The customer experience disconnect: Are you missing the mark?

In today’s rapidly evolving world, technology is driving much of our progress. Automation is delivering incredible efficiencies. And AI is opening up exciting new possibilities across all areas of business. During this era of transformation, though, the demand for a human-centred approach to customer experience has never been more pressing. 

Indeed, a recent PwC study found that while obvious things like speed, convenience and  consistency play important roles in delivering a good customer experience, 76% of consumers also crave the human touch and want to interact with real people. 

How do organisations strike the right balance between embracing the many benefits that technology has to offer, and delivering an empathetic, humanistic customer experience? It’s a big question, and it’s one that Australian comedian, radio host and self-confessed mathematics geek Adam Spencer was keen to explore in a recent webinar with Derek Laney, Technology Evangelist at Salesforce and Slack; Leah Rankin, Chief Product Officer at SiteMinder; and Tanya Faddoul, VP, Customer Innovation at Docusign. 

The lively discussion drilled deep into the conundrum that many organisations are grappling with today. That is, the disconnect between what technology is capable of delivering, and what customers actually want. 

First, what does great customer experience look like?

As Leah said, a great customer experience is all about giving customers what they need when they need it — and doing it in a way that adds the most value. This can mean different things to different customers in different contexts.

It’s why, as Tanya said, “Best-in-class customer experiences typically transcend efficiency or technical sophistication, and are instead about creating this seamless, really intuitive journey that feels both personal and responsive. It’s a blend of automation and precision with context and human touch; a delicate balance, a beautiful dance between those two things.”

So how can technology augment human actions?

Derek gave a great example of how organisations can use AI to help deliver more of a human touch. The average call centre fields hundreds of calls from customers each day, who are often calling because they have a gripe or a problem with the company in question. The harried call centre staff need to be on their best game, giving helpful and empathetic responses, time and again. They’re continually trying to think of the right words to say — and it can be exhausting. What if, Derek asks, AI is used to find the right words to make the customers feel better? Not only does it reduce the emotional toil and potential burnout of call centre staff, but it actually helps deliver the human touch that customers crave. 

Then there’s the personalisation piece. Technology can play a huge role in helping organisations deliver personalised customer experiences at scale. Tanya cited the example of a B2B SaaS company like Docusign. “If we see that a customer’s renewal is approaching, we can use AI to analyse product usage and detect where that customer might need additional support. So, instead of a generic renewal message, we could send an empathetic response, like, ‘We noticed you had challenges with X, Y or Z. Can we help you get the most value before your renewal?’

“These are the types of things that require both data and a better understanding of human interactions. It all points to deeper and more trusted interactions that ultimately lead to personalisation at scale and more high speed, high volume scenarios,” said Tanya.

Leah agreed, saying that AI is proving fundamental to helping organisations understand what their customers’ needs and behaviours are — and then responding in personalised and helpful ways. “For the first time, we can really understand what’s happening across multiple systems and different data sources. We can see the trends and come up with a much more valuable idea of how the customer is behaving and what their needs may be. But more than that, and this is where it gets super exciting, you can also predict what that customer may do in the future. And you can then put relevant and personalised experiences in front of them, that they don’t even know that they want.”

So what advice do our experts have for businesses looking to embrace AI and automation while maintaining a strong human connection?

According to Leah, it’s important to invest in the journey. She advises you to think about the evolution and how you can implement AI with current processes, automating mundane tasks to allow humans to have richer conversations. 

Derek suggests that you first ask yourself, are you a visionary or an incumbent? If the former, he recommends you dive straight in with agentic AI. If the latter, he suggests you follow what’s happening in the market, look at who’s doing the best and try to take a fast-follow approach, building your skills, capabilities and datasets to deploy these technologies.

Tanya encourages anyone who wants to explore this topic further to make a beeline for the Armchair Expert podcast, specifically the episode where Dax Shepard interviews Fei Fei Li, an expert on human-centred AI. “Li emphasises the importance of human-centred AI, and creating AI systems that complement and enhance human capabilities,” said Tanya. 

Adam summed it all up by saying, “The common thread, to me, seems to be that while customers are expecting more seamless and personal experiences than ever before, we are at an age of technology and automation that, if used correctly, can provide exactly that. The art or the science, or perhaps the art meets science of this, is personalising at scale without losing that human touch.”

This has just been a short summary of what was a truly fascinating and insightful webinar on customer experience in the AI era. Keen to get the full picture? Watch the webinar now.