 2022 finds that customers expect responses to their issues and questions in minutes, not days. They also want self-service, but expect agents to be available for more complex issues. Most importantly, consumers expect all interactions to be contextual and personalized.

According to Gartner, customers that receive extra value during a service interaction are:

  • 82% more likely to repurchase or renewal when presented with the change to switch
  • 86% more likely to increase wallet share

There’s a catch, though. Most brands consider their customer service department an expense and not a growth opportunity. As a result, they don’t provide the tools and capabilities support agents need to provide extra value. In fact, according to HubSpot’s study, half of all customer service agents are expected to support cross-sell and upsell goals, while struggling to manage difficult conversations.

How AI and CDPs Help Organizations Connect Customer Service to the Entire Customer Journey

Tools and technologies like AI, predictive technology, and chatbots can help customer service agents improve support experiences. Add to this a customer data platform (CDP), and you can connect your customer service to the entire customer journey.

Empowering Customer Service with Customer Data

One of the first challenges you’ll need to tackle is unifying your data silos and making that data available to support teams. That’s where the CDP comes in. It can ingest data from all your applications, build a 360-degree customer view, and feed that view into your support applications. Support agents then have a complete understanding of a customer’s interactions with your brand and can use that information to tailor the support they provide. 

Next-Best Action Recommendations

CDPs that leverage AI and machine learning can provide customer support agents with next-best action recommendations, including new product features to use, new use cases for the product, or add-on products that would help them achieve their goals. CDPs can also help identify and prioritize customer segments, ensuring that customers with high customer lifetime value (CLV) are provided with highly personalized support from top agents.

Personalized Chatbot Interactions

Call centers can also implement virtual assistants and live chat solutions to help customers, but they need to be careful. According to a 2022 consumer study from CDP.com, while consumers are beginning to see the benefits AI has on customer service, only 34 percent of believe that interacting with a chatbot truly helps address their specific needs.

AI in MArketing Survey

Chatbots that integrate customer profiles and purchase histories are better prepared to help customers with their questions. At the same time, they have the information needed to offer personalized incentives and relevant offers, improving the customer’s experience. If a customer does need additional support, they could then be connected to a live agent based on their profile information. It’s this connection between digital chatbots and live support that’s critical.

Protecting Data Privacy

Privacy and trust will continue to be a customer concern and a top brand consideration. In the CDP.com study, 81 percent of consumers express concerns with how AI is used for recommendations, customer service, and support. But they also still want the personalization that AI brings to support experiences. Brands must implement robust data governance tools, policies, and practices that ensure data processed and shared with customer service teams is safe and secure.

Are You Building A Data-Driven Customer Service Organization?

Customers have higher expectations for customer service and support than they did in previous years, and it’s only going to grow. It’s critical for customer experience, loyalty, and retention to treat customer service and support as more than a cost center. Tools and technologies, like AI and CDPs, can help you offer customers the support they need.

Read More: What is Omnichannel Customer Experience

The post Data-Driven Customer Service is Essential For Great CX – Here’s Why first appeared on Treasure Data.

]]>
How To Leverage Customer Experience Insights for More Integrated Marketing https://www.treasuredata.com/customer-experience-insights-tda/ Thu, 23 May 2024 23:20:12 +0000 https://dev-td-next.pantheonsite.io/?post_type=resources&p=485124 Customer journeys take place in a digital landscape dotted with hundreds of touchpoints. Use CX insights to craft relevant journeys.

The post How To Leverage Customer Experience Insights for More Integrated Marketing first appeared on Treasure Data.

]]>
The Information Age is over. Welcome to the Experience Age. In a world where customer experience (and satisfaction) with a brand lends a competitive advantage to rival the product itself, companies must prioritize strategies for shaping customer perception via carefully crafted interactions. This is what makes customer experience insights vital. Let’s take a look at how you can use them to build a more integrated marketing approach.

Customer Experience Insights

First, let’s start with customer experience.

Customer experience can be broadly defined as how your customers feel about your business and its brand throughout every interaction, digital and offline, during their entire relationship with your company.

This experience is informed by a web of connected interactions that the customer views as a continuous conversation with a single entity: your brand. Whether customer service was excellent, or the checkout process is a pain in the neck, consumers will tag your brand as the cause. Therefore, companies must strive for a consistent and positive journey across all possible channels and touchpoints.

It’s not as impossible as it sounds. Customer experience can be optimized both for individual clients and larger audiences alike by implementing a data-driven strategy built on customer insights.

Think of customer insights as windows into the world of your consumers, providing you a glimpse at the motivation that lies behind their choices and behavior. A deluge of data may explain what the customer did, but it takes insight to understand why they act the way they do.

Customer insights enable brands to:

  • Understand customer behavior and attitude
  • Predict product acceptance
  • Anticipate consumer expectations
  • Locate and address pain points
  • Build loyalty and reduce churn

Without insights, a customer experience strategy is reduced to guesswork and reliance on whatever has worked in the past. A lack of customer insights precludes a consumer-centric culture by putting business agendas at the frontlines of the buyer’s journey rather than the buyer. This contrasts directly with a business that works in sync with its consumer-facing teams to win loyalty by serving customer needs first.

Where To Apply Customer Experience Insights

Increasingly, the customer journey takes place in a digital landscape dotted with hundreds of touchpoints. Customer experience insights can be especially helpful in creating a positive journey when leveraged at these critical points:

Marketing Communications

Engagement. Fine-tune individual journeys right from the start. Using insights gleaned from analyzing numerous other journeys and audience segmentation, marketers can choose the right messaging and ads to capture a lead’s interest.

Touchpoints. Knowing which touchpoints generate the best results helps marketers allocate resources wisely. Customer experience insights help calibrate this strategy for audience segments as well as individual levels.

Timing. There’s an art to timing that can transform relationships. Without customer experience insights, marketers and brands risk alienating loyal customers. On the other hand, a well-timed message may be just what an interested buyer needs to hear to complete their purchase, if your strategy determines the best time of day week to engage them.

Support

Customer experience at the support level is particularly instrumental to stopping churn in its tracks. When clients see support teams who understand and meet their needs, they are likely to reciprocate with loyalty-driven actions like repeat purchases or advocacy.

Support staff can use audience-level customer insights to serve individual clients based on similar interactions. Insights from historical trends and patterns of behavior also enable support teams to anticipate customers’ needs from the point of purchase forward.

Take, for example, a customer who purchases a next-generation appliance model and calls support to ask about setup. After answering inquiries, the support personnel might offer the customer a low-cost warranty extension instead of the usual accessories. This scenario is based on insights that suggest first-time buyers anxious about investing in new technology may prefer longer purchase guarantees to shiny new add-ons. Such examples demonstrate how customer insights can add value to customer journeys at the support stage.

Pain Points

Providing a perfect customer journey for every individual is a tall order for any brand. But companies can create the best experience possible at touchpoints that matter. Again, customer experience insights come into play when alleviating pain points in any consumer’s journey.

Some common pain points include:

Checkout process. Checkout woes seem to multiply along with the proliferation of digital platforms. Brands can use insights to diagnose problems with online or mobile checkout processes, like limited payment options, overly long checkouts, or slow loading times.

Slow support. Internal reports rarely coincide with customer perceptions, especially when it comes to customer support. Customer experience insights can highlight areas for improvement such as slow response times, unavailable personnel, and redundant or confusing steps to solve common problems.

Delivery. Customers want to be able to keep track of their purchase, from the moment they click ‘buy’ to the minute it arrives on their doorstep. Brands can apply customer experience insights to keep buyers happy and resolve pain points on delivery options, delivery times, or tracking services.

Treasure Data Transforms Your Data Into Customer Experience Insights

Consider the following findings from Mitto and Demand Metric’s 2021 report “The State of Customer Experience”:

  • Companies with a complete omnichannel strategy are 2x more likely to respond quickly to customer inquiries in real time or within the hour
  • 4x more likely to say they have “extremely loyal customers”
  • 3x more likely to report higher revenue over the last 12 months
  • More likely to report higher average customer satisfaction scores (CSAT)

These and other findings show a clear correlation between an omnichannel strategy and a stellar customer experience. Brands need to have a consistent message and integrated marketing approach across all channels and touchpoints.

A Customer Data Platform like Treasure Data’s gives brands the tools to make this happen. With identity resolution, intelligent customer experience insights, and journey orchestration, Treasure Data helps brands stand out in the Experience Age.

Identity Resolution

Treasure Data’s Customer Data Platform (CDP) collects customer information from online and offline sources. The platform then stitches related information to resolve customer identities and create a unified view of each individual. These unified profiles make up a customer data foundation which becomes the source of truth for marketing, sales, and support teams.

Treasure Data’s enterprise CDP is capable of maintaining customer profiles on a global scale thanks to the following capabilities:

  • Unlimited cloud storage capacity
  • Flexible ingestion, with 170+ connectors for martech and business SaaS apps
  • 2 million records ingested per second
  • 40 billion profiles activated per month
  • Optimization of experiences using Profiles API in real time

These, along with other unique features, are the key to helping brands create cohesive customer journeys.

Intelligent Customer Experience Insights

Treasure Data uses Machine Learning to learn more about your customers and their journey. Predictive Scoring enables you to identify which customers are:

– Likely to buy

– Likely to churn

– Likely to respond to an offer

– Likely to convert

In addition, Treasure Data employs a Multi-Touch Attribution model to determine which marketing channels make the most significant contributions to successful customer journeys. By the same token, the MTA model also helps identify which channels produce negative customer experiences.

Journey Orchestration

Finally, Treasure Data layers a brand’s omnichannel strategy with intelligent insights for a more integrated marketing approach.

With Treasure Data Journey Orchestration, marketers can:

  • Optimize channels according to customer experience insights
  • Connect activities and insights across channels including website visits, support calls, email responses, and others
  • Use insights to inform all touchpoints dynamically (web, online, mobile, etc.) for a continuously relevant conversation
  • Orchestrate omnichannel campaigns based on customer buying stage, activity, and channels used

The result is a consumer-centric marketing strategy that connects relevant campaigns and channels to real-time action and behavior. Instead of forcing leads into an artificial funnel filled with irrelevant marketing actions, the customer journey unfolds around the individual’s decisions and preferences with carefully catered experiences.

Treasure Data takes the journey further with Next Best Action (NBA) recommendations. NBA is based on deterministic and probabilistic models that suggest an action with the highest chance of eliciting a customer’s positive response. Treasure Data’s NBA recommendation system disseminates customer experience insights to marketing, service, and sales teams in real time for the best results.

Watch Treasure Data Enterprise Customer Data Platform Demo below:

Activate Your Customer Experience Insights

Treasure Data provides brands with actionable insights for a winning customer experience strategy. Our AI and Machine Learning capabilities provide deep insights to personalize customer journeys at individual and segment levels. With Treasure Data, you can quickly visualize data insights and respond to critical trends for maximum impact.

To learn how to leverage customer experience insights that improve your marketing strategy, consult an expert today. Want to learn more? Request a demo, call 1.866.899.5386, or contact us for more information.

The post How To Leverage Customer Experience Insights for More Integrated Marketing first appeared on Treasure Data.

]]>
Unlocking Consumer Situationships https://www.treasuredata.com/contact-center-transformation-readiness-self-assessment/ Mon, 29 Apr 2024 19:01:55 +0000 https://dev-td-next.pantheonsite.io/?page_id=479557 Discover how to leverage consumer situationships for better decisions. Discover insights, trends, and strategies in our latest marketing report

The post Unlocking Consumer Situationships first appeared on Treasure Data.

]]>

Contact Center Transformation Readiness Self-Assessment

Contact Center Transformation Readiness Self-Assessment

See how your contact center transformation is making a difference in empowering your agents and delighting your customers

Your contact center has been fielding product questions from consumers and may be staffed with either in-house personnel or outsourced to specialists. Traditionally, CPG brands have viewed their contact centers as a cost of doing business, but a new wave is coming.

The new wave is converting contact centers as a part of customer experience; a process that builds brand loyalty, drives brand differentiation, and allows contact center agents to offer the next best action based on real-time data and insights.

Take this self-assessment to determine where you are and areas of opportunity in regards to your:

  • Contact center strategy
  • Contact center operations and execution

Get your free guide to the Contact Center Transformation Readiness Self-Assessment, and see how Treasure Data CDP for Service can help accelerate your transformation and empower your contact center agents to provide the best customer experience.

Trusted by Enterprises Around the World

AB InBev logo Mitsubishi logo CNH logo Subaru logo Stellantis logo Suntory logo Watashi by Shiseido logo Stanley Black and Decker logo Sony logo SMBC logo Royal Caribbean Group Logo Pokemon International logo Nissan logo Yum! logo AXA logo Little Caesars Logo LG logo Fujitsu logo AEON logo Credit Saison logo Canon logo Honda logo Asahi logo Danone logo Nestle Logo Hyundai logo Panasonic Logo Yamaha logo

The post Unlocking Consumer Situationships first appeared on Treasure Data.

]]>
CDP for Contact Center Success https://www.treasuredata.com/cdp-for-contact-center-success/ Mon, 29 Apr 2024 16:33:52 +0000 https://dev-td-next.pantheonsite.io/?page_id=479273 Learn the importance of making customer data and personalized recommendations visible to contact center agents—and how a CDP makes this possible.

The post CDP for Contact Center Success first appeared on Treasure Data.

]]>

The Roadmap to Contact Center Transformation and Improvement

The Roadmap to Contact Center Transformation and Improvement

How to Leverage a Customer Data Platform for Contact Center Success

Your customers want personalized interactions. The solution: integrating your contact center with the data that comes from a Customer Data Platform (CDP). With access to customer data, contact center agents can anticipate issues and resolve them more quickly, suggest customized products or services, and more.

Read this white paper to learn more about:

  • Enterprise barriers to better customer experiences
  • Top use cases for integrated customer data in the contact center
  • Some lessons from top customer experience performers
  • How to use customer data in your contact center with a CDP
  • CDP best practices
  • And more!

Ready to take your customers’ contact center experience to the next level? Download How to Leverage a Customer Data Platform for Contact Center Success today.

Trusted by Enterprises Around the World

AB InBev logo Mitsubishi logo CNH logo Subaru logo Stellantis logo Suntory logo Watashi by Shiseido logo Stanley Black and Decker logo Sony logo SMBC logo Royal Caribbean Group Logo Pokemon International logo Nissan logo Yum! logo AXA logo Little Caesars Logo LG logo Fujitsu logo AEON logo Credit Saison logo Canon logo Honda logo Asahi logo Danone logo Nestle Logo Hyundai logo Panasonic Logo Yamaha logo

The post CDP for Contact Center Success first appeared on Treasure Data.

]]>
How CDPs Empower Empathy and Improve CLV https://www.treasuredata.com/blog/cdp-contact-center-success/ Mon, 01 Nov 2021 13:00:57 +0000 https://dev-td-next.pantheonsite.io/cdp-contact-center-success/ While many companies focus on improving data access for marketing and sales, they are missing out on data-enabling a key element of the customer experience—customer service. Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) are changing that.

The post How CDPs Empower Empathy and Improve CLV first appeared on Treasure Data.

]]>
Support Your Customer Service Agents with Real-time Customer Data

The digital revolution has changed both the expectations of today’s tech-savvy customers and the way enterprises manage customer engagement. New systems promise ever-more accurate customer insights, but to be truly effective, this data must be available and actionable across the entire organization—sales and marketing, as well as the contact center. And while many companies focus on improving data access for marketing and sales, they are missing out on data-enabling a key element of the customer experience—customer service.

Improving Customer Service Experiences Is Critical

In a recent Treasure Data study that looked at consumer attitudes on customer service, 65% of consumers said that a positive customer service experience increases loyalty to a company or brand.

But that study also found that 43% of consumers either somewhat agree or strongly agree that positive customer service experiences are rare. There are many reasons why customer service experiences aren’t great, and most of them boil down to agents not having a comprehensive view of the customer across the entire customer journey.

Ask yourself, “Do our agents have a full picture of the customer relationship? Do we arm our agents with knowledge of other customer interactions that may have happened two minutes ago, three days ago, or last month? Can we provide agents with actionable insights and recommendations instead of going into each customer interaction blindly? Can we learn about what every single one of our customers thinks about our products and services—whether they’re interacting with our brands on social media, mobile apps, in stores, or through our sales team?”

If you can’t answer yes to these questions, you should consider a growing trend: Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) in contact centers. According to Sheila McGee-Smith, founder and principal analyst at McGee-Smith Analytics, “many companies are already demonstrating that contact centers can become powerful engines that drive growth in customer lifetime value.” But to do that, they need the right technology paired with the right engagement strategy. The CDP is the right technology.

How CDPs Support Customer Service

Until recently, CDPs were most often used to power marketing use cases. Increasingly, however, the need for the same kind of data repository and intelligence long used in marketing is also being recognized for service.

It’s easy to see why. A CDP connects your data ecosystems—CRM, social media, web app data, behavioral data such as response to advertising, loyalty program histories, and more. CDPs draw on all customer data in almost any format (any channel, online and offline, known and unknown) to create a backbone of customer knowledge. And with some CDPs, such as Treasure Data CDP for Service, data can be updated in real-time, almost instantly, whenever a customer is interacting with your brand.

A CDP provides agents with full visibility into the entire customer journey. It breaks down silos,  and pulls customer data from many different sources, creating a detailed profile or unified customer view (UCV) of each consumer. When an agent interacts with a customer, they have immediate access to that detailed profile. No digging for information, no putting the customer on hold for long periods to find something. The agent can efficiently and effectively answer customers’ questions, make recommendations, or steer conversations toward new purchases or brand experiences.

And if there is a concern that customers wouldn’t like your customer service agents having access to all their data, think again. The study mentioned above also found that 75% of consumers somewhat agree or strongly agree that using previously collected customer data further facilitates the customer service experience. Except for sharing username and password, consumers support agents using additional information like user preferences, website activity, purchase history, and location to improve the service experience.

The CDP as a Value Creator

We often think of a CDP as a revenue driver, but it’s also key to creating value in the company. As McGee-Smith said, a CDP enables employees by giving them the data they need to help customers. She points out that the data agents get from a CDP empowers them to deliver empathy by giving them a complete view of the customer and its relationship with the brand. It equips agents for a relevant experience and allows them to better personalize that experience. As a result, customers feel heard and know the agent is providing them with the best information and support they can.

Not only does the CDP support customer service, but integrating contact center data in the CDP makes that data available to the rest of the company and enables marketing and sales to improve their customer experiences.

The truth is, empowering empathy and improving customer lifetime value are company-wide imperatives. The growth of digital experiences, expedited by the pandemic, has given consumers more power and created greater expectations of brands across the board. Every interaction, every experience with your brand is critical, whether it’s with a marketing campaign, a sales activity, or a customer service call. The CDP provides a new foundational layer of customer data accessible to every team, system, and customer experience.

Remember that 43% of consumers that said a great customer service experience is rare? This is your opportunity to change that.

The post How CDPs Empower Empathy and Improve CLV first appeared on Treasure Data.

]]>
AI vs. Human Customer Service: When Do Consumers Prefer a Bot? https://www.treasuredata.com/blog/ai-vs-human/ Tue, 08 Oct 2019 13:00:18 +0000 https://dev-td-next.pantheonsite.io/ai-vs-human/ We asked 1,000 U.S. consumers when they prefer the human touch in customer experience—and when they prefer to avoid it. The results are surprising and point to a divided public opinion.

The post AI vs. Human Customer Service: When Do Consumers Prefer a Bot? first appeared on Treasure Data.

]]>
Artificial Involvement: A Look at whether humans prefer artificial intelligence and chatbots over human interaction

Download Report

Chatbots and other AI-assisted customer service tools are on the rise as an efficient, automated way to improve customer journeys, but few studies have asked U.S. consumers how they actually feel about talking to machines when they need help. A new Treasure Data survey of 1,000 adults recently did just that, asking how people feel about AI assists in fields as diverse as medicine to retailing. The industry-to-industry differences are surprising, providing insights to a trend that is rarely examined, but growing rapidly.

The economic case for bots is clear: No matter how big a company is, it’s virtually impossible for business owners to stay connected to their clientele 24/7. Whether providing necessary customer support for existing clients or capturing new leads, business owners can spend their entire workday managing these communication channels and still struggle to keep up.

Enter the ever-growing use of chatbots. With minimal supervision, chatbots can capture data from prospective customers, help answer frequently asked questions, and even provide recommendations or customer support depending on the software or industry. One analysis found that the global Chatbot market is expected to grow 8.6 times its valuation of $1.17 billion in 2018 to $10.08 billion by year 2026.

Some analysts even believe chatbots (and the evolving capabilities of artificial intelligence) could revolutionize industries and propel companies to new levels of success.

For a more extensive look at consumers’ use and reception of chatbots, we polled 1,000 U.S. adults about their interactions with artificial intelligence. Keep reading to see how many customers prefer electronic systems to human operators, how common chatbots have become in certain industries, and how many U.S. consumers go out of their way to avoid in-person interactions.

For our analysis, electronic systems are defined as an automated, artificial intelligence, or textual response system, serving as a customer service representative. This includes but is not limited to chatbots and automated answering systems.

Consumer Preferences

The benefits of chatbots and electronic systems for businesses are relatively straightforward: less time spent monitoring communication channels, less expensive customer service solutions, and even the ability to grow by converting potential customers.

Human vs. non-human?

But what about the benefits to customers? Experts suggest AI-powered chat services offer quicker turnaround for consumers, easy answers to more complex questions, and can even offer recommendations. According to our survey of 1,000 U.S. adults, only 1 in 5 respondents preferred electronic systems to human interaction.

Consumer Interactions

Not all industries employ artificial intelligence or electronic systems with the same level of enthusiasm. We didn’t find any industries relying entirely on electronic systems, but many employ both chatbots and humans. Industries more likely to use a combination of automation and human engagement include: Banking/credit unions (44 percent), government agencies (43 percent), insurance companies (about 40 percent), and hotels/motels (nearly 32 percent).

The current state of electronic systems and human interactions

In an average six-minute customer service call, 75 percent of the time is devoted to manual research and just 25 percent to customer interaction. In situations where businesses successfully employ electronic systems and humans, self-service technologies can manage the bulk of “routine” requests so that customer service agents can focus on more complex engagement.

How automated do we want each industry

Consumer Desires

Despite the growing popularity of telemedicine, people preferred fully human interactions with veterinarians, dentists, and doctors. In contrast, people most preferred taxi services (15 percent), airlines (nearly 13 percent), and hotels/motels (almost 10 percent) to be fully automated.

We’ve already seen what can happen when a seamless automation process enters the market. The introduction of automated ride-hailing services disrupted the entire taxi industry. Customers now expect to easily request transportation (often with little personal communication necessary), a trend that in the future may include self-driving vehicles.

Why we prefer AI or Human

While 73 percent of Americans said electronic systems failed to connect them to the correct department or customer service representative at least once, many expressed a preference for automated communication in certain circumstances. Among respondents who preferred electronic systems, more than 1 in 3 cited efficiency and spending less time on hold as the primary benefits of the service. 

Nearly 1 in 4 respondents also identified faster resolutions as a benefit of using electronic systems, although more than half preferred human support because agents provided quicker resolutions. Similarly, a better understanding of customer concerns (72 percent) and more thorough explanations (59 percent) were the biggest advantages of human support.

The Future of Automation

As consumer adoption and acceptance of chatbot and other electronic systems grows, the use of artificial intelligence within these systems is likely to increase and improve. As some technology experts warn, customer service isn’t the only position in danger of being fully automated. According to one study, as many as 1 in 4 jobs across the United States might be taken over by artificial intelligence in the coming years, and some industries could be completely overhauled by 2030, including insurance underwriting, warehouse jobs, data entry, and pharmaceutical discovery.

Top jobs we would want automated

Three industries ranked the highest as jobs customers would like to see automated: bankers (46 percent), accountants (42 percent), and travel agents (40 percent). On the topic of travel, consumers may be more inclined toward automated booking and planning less as a matter of convenience and more as a matter of cost savings.

In-Person Interactions

While the majority of purchases still take place at brick-and-mortar locations, online shopping continues to grow. One milestone this year took place in the month of February 2019. For that month, online shopping took a higher percentage of the total market share for the retail category of general merchandise sales in the United States for the first time. Over the last two decades, non-store sales (including those by e-commerce giant Amazon) have reshaped the retail landscape, forcing the closure of some long-standing brick-and-mortar stores in recent years.

Beyond the obvious conveniences of shopping online, nearly 2 in 3 consumers admitted they preferred to shop online to avoid human interaction.

Avoiding in person shopping

Although highest among Millennials (68 percent), 63 percent of Gen Xers and 50 percent of Baby Boomers opted to shop online rather than interact in the physical retail world. Thirty-five percent of those surveyed said they spent more money shopping online than in-store, and 58 percent said feeling lethargic or lazy was a major factor for avoiding brick-and-mortar stores.

Keeping The Doctor Away 

Digital health services may be gaining in popularity (and availability), but this is one segment of electronic services consumers may feel less inclined to adopt.

Even if electronic systems aren’t the best solution right now, there are still many reasons Americans put off seeing their doctor. Largely based around a question of trust, some analysts suggest a lack of clear and transparent communication (including conflicts of interest) combined with the rising cost of health care are among the biggest factors to this growing shift in confidence.

Avoiding the doctor

Consumer Desires

Almost two-thirds of respondents admitted they forgo doctor visits to avoid human interaction, and 39 percent of Millennials reported abstaining from visiting a physician to avoid face-to-face interaction. Of those who put off seeing a doctor because of the human element, 48 percent acknowledged their medical issue was serious, and 34 percent said that issue only worsened with time.

The Future of Artificial Intelligence and Consumers

Artificial intelligence continues to grow exponentially, and the economic benefits it provides to businesses and consumers alike will only continue to drive the demand for these services. Yet how people feel about AI and chatbots can also influence businesses, so it’s important to understand how AI affects how people feel about their customer journeys and the companies that are most aggressively automating their customer-facing interactions.

We found that in every industry we examined, people reported interacting with electronic systems at least some of the time. Some even showed preference for interacting only with fully automated systems. As consumers inevitably interact more and more with these automated systems, we wonder: How will this change life in the near and distant future? The answers aren’t yet entirely clear, but it appears from this Treasure Data survey that many U.S. consumers are at least open to new possibilities.

Download Report

Methodology

To explore the level of involvement and desire for artificial intelligence in our everyday life, we launched a survey on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk survey platform. The survey was comprised of 25 questions and was answered by 1,000 qualified individuals in the U.S., including 543 men and 455 women. Two respondents did not specify gender. The mean age of respondents was 37. Any respondent not correctly completing an attention-check question was excluded from our survey results.

Limitations

The data presented in this project rely on self-report. There are many issues with self-reported data, including selective memory, inaccurate memory, and over- or under-exaggeration.

Fair Use Statement

Does the impending implications of artificial intelligence interest you and your readers? Feel free to share the information found throughout this page for noncommercial purposes. When doing so, kindly share a link back to this page so that your readers may explore more on the topic.

The post AI vs. Human Customer Service: When Do Consumers Prefer a Bot? first appeared on Treasure Data.

]]>