Knowledge and AI: For Digital Experience Transformation
Digital experience (DX) applies to customers (CX), customer service agents (AX), and a variety of business audiences (BX)—executives, managers, knowledge authors, and systems administrators, to name a few.
Businesses have to balance AX, BX, and CX in their DX transformation initiative to improve its odds of success. In other words,
AX+BX+CX=DX™
We call it the Theory of Experiences™
Here, we will tell you why Knowledge and AI, or simply AI knowledge, is critical to improving all three elements of experiences.
1. AI Knowledge and Digital Customer Experience (CX)
Customers reach out to contact centers to get answers. Yet, that is where businesses are failing them.
When asked about the biggest pain points in getting customer service, consumers point to the lack and inconsistency of knowledge among agents and the inability of websites to deliver answers through digital self-service. (Source: Forrester Consulting survey)
No wonder CX is stuck in reverse gear or neutral at best, per Forrester’s CX Index of the last several years—0% of companies have offered “excellent service” in 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, and 2017, down from an astronomical 1% in 2016!
The antidote to this plateauing of customer experience lies in deploying next-generation knowledge—that is personalized, proactive, and infused with AI guidance—to power informed customer service through digital and traditional channels. Wherever this has been done, businesses have seen significant ROI and improvement in metrics.
Some real-world impact of AI knowledge on CX
- eGain clients report up to a 60% reduction in phone calls as those get deflected by digital customer self-service, powered by AI knowledge
- A telco giant, an eGain client, improved NPS (Net Promoter Score) by 30 points and was getting fewer customer complaints after knowledge and guidance was implemented in its contact centers and stores
2. AI Knowledge and Digital Agent Experience (AX)
There has been a massive generational shift in the contact center workforce with millennials and, increasingly, Gen Z joining the organizations, especially in the frontline. These next-gen agents live digital, guided lives. They don’t pore over AAA maps or Thomas’ Guides for driving—they are used to getting guided by GPS. They are doing away with human financial advisors, leaving their 401K assets to “robo-advisors.” Moreover, they have low attention spans and hate training, choosing instead to learn or get guided as they work.
Plus, it’s a fact that products are getting more complicated, and agents are getting more of the complex questions as consumers resolve the easy ones through self-service. This is what a 2022 BenchmarkPortal survey, State of Agent Experience 2022, reported:
Customer inquiries have become more complex, say 63% agents
The result? Agent experience crisis. Endless hours are spent in training and yet they struggle to answer customer questions, sometimes improvising to come up with an answer. In fact, 84% of contact center agents complained that their desktop tools do not help them in resolving customer issues, per Gartner. No wonder agent churn has hovered at 25% to 50%, depending on whom you ask, and agents have an average of ten hostile encounters with customers every day, according to Psychology Today.
Here’s the good news: AI knowledge can guide the agent (and the customer through the agent) in finding answers, resolving problems, and providing advice through best-practice conversations in a consistent way.
Some real-world impact of AI knowledge on AX
- One of our telco clients uses our AI reasoning technology to guide 10,000 contact center agents and hundreds of associates in 600 retail stores while dealing with customers. The consistent use of guidance helped boost First-Contact Resolution (FCR) by 37% while doubling agent speed-to-competency, transforming both AX and CX in the process!
- A global banking client was able to ascend from #3 to #1 in NPS, while reducing agent training time by half and reducing agent churn significantly, even while expanding to 11 countries!
- A fast-growing SaaS provider in the HR space improved the consistency of answers by a whopping 62% and turbocharged speed-to-answer by 67%.
3. AI Knowledge and Digital Business Experience (BX)
Business Experience (BX) is a broad topic and it could span the entire lifecycle of technology consumption: Deployment, adoption, and use by various stakeholders, including end-customers, agents, authors, contact center managers, and others, value creation, and value expansion.
We have made it easy for clients to consume AI knowledge boldly and without risk through a no-charge, no-obligation knowledge production pilot called eGain Innovation in 30 Days™. eGain Innovation in 30 Days also comes with best-practice guidance from domain experts, for success. The rich, out-of-the-box capabilities in the solution, developed and refined over 20 years, and our agile services make it easy to create quick value from the solution upon deployment, while our managed services make it easy to use, maintain, analyze, and fine-tune the applications on an ongoing basis, a proven recipe for great BX!
Some examples of the impact of AI knowledge on businesses that deployed it, with or without the risk-free production pilot
- A multinational manufacturer of cleaning systems piloted eGain digital engagement and knowledge solutions as part of eGain Innovation in 30 Days. Happy with the results from the pilot and the hands-on guidance provided by domain experts, they moved forward with the eGain partnership. Next in their plan is to add advanced AI guidance for agents and the next level of real-time digital engagement with cobrowse.
- A toy manufacturing leader, a household name, used eGain Innovation in 30 Days to arm agents with contextual knowledge to serve consumers for its own brands and third-party brands that white-labeled its products. In the latter case, the knowledge had to be compliant with the agreements that the manufacturer had made with those companies. In addition, the company simultaneously tried out eGain Superchat™, the most comprehensive solution for real-time digital collaboration. Happy with the benefits from the production pilot, the manufacturer deployed both solutions to their entire agent pool!
- A leading multi-play CSP (communications service provider) was not only able to improve FCR but also reduced unwarranted handset exchanges and returns by 38% through knowledge-guided problem resolution on its website and in the contact center!
The value of knowledge + AI goes far beyond traditional contact center metrics in the customer experience domain. It is evident that AI knowledge is fundamental to transforming all aspects of DX. You can contact us to know more about AI knowledge.
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