Beyond Productivity: Using AI and Automation to Create Better Customer Experiences

When organizations approach Laivly for AI and automation solutions, their main goal, nearly always, is to boost productivity. And that makes sense, right? Productivity makes the world go ‘round. It’s a measure of economic performance, the favorable ratio of goods or services produced to the resources spent producing them, as defined by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Businesses looking to improve their economic performance focus first on boosting productivity because it results in actual, easy-to-calculate financial impact.

We aren’t here to suggest brands stop trying to improve productivity in their contact centers or CX programs. Average handle time, emails per hour, first response time — these are all incredibly valuable metrics that affect a business’s bottom line. They also make ideal metrics to target with technology, because so much of the repetitive tedium that inflates those numbers can be automated. 

But they aren’t the only business case for adding AI and automation to your contact center.

Look for Use Cases Outside Productivity Alone

Productivity is the number one driver of businesses seeking tech solutions. But what about key performance indicators that fall outside traditional productivity? How can AI and automation impact metrics like customer satisfaction (CSAT) or retention rate? What about things that are difficult to quantify, like customer loyalty? What new experiences can your brand create that are only possible with technology?

For example, what if every customer, after every call, received a personalized email summarizing what they talked about with the agent, the agreed-upon resolution, and any next steps for the customer or the agent. That just isn’t possible in most contact centers today, right? Agents already struggle to complete after-call work before moving on to the next caller; they wouldn’t have the time to draft and send personalized emails, too. But with automation and generative AI, it’s entirely within the realm of possibility. 

When you think beyond productivity, you can create truly valuable customer experiences that many brands don’t — or can’t — even consider. Naturally, this kind of experience can be difficult to quantify or measure, but that doesn’t mean your organization won’t see a benefit.

Focus on the Holistic Customer Experience to Drive Loyalty

At its core, customer experience is about creating positive interactions and building valuable relationships. When businesses look at their CX program as simply a cost center, they miss the opportunity to build lasting loyalty — and customer lifetime value — by delivering experiences customers just don’t get anywhere else. 

While there’s been a lot of discussion in the industry about the pros and cons of effortless experiences or the perceived-versus-actual value of “delighting” customers, research and studies show over and over again that customers just want consistency, convenience, and to have their expectations met. Imagine you could provide those personalized follow-up emails from the example above, consistently and for every customer. It would become the expectation — and something no other brand did for them. How far would that go toward building brand loyalty? How much would that add to a customer’s lifetime value?

Create a Roadmap with Diversified Use Cases

As your organization looks to add AI, automation, and other new technologies to its CX program, consider all the opportunities for improvement and create a roadmap that slowly and iteratively gets you where you want to go. This will certainly include productivity metrics, with good reason — but don’t forget to look beyond that. When you target a range of diversified use cases, including less quantifiable goals like customer satisfaction and loyalty, you set the stage for holistic improvements and undeniable return on investment. 

We’d love to help you think beyond productivity and uncover all the ways you can incorporate AI and automation into your CX program. Talk to Laivly today.