AI: Is It Hype Or Helpful?
Release Date:
As consumers we’ve all interacted in different ways with companies. Sometimes an automated system, online chat, an app on our phones, or even a live human being. But as customer experience professionals, how do we know which channel is the best option and the most preferred by consumers? And how will AI fit into all this? Host Sara Walker welcomes James Scutt, a principle XM strategist at the Qualtrics XM Institute for a look at what their 2023 Global Consumer Study reveals about consumer channel preferences.
James Scutt
Qualtrics XM Institute
Connect with James
In this episode:
- Chapter 1: Introduction to AI and Customer Experience (00:01 – 01:01)
- Chapter 2: Overview of the XM Institute Study (01:01 – 01:57)
- Chapter 3: Key Findings on Consumer Channel Preferences (01:57 – 05:42)
- Chapter 4: Contextual Preferences and Customer Journeys (05:42 – 09:32)
- Chapter 5: The Role of AI in Customer Support (09:32 – 13:07)
- Chapter 6: Employee Experience and AI (13:07 – 17:01)
- Chapter 7: AI Adoption and Cultural Differences (17:01 – 24:22)
- Chapter 8: Take Home Value (24:22 – 28:05)
- Chapter 9: Conclusion and Contact Information (28:05 – 29:36)
Highlights
People still prefer human interactions
“…there’s still a very high preference for human channels and ways to interact with the organizations or the people that we come into contact with. But they are kind of caveated and focused towards the different types of tasks that people want to do. So we split this out into different interaction channels rather than just saying, would you like human? Would you like digital? And the ones that we that we put up as human interactions with things like to meet with someone in person, which we all say when we go to events nowadays, it’s really nice to be there in person. And it is. It’s because we all crave that type of thing and we’ve lost it over the years. But to talk to someone on the phone or to chat with a person on a computer. And then on the other side of things, we had to use self-serve on a computer to use self-serve on a mobile, or to use to chat with an automated system online.”
People are OK with digital when it’s smooth sailing
“…if you were looking at something like to get an update on an order you’ve made online, so you might check that if you’re really excited about what it is you’ve ordered you might check that a couple of times a day on the app or on online, and you can see whether that thing is coming to you in real time. Or you can see it’s coming by 10:00 tonight or something. However, if all of a sudden that changes to tomorrow where you’ve still got that online, you still know it’s coming. You can still see the update. However, if it suddenly disappears and you can’t see any way of interacting with that product purchase in that journey that you’ve now got, the first thing that you’re going to start doing is jump in, you know, looking at the other things that you can do within the bounds of what you can do with that provider. And then you’re going to start looking for a person to chat to, with the hope that they can see more than you can and shed some light on what’s going on and where your item is…”
Transcript
Sara:00:00:01
With technologies like AI revolutionizing the way we interact with customers, it’s tempting to just say, “AI can do that.” But CX leaders should know that’s not necessarily what customers want.
James:00:00:12
What we’ve heard over a long number of years that digital interactions are the way that everyone wants to go, and that and that everything is always pushing that way, and we’re all got to do it that way. Actually, the preference is not all that way. There’s still a very high preference for human channels, but they are kind of caveated and focused towards the different types of tasks that people want to do.
Sara:00:00:35
Let’s take a look at the XM Institute study on how customers prefer to interact with companies on this episode of The CX Leader Podcast.
Announcer:00:00:50
The CX Leader Podcast is produced by Walker, an experience management firm that helps our clients accelerate their XM success. You can find out more at walkerinfo.com.
Sara:00:01:01
Hi everyone, I’m Sarah Walker hosting this episode of The CX Leader Podcast, and thank you for listening. It’s a great time to be a CX leader, and we explore topics and themes to help leaders like you develop great programs and deliver amazing experiences for your customers. As consumers, we’ve all interacted in different ways with companies. Sometimes that might be an automated system, an online chat, an app on our phones, or even a live human being. But as customer experience professionals, how do we know which channel is the best option and the most preferred by consumers? And how will AI fit into all this? Well, lucky for us, the Qualtrics XM Institute’s 2023 Global Consumer Study includes some results that can help us out. James Scutt is the principal at XM catalyst at the XM Institute, and he’s going to help us understand what they discovered about the consumer channel preferences in this recent study. James, welcome to The CX Leader Podcast.
James:00:01:57
Thank you. Hi. It’s great to be here.
Sara:00:01:58
Yeah, we’re excited to have you. So as I alluded to in my opening, we are going to discuss some key findings from the 2023 consumer study that the XM Institute put out specifically around channel preferences. And maybe to get our conversation going, you can share with our listeners some of the key findings or key highlights that will help us dig into this topic a little bit more specifically.
James:00:02:22
Yeah, sure. Happy to. And this was a really interesting study. And as you know, we do quite a lot of research in the XM Institute. And and we always, um, try and conduct this research so that we’ve got some really, um, insightful, compelling stories to tell out of this, but stories that will not only hopefully capture the interest, but also bring some very useful, practical, implementable insights that we can all use in our day to day lives, back at…
Sara:00:02:48
Sure.
James:00:02:48
…our desk, it’s one of the things we like to try and do. So this was a particularly interesting study. Interactions around consumer preferences and and where we have some some preferences around that. And it was interesting to see that in what we’ve heard with the us of a over long number of years, that digital interactions are the way that everyone wants to go and that and that everything is always pushing that way, and we’re all got to do it that way. Actually, the preference is not all that way. Um, there’s still a very high preference for human channels, um, and ways to interact with the organizations or the people that we come into contact with. But they are kind of caveated and focused towards the different types of tasks that people want to do. So we, um, we split this out into, into different interaction channels rather than just saying, would you like human? Would you like digital? And the ones that we that we put up as human interactions with things like to meet with someone in person, which we all say when we go to events nowadays, it’s really nice to be there in person. And it is. It’s because we all crave that type of thing and we’ve lost it over the years. But to talk to someone on the phone or to chat with a person on a computer. Um, and then on the other side of things, we had to use self-serve on a computer to use self-serve on a mobile, or to use to chat with an automated system online. So those are the different kind of options we gave people, so that we could break that down a bit, rather than just inhuman in person or or in digital.
Sara:00:04:17
Yeah. And did you look at it across a variety of industries, or how was that split necessarily? Uh, in the, in the study?
James:00:04:25
It was across industries. It was across countries.
Sara:00:04:28
Okay.
James:00:04:28
It was across age as well, which I think is and it did show. And actually when we look at that one, I mean, if we take the overall first off, if we saw 26% of people overall across all ages saying that they would prefer to meet with someone in person, and the next biggest one was to talk to some talk to a person on the phone, which was 21%, and the rest were made up of 14, 11, ten, ten and 18 as we go into those mobile channels. But again, you start looking at this with age groups and you think that it would be very much staggered as you get towards people that are a bit more forward in their life and a bit older maybe. And we can see that in the last, the last scale of say, 55 plus and we can see a preference a bit higher, um, at 28% would meet people in person and 22 for on the phone. However, if you look at 35 to 54, the bracket below that we’re talking 22% with a preference to talk on the phone, 18 to 34 is only 21. So there isn’t this huge, great big gap.
Sara:00:05:33
Right.
James:00:05:34
Um, it very much depends on the, the the situation you’re in, the urgency of the situation. Um, and what you’ve got riding on that conversation as well.
Sara:00:05:42
Sure, sure. Absolutely. Along the journey, is there any way to delineate when a consumer’s preference might shift from a digital or a self-serve, maybe categorized a little bit as less less interpersonal preference might switch from, say, the do it yourself the digital to that live human interaction. Is there any way in which we can kind of pinpoint when that might that change might occur?
James:00:06:10
Well, I mean, I mean, first off, your your experience data will be pointing you probably if you’ve got your experience data lined up by your journey…
Sara:00:06:18
Yep.
James:00:06:18
…um, your your data, your CX data is going to be pointing you probably towards that point already, because it’s the point at which people are the most usually the most unhappy,
Sara:00:06:29
Right.
James:00:06:29
And it’s the point at which something goes wrong. And this is this is the bit where it doesn’t always go wrong. Of course, you know, lots…
Sara:00:06:36
Sure.
James:00:06:36
…of journeys go very right. But it’s when it’s go, when it goes wrong. That’s when you hear people saying, I just want to speak to a person as the line they use. Um, especially if you’ve got one of those, um, voice kind…
Sara:00:06:48
Yeah.
James:00:06:48
…of chatbots that you’re, you know…
Sara:00:06:49
Right.
James:00:06:49
…the voice systems that you’re trying to get to. I just want to speak to a person or speak to an agent is what you’re put in the chat bot and things like that. But again, it depends on what journey. And then it very much depends on on the use case. So for instance, if you were looking at something like to get an update on an order you’ve made online, so you might check that if you’re really excited about what it is you’ve ordered…
Sara:00:07:12
Sure.
James:00:07:13
…you might check that a couple of times a day on the app or on online, and you can see whether that thing is coming to you in real time. Or you can see it’s coming by 10:00 tonight or something. However, if all of a sudden, um, that changes to tomorrow where you’ve still got that online, you still know it’s coming. You can still see the update. However, if it suddenly disappears…
Sara:00:07:30
Right.
James:00:07:32
…and you can’t see any way of interacting with that product purchase in that journey that you’ve now got, the first thing that you’re going to start doing is jump in, you know, looking at the other things that you can do within the bounds of what you can do with that provider. And then you’re going to start looking for a person to chat to, with the hope that they can see more than you can and shed some light on what’s going on and where your item is, whether it’s out for delivery or what. And it’s things like that. It’s they’re the two things that are reversed is, um, getting a status on an online order. We prefer digital in the first place, and also in the use cases we presented people with to book an airline ticket, which if you think back, I’ll say I can definitely remember in my lifetime, but I’m a bit older than you. Um, I can remember that booking an airline ticket was a big old thing, you know…
Sara:00:08:18
Yeah.
James:00:08:18
…and you would go into a travel agent, or you would be calling up because you needed someone to do it because it was complicated.
Sara:00:08:23
To do it for you.
James:00:08:24
You don’t do…
Sara:00:08:24
Right?
James:00:08:24
…it very often. Nowadays it’s just like buying something and dropping it into your your shopping basket so things move on. And that’s exactly what we see happening with these different types of technology and different types of interactions. As people get more trusting and more comfortable with them as they move through their life with them.
Sara:00:08:42
Yeah. And I think that that’s an important kind of forward looking view that as CX professionals, we need to keep in mind when we’re trying to anticipate when this switch in the preference from live human interaction to digital occurs, or vice versa and how you know that. You mentioned it earlier that, you know, a lot of times your CX data can be potentially a leading indicator of when you might want to have be ready operationally to be able to make that switch. But is there anything else you would recommend to CX professionals when they’re thinking about their journey and planning for the ways in which they support their consumers, and the different channels that are offered to to be able to get out ahead of that beyond maybe more macro listening. Is there anything else that you would recommend?
James:00:09:32
Yeah, I mean, first off, and most people hopefully will do this anyway, is you need to take into account what you’re the critical points in that journey are for…
Sara:00:09:39
Right,
James:00:09:39
…your organization.
Sara:00:09:40
Right.
James:00:09:40
So it’s all very well having a fantastic sales journey all the way through. If they can’t find the complete or submit button or pay button importantly, then of course you’ve got a problem. And that’s a glaringly obvious problem…
Sara:00:09:51
Sure.
James:00:09:51
…that that would be. However you see things like that, you see critical elements in the journey journeys that, um, elements of the journey that are critical to the organization because it stops the customer proceeding on. And if they drop out of the journey at that point, it’s that you could lose them altogether. You might not get them back, you know, they might just immediately start looking for a competitor who…
Sara:00:10:14
Right.
James:00:10:14
…will be sitting there now because you’ve been browsing, just waiting to kind of pounce in and come in on the journey if you didn’t complete that purchase or couldn’t complete that purchase. So you can so many indicators online. Certainly if we’re talking about online, you’re talking about things like how people interact with the system that they’ve got.
Sara:00:10:31
Yeah.
James:00:10:31
So if they’re moving their mouse backwards and forwards or their rage clicking, you know, when you rage click that mouse to try and, um, try and get the computer to do what you want it to do, but it just doesn’t do it. Um, ironically, it’s probably not helping you. It’s probably just clogging up the thought…
Sara:00:10:45
Yeah.
James:00:10:45
…process of the system, but that’s what we do. So there’s things like that and and all of this stuff, of course, is, um, data. Now your CX data will also be your experience. Data will be pointing you towards operational things that you…
Sara:00:10:58
Right.
James:00:10:58
…can fix. So we’ve always said for a long time, look, this is a great place to start. But you need more than experienced data. You need operational data. And if…
Sara:00:11:08
Yeah.
James:00:11:08
…you can mix those two things together, the experience data will often, very often point you down towards something that you might have mixed in the operational data and missed in the operational data. That is having quite a substantial impact.
Sara:00:11:19
Sure. Yep. And being able to then take the learnings and apply them in a way in which your business is set up to hopefully support that consumer preference that we’re seeing. Right. Which is…
James:00:11:31
Definitely.
Sara:00:11:31
…you know, of course, in theory, what we’re all striving for is CX professionals. But I’m sure many of our listeners can, um, can relate to the fact that that’s not always the simplest thing to do, but I think it’s very interesting to hear that, you know, we can take studies like this XM Institute one and give generalizations, but it’s really your specific customer journey, and then your specific business practices and operational ways in which you’re structured as an organization that have to be taken into consideration for your unique use case.
James:00:12:01
Yeah, definitely. And I think there’s there’s two ways to look at these things that we’re fixing. Of course there’s the inner loop. We’re all used to the closed loop um feedback process. And we’ve got our inner loop and we’ve got our outer loop. The inner loop is always obvious. What it usually what you need to fix. And it’s quicker…
Sara:00:12:15
Right.
James:00:12:16
…to get to those insights. It’s the outer loop that seems to be more difficult to get an organization to kind of come on board because it…
Sara:00:12:23
More cooperation.
James:00:12:23
…takes longer. It…
Sara:00:12:24
Yes.
James:00:12:24
Yeah, exactly. It takes longer to get people on board to that, because you’re trying to fix bigger, inherent problems that are running through a journey. So fixing the small thing for the customer there. And then in that journey, you can react very quickly. You can get that done, getting it out into the outer loop where you’re making those strategic more important, arguably, um, changes so that those things don’t happen again in the future for customers. Rather than keep correcting those small things. That for me is the key. But it’s also it’s the prize. But it’s also the, um, also the more difficult one to get.
Sara:00:12:54
Sure, sure.
Sara:00:13:07
James, maybe take us through what’s AI going to do to what the preferences that we see today or the 2023 preferences that are referenced in in this study? Is that something that was asked about specifically in terms of, you know, AI handling or AI being part of the the channel in which the consumer is reaching out to the customer, does that come into play on the back end for the CX professionals and how we, you know, handle some of these findings with greater precision and greater efficiency? Where do you see that going, and what should our CX professional listeners keep kind of top of mind as it comes to that new frontier?
James:00:13:44
So for me, I think you hit on a key word there, which is at the back end, the back end of of these journeys. And okay, we’ll see AI come into play in lots of different places and we have where it’s customer facing, it’s front facing.
Sara:00:13:56
Sure.
James:00:13:57
Um, however, we switched to employee experience a little bit here. And, and this is where I think we’re getting a very, very big cut over between customer and employee experience because it’s…
Sara:00:14:07
Yep.
James:00:14:07
…your employees that, of course, are making the experiences for your customers. We’ve all known that for a long, long time.
Sara:00:14:12
Yep.
James:00:14:13
AI has a particular role to play in supporting those employees, and particularly those frontline employees, to be able to support those customers in much, much better ways. All those things you just you just mentioned slicker, quicker, get to the resolution quicker so that that customer gets the real time help they need and they don’t need to drop out of the journey. But also in doing that, you’re equipping your employees with this AI functionality that is allowing them to serve that customer quicker to get that resolution quicker, which in turn makes them feel better about doing…
Sara:00:14:44
Right.
James:00:14:45
…this job and they’re happier to do it. So and we also saw in another piece of research, actually, these frontline employees are the ones potentially in your organizations that are the more neglected than other employees, and they…
Sara:00:14:56
Sure.
James:00:14:56
…always have a lower, um, a lower, uh, satisfaction score, let’s say, or engagement scores than non-frontline workers. So this is a critical tool for that. When we look at those employees and we ask them as part of this research, what they would be comfortable right now to use AI for, and I think this is this is the case, just like that airline ticket, you’re now comfortable to just drop it into the online basket rather than go searching out to go in somewhere and buy it. Um, comes out top is things like writing, uh, to spark…
Sara:00:15:26
Right.
James:00:15:26
…off a piece of writing.
Sara:00:15:28
Yeah.
James:00:15:28
We’ve only got to talk to some students, I suppose, who’ve probably mastered that piece there. Some have, some haven’t at this point, but…
Sara:00:15:34
Yeah.
James:00:15:34
…we’re all doing it. It gives us a massive head start and it will write something for you. But the key for me is that you’ve got the control over that final point. You can do the all the editing you like and it gives you the massive head start, but it’s not sending it for you. It’s giving you the head start. You’ve got complete control out of it. Personal assistance was the next thing that came out of it. Um, and to get advice and help and things around like public services and stuff like that, that’s great. And you’ve got control over that where you’ve not got control out of that end piece. Let’s say online shopping and online shopping came way down the list where people were more comfortable to have. I getting involved is because it would be making that final decision for you. Your probably happy for it to suggest and…
Sara:00:16:16
Sure.
James:00:16:16
…say, look, we think you might like this because you’ve been buying loads of that. I think in my case, it would probably come out as toys for my eight and five year old rather than things that I might like. However.
Sara:00:16:25
Yourself?
James:00:16:26
Yeah, exactly. But I can imagine AI if it had that purchasing decision for me on what it thought that…
Sara:00:16:31
Sure.
James:00:16:31
…I might like. It’s gonna empty my wallet very quickly…
Sara:00:16:34
Right.
James:00:16:34
…on on Peppa Pig merchandise or whatever else is out is out there. Um, but high stakes things like getting medical advice or job interviews, getting involved with job interviews, where that end piece is really important. They’re less. And that goes from like writing a task. It was like 57% comfortable down job interviews was like 27. So there’s a big gap in these things. Um, so it depends on the task. But when…
Sara:00:17:01
Yep.
James:00:17:01
…you get people comfortable with it, I think to go back to your specific point, I think if we’re going to help frontline employees or any employees serve their customers better with the proper use of AI, we need to look at what involvement is going to have with customers, whether it’s AI on its own surface through a chatbot or a more intelligent…
Sara:00:17:19
Yeah.
James:00:17:19
…one than we have maybe now. Um, whether it’s completely human and the situation has that kind of severity that you need to go to a completely human interaction, or is it human assisted by AI,
Sara:00:17:31
Yeah.
James:00:17:31
Which hits a nice middle ground and makes everyone feel better and hopefully gets to a quick resolution.
Sara:00:17:37
Yeah. I think that it’s kind of interesting just the way our conversation has progressed. When we think about some of the initial findings that you highlighted at the top of our discussion around, you know, it’s great. Consumers think it’s great when they can deal with things quickly or check in on things that are low risk, easy and convenient for them to do. But the second it becomes a bigger task or a more immediate need, having that human interaction is so key, and so keeping that top of mind when we think about how AI is going to change our industry, it really shouldn’t, I guess, be surprising that the the way to attack it is to make your frontline employees your most key kind of, um, faces of your company, assist your customers and the most important and opportune moments. But to do so with the assistance of kind of the latest and greatest in terms of technology and that ultimately, you know, marries up the solution that, you know, consumers seem to indicate they’re preferring, if you can maybe take some stretches or some liberties with some of the insights that you’re gleaning out of your more broader study on preferences.
James:00:18:44
Yeah. And how often? How often do we hear people saying, well, the front line understand. They understand the customer. They’re closest to the…
Sara:00:18:50
Right.
James:00:18:50
…customer. They know. They know the answers. Um, therefore, we must listen to the front line. I think the trouble is, we keep saying we must listen to the front line. And I’m not so sure we do a lot…
Sara:00:19:02
Right.
James:00:19:02
…of the time. And this this is something else that that, as you were talking, came back into my mind, which is why I bring it up, because in that researcher from employee experience around frontline compared to non-frontline, one of the big things that they said that they weren’t happy with was not being sufficiently recognized. And…
Sara:00:19:18
Yeah.
James:00:19:18
…that’s not in reward and pay, although one’s always near the top, no one’s ever happy with the amount they get paid. Of course you’re not, um, because you spend up to that limit usually. But, um, if sufficiently recognized in that to be heard.
Sara:00:19:31
Yeah.
James:00:19:32
Um, we’re listening to you. We’re actively listening. And importantly, we’re taking action on what we hear from you. And that also came out in, um, that same study where we were asking if employees, if we were to look across the internal systems that you use, Slack, Teams, whatever you use for chat,
Sara:00:19:50
Yep.
James:00:19:50
…all sorts of different things out there now to collaborate. If we were to look across those systems with another system and glean insights from that, to gain internal engagement or internal experience and take action upon that, how comfortable would you be with that? And it was a surprising amount that said they’d be comfortable with it, but it always had the caveat on the back of that that I’m comfortable with it, as long as you’re going to really listen and you’re going to take action and you’re going to notice…
Sara:00:20:18
Right.
James:00:20:18
…and what you do. So it’s that closed loop thing going on again with employees.
Sara:00:20:21
Same way. Yep.
James:00:20:22
Same way again. Um, and they look for that. Whereas if you’re just going to listen and then not actually take action then no, actually I don’t want you in those things. There was quite a lot of gray areas around social media because of course that is private. But it’s also you work for the organization that…
Sara:00:20:35
Right.
James:00:20:35
…you work for. But we know that companies are also scraping social media and listening across the different platforms where people are talking about them as well. So yeah, there’s a long way to go in in that kind of space. But what that does do is it opens up, um, a place for organizations to potentially gain a very another very big data set of experience data for them to…
Sara:00:20:58
Yeah.
James:00:20:58
…be able to look at and potentially take a lot of very insightful and, um, uh, impactful action against.
Sara:00:21:05
Yeah. If you think about it in that way, it’s like a, it’s what’s a channel in which I might not even be thinking. I’m providing feedback or I’m providing data in a way that could help the company. I mean, that’s where it sort of starts to go with me necessarily. Certainly if you’re leaving a review, of course you’re you’re giving direct feedback, but in some of the other ways in which you’re interacting, it’s like if I’m chatting with an agent, I’m not thinking of the full conversation as my feedback, but the way in which we can assess that today, you know, really that is the case many times as far as just how we can get smarter and where those break points tend to be, especially as it relates to human…
James:00:21:43
Yeah. And this is…
Sara:00:21:43
…versus self-serve.
James:00:21:43
…where we need to be careful. Definitely.
Sara:00:21:45
Right?
James:00:21:46
Reviews. Um, you’re prompting lots of thoughts in mind as you talk reviews. Reviews are an interesting one, and I’ve left a couple of reviews, um, last night for, um, a couple of different companies where I’d visited, and one of them came back with a response, which is always nice.
Sara:00:22:01
Right.
James:00:22:01
And I looked at it and I thought, that’s a canned response.
Sara:00:22:04
Yeah. It’s so obvious.
James:00:22:06
It’s so obvious. And you look back across the other responses and they weren’t identical, but they were canned responses, you can tell.
Sara:00:22:11
Yeah.
James:00:22:11
Now there’s there there’s some sort of potentially some sort of AI on the go there, or there’s a selection of canned responses that they’re doing. However, that immediately makes me you get a reply to your review and you think, well, that’s good, they care. And then you read it. And then if you read it, others you think actually do they though, because they’ve just deployed a system.
Sara:00:22:28
Right, right.
James:00:22:30
So, you know, humans are smarter than this. We’re not just going to be immediately fooled by something that’s got a bit of AI at the back of it. Um, and that’s why I think AI, particularly now has a role to play in supporting organizations…
Sara:00:22:42
Yep.
James:00:22:42
…behind the scenes, rather than at the front end when it it’s not going to take it long before it catches up on the front end is just like talking to someone, I’m sure.
Sara:00:22:51
Right? Yep.
James:00:22:52
But you can tell.
Sara:00:22:53
Right.
James:00:22:53
You can tell at the moment. Um, and this is where there was another key question in here around comfortableness with AI. But we could break it down to your point by country as well. And lots of us listening to this will be running international businesses, of course. And if you deploy you think you’re going to deploy a AI. And that’s nice and uniform. It’s a system. And we can put that right away across all of our regions. But you’re going to get a very different adoption rate. And this is something we learned from this. So when you look at somewhere like the UAE, it had a 68% of average of comfortable and very comfortable with AI, the use of AI at the moment. And you look at somewhere where I am like in the UK and it’s 35%. And there seems to be a very big split from or a very clear message that actually across AMER and particularly within their Europe, it’s it’s it’s much lower. It’s…
Sara:00:23:45
Yeah.
James:00:23:45
…much lower. Around half of what we see from places like Hong Kong 65%, China, India 64, Singapore, unsurprisingly, because you always feel like they’re at the cutting edge…
Sara:00:23:56
Sure.
James:00:23:56
…at 60, but almost double. So if you’re deploying AI through an international business, you can’t expect that same level of adoption…
Sara:00:24:05
Yeah.
James:00:24:06
…from the employees, which is of course, level of adoption is something that we will look at to make the success and get the benefits out of what we’re deploying. But it’s going to be very different in different places. It only averaged out across the globe at 48%. So, some way to go.
Sara:00:24:22
So, that’s right. Yeah. Not a one size fits all approach like many things. And in CX especially when you’re talking about a global rollout. But certainly something to keep in mind. And I think it proves why, you know, having, uh, studies and reports put out by organizations like the XM Institute are just so critical for CX professionals like the listeners we have here today. Well, I think, James, we’re getting to that point in the show where we ask our guests to try to distill, if you can, maybe the the one tip or trick that you would give our audience as CX leaders when it comes to consumer preferences in in channels and and where where they should focus their time, attention and be extra mindful.
James:00:25:07
Sure. And this is something that we’ve had a few conversations on lately. And it’s interesting because it’s kind of a little bit of a let’s sit back and reset where we are so that we can go forward against what I’ll say here. I would say if your time is right for you to do so, um, take a review of your CX program goals. And the reason I say that is because when we get things like it, disruptive technologies, um, like AI coming along, it can change the outlook of a business objectives very, very quick. Um, however, there’s an opportunity here for CX teams to really jump on that. And it’s been the domain of data science teams for quite some time. Um, but now, because of the way the technology is and the way that it seems to lend itself and embed itself in customer and employee experience absolutely, perfectly, it’s like AI was made for experience management. Um, we’ve got this opportunity, I think, to re-orientate our goals one, to make sure that they are ruthlessly attached to the aligned, to the business outcomes, to the outcomes of your organization. Because if they’re not, they won’t gain traction. We know that. But also there’s a huge opportunity to take AI and orientate the tasks it can do towards those goals, towards those business goals. And so I think now is a really good time to sit back, take a look at the metrics you’re having as your key outcome metrics. Make sure that they are ones that create business and are intrinsically linked to the value of your business, and then see how these new cool, disruptive technologies can come along and do quite the boring tasks that will orientate you towards those business objectives, which would make the customer and employee experience more the stars of the organization. You know, so that that would be my advice right now.
Sara:00:26:51
Yeah, what a great tip. I really appreciate that. I think a lot of our listeners can probably relate to, uh, just the buzziness of, of changing technology and AI and preferences that maybe get a special attention, but how to focus that back on the goal, why you’re doing what you’re doing, and how these new interest areas can help accelerate that. It’s such a wise, uh, take home value to leave our listeners with.
James:00:27:15
Yeah. And if I…
Sara:00:27:15
So thank you so much.
James:00:27:16
…was going to add one extra little one, if I could sneak one in there, too.
Sara:00:27:19
Of course please. Please.
James:00:27:19
I’ve already seen big companies take their standard or their traditional chatbot down and put a big shiny AI version up and two weeks later take it back down again.
Sara:00:27:30
Yep.
James:00:27:31
Because it was causing a huge amount of friction and not getting done what it needed to get done. Go think about that deployment, think…
Sara:00:27:39
Yep.
James:00:27:39
…about that deployment, and stay away from the hype, if you can a little bit. We’re working on a model within XM Institute that can really help people understand the business outcomes that AI will get for us, and…
Sara:00:27:52
Oh.
James:00:27:52
…the different kinds you can deploy. And we’ll be talking about that a lot, of course, in the coming months. But yeah, um, focus yourself on what AI can really help. And it’s not all about that quick deployment against those buzzwords.
Sara:00:28:02
Yep. Keep those North stars. Good.
James:00:28:05
Absolutely.
Sara:00:28:05
We’ll be. We’ll be keeping our eye out for that. I know that’ll be some data points that’ll help a lot of professionals have some of those internal conversations.
James:00:28:12
Sure.
Sara:00:28:13
James Scutt is a principal XM catalyst at Qualtrics XM Institute. James, thank you again for being on the podcast. For all of our listeners. We will link the study that we referenced in our conversation today on this episode’s show notes page. But James, if anyone has any questions about anything we discussed today and wanted to reach out and follow up, is there a way in which they could get in touch with you?
James:00:28:36
LinkedIn, by the way, the easiest. Yep, I’m just, um you’ll soon find me on on LinkedIn if you spell my surname correctly. Um, I’ll come straight up there in experience management and feel free to add me and we can continue the conversation. Happy to.
Sara:00:28:49
Excellent. And if you want to discuss this topic with one of our experts at Walker, or have a great idea for a topic on a future episode, email us at podcast@walkerinfo.com. We’d love to hear from you! Be sure to rate the podcast through your podcast service and leave us a review. Your feedback will help us improve the show and deliver the best possible value to you, our listener. Check out our website cxleaderpodcast.com. From there you can follow the show and find all our previous episodes. The CX Leader Podcast is a production of Walker. We’re an experience management firm that helps companies accelerate their XM success. You can read more about us at walkerinfo.com. Thank you for listening and remember, it’s a great time to be a CX leader. We’ll see you next time.
Tags: consumer study Qualtrics XM Institute AI study Sara Walker James Scutt