Artificial Intelligence is Fueling the Customer Experience Strategies of the World’s Top Brands Today

Singapore — Oct. 16, 2017 — A global survey of
more than 550 senior executives across 30 countries and territories reports
that 91 percent of “iconic” companies — those that maintain both the highest levels of customer experience (CX)
satisfaction and have world-leading brand recognition — deploy Artificial Intelligence
(AI) solutions to increase customer satisfaction,
compared to 42 percent of companies in their fields overall.

The new report from MIT Technology Review is sponsored
by Genesys and called Getting to Iconic. It
reveals iconic firms are more likely to recognize that automated
AI tools are most effective when they supplement and
extend the capabilities of their customer support team, rather than replace
human investment. As so, 60 percent of survey respondents felt they had the
right mix of “live” and automated customer communication channels, compared to
only 26 percent of the poor performers and 40 percent overall.

Furthermore, the report concludes that iconic
companies are using AI for more than just chatbots. Most respondents
indicate AI is guiding their customer analytic capabilities. The report
noted that optimizing tools, applications
and operational processes to engage with customers across every stage of their
shared journey has always been a core growth strategy for successful global
firms. This has only accelerated with the advance of technologies such as big
data analytics, which turns customer information into predictive assets, and
virtual assistants, which help firms more efficiently manage customer
inquiries.

Iconic companies are also nearly three times as likely
to consider leadership in technology adoption as a crucial component of
maintaining customer experience excellence. In contrast, only half of firms
with low levels of customer experience satisfaction and low brand recognition
currently employ enabling technologies — and ten percent have no intention of doing
so.

“This research confirms what we
anticipated – AI will be crucial in taking customer satisfaction to new
levels,” said Merijn te Booij, chief marketing officer at Genesys. “We’re
excited that Kate,
our new customer experience AI, will
enable a smooth and contextual handoff between bots and humans. The combined
power of automation with the finesse of the human touch across the enterprise
delivers the kind of blended AI solution every customer experience leader needs
today.”

Getting to Iconic includes
the wide global survey and case studies from CX leaders such as Alibaba, BT
Global Services, Lexus, Nubank, Uber, and Zurich Insurance. Other findings
of Getting to Iconic indicate:

·  Nearly 90 percent of
respondents from iconic companies felt they were adept at managing customer
experience from an omnichannel perspective. This figure drops to 75 percent for
all responses, and 66 percent amongst the poor performance cohort.

·  Iconic companies take
a much more active role in managing their ecosystem. They are more than twice
as likely as average companies to require that their ecosystem partners adhere
to their CX standards, and nearly three times more likely to have their
customer experience systems integrated with partners.

·  That said, a third of iconic
companies indicate that they do not actively share their customer insights
across their ecosystem, much higher than the average. Iconic companies
recognize the competitive advantages of unique customer insight.

·  Corporate Social
Responsibility (CSR) is also a differentiator for iconic companies: 75 percent
indicate it is one of the most important components of their brand value,
compared to 21 percent among low-performing companies.

“The leaders of iconic companies know
that they also have to be leaders in customer experience technology
investment,” said Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau, CEO and Publisher at MIT
Technology Review. “But they also know that over-reliance on technology in
search for efficiency gains can reduce, rather than increase, the levels of
customer intimacy required for success.”

Ms. Bramson-Boudreau added: “Iconic
firms, realizing the limitations of a technology-centric approach to
maintaining desired customer management levels, place a high value on human
capital investment, and are keen to strike the right balance between human and
automated customer channels.”

Overall, Getting to Iconic determines
iconic companies are much more advanced in their deployment of leading customer
experience technologies, including the use of emerging AI applications. They
are also much more able to follow customers across all channels, and manage
customer experience levels across their extended ecosystem.

The full Getting to Iconic report
is available now. Download your copy here.

Founded at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1899, MIT Technology Review derives
its authority from the world’s foremost technology institution and from its
editors’ deep technical knowledge, capacity to see technologies in their
broadest context, and unequalled access to leading innovators and researchers.

Getting to Iconic is a briefing paper by MIT Technology
Review based on a global survey of business leaders conducted between May and
July 2017. Further insights were gained through in-depth industry interviews
and are included in this report.

MIT Technology Review
collected and reported on all findings contained in this paper independently,
regardless of participation or sponsorship.

Genesys® powers
more than 25 billion of the world’s best customer experiences each year. Our
success comes from connecting employee and customer conversations on any
channel, every day. Over 10,000 companies in more than 100 countries trust
our #1 customer experience platform to drive great business outcomes and
create lasting relationships. Combining the best of technology and human ingenuity, we build
solutions that mirror natural communication and work the way you think. Our
industry-leading solutions foster true omnichannel engagement because they perform equally
well across channels, on-premise and in the cloud. Experience communication as
it should be: fluid, instinctive and profoundly empowering. Visit genesys.com on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and the Genesys blog.