Much has been written on the importance of the customer experience in modern life. Customers have so much choice of products and providers and it is easier than ever for them to change supplier if their expectations are not met. This is especially true in the B2C space, but even in the B2B world it is vital to delight your customers, anticipate their requirements and any issues they might be having – if an organisation does not do that then they can be certain that any number of their competitors are happy to do so.
But how can organisations go about delivering that first-class experience to their customers? With more data than ever before, how can that data be put to effective use? The answer lies in augmented intelligence, technology that enhances human imagination and delivers enormous insight to any organisation seeking to improve the customer experience.
Data is not enough – it’s all about insight with CX
Many organisations are now data-driven, or at least would claim to be. But in the customer-focused era we live in, collating and analysing data on customers is really not enough to deliver the experience that will keep them loyal and prevent them from looking elsewhere. For businesses in 2018 (and beyond) it’s all about being insights-driven.
Insights-driven businesses comprise some of the most high-profile and disruptive businesses to emerge in recent times. Examples include Facebook, Amazon, Google, Uber, Airbnb and Netflix – these are all businesses that are founded on smart use of data and insight, but there are also older and more established organisations that can be categorised in the same way.
In its recent report The Insight-Driven Business, industry analyst group Forrester categorised such organisations as ‘predators’, because they are intent on taking much of the business and profits from more traditional organisations, and indeed are perfectly placed to do so. Common to all these businesses is their on-going application of insights to decisions and customer engagements at every opportunity. Furthermore, the individuals that lead these organisations have a deep understanding of the value of insights and have put in place corporate strategies and cultures that mean leveraging data and insights is simple and embedded in almost every process.
This all means that these ‘predators’ are able to give customers exactly what they want. They understand what it is that customers need and are structured in a way that makes it easy to deliver that to them. This is becoming a major problem for any business that cannot or will not adapt to this new insights-based economy – their profits will become eroded and over time their existence will be threatened.
To become such a customer-obsessed organisation, one that puts the customer experience at the core of everything it does, insight into those customers is essential.
Augmented intelligence and insight
Augmented intelligence solutions really are at the core of insights. They can take data from all across a business, from multiple sources and in multiple formats, including the unstructured data that is usually the richest in insight. It can then use its analytic power to unlock insight that can be used to improve lead generation and the bottom line, anticipate customer requirements or potential issues, and much more besides.
Augmented intelligence will deliver a complete view of any customer, with data insight taken from everything from their most recent earnings call to premium external data sources. This allows an organisation to know and understand their customers more effectively than ever before and makes cross-sell or upsell opportunities much more accurate, targeted and likely to succeed.
Because it is capable of managing and analysing so much data, the insight extracted from that data and then presented to the user is deeper and greater than anything previously possible. In corporate financial services for example, augmented intelligence can help an organisation with lead generation, identifying opportunities for clients and recommending the best product or solution for them.
The right solution will look at data on competitors, partners and markets and identify catalysts that provide additional upsell or cross-sell opportunities to existing clients, and fresh approaches to prospective clients. It will also factor in the context of each opportunity to recommend which is the best course of action to take. In fact, it will prioritise each opportunity and provide actionable recommendations to account handlers.
These are all actions that will help drive the customer experience that modern customers demand. The Forrester report cited revealed that 90% of businesses are not deploying insights and that’s a situation that has to change if those organisations are serious about customer experience and want to protect their market share.
Becoming an insights-driven business should be the number one priority for almost every organisation. The most effective way of beginning and realising this goal is in embracing the right technologies, especially augmented intelligence that enhances and improves human imagination.
Squirro co-founder and CEO Dr. Dorian Selz is a serial entrepreneur. Prior to Squirro he founded the Swiss search platform local.ch and made it the market leader in four years. Dr Selz’s aim for Squirro is to make it the world’s foremost data insights company.