This year's CreaLog Summit took a look at the customer experience and focused on the opportunities for integrating artificial intelligence into this process. Presentations and workshops were used to openly discuss practical strategies for balancing competitiveness and customer satisfaction, so that the potential of AI is fully exploited and agents are relieved of routine tasks. The concluding panel discussion on changes in customer communication behaviour and their influence on the design of CX was very exciting.
Over two days, we were able to take an in-depth look at these topics. High above the rooftops of Munich, Day 1 kicked off with two keynote speeches by Stefanie Kolling (T-Digital) and Sophie Hundertmark (Hundertmark) on the AI future of the customer experience, followed by three CreaLog presentations on the topics of IN, bots, API, as well as on AI with your own data and on bots in Microsoft Teams.
Dirk Hutmacher (CreaLog) highlighted the added value for telcos and companies. The CreaLog Service Delivery Platform is the basic, omnichannel platform for enterprise and telco customers. The positive customer experience remains in the foreground even after system and platform migrations. The CreaLog Service Manager can be used to access the platform so that applications can be administered and processes controlled independently, all in a single platform. The decisive factors here are standards that offer the possibility of making adjustments and configuring processes so that individual, changing requirements can be implemented.
In his presentation, Dr. Bernd Plannerer (CreaLog) highlighted how companies can develop AI with their own data. On the one hand, there is the variant based on Conversational AI: the intent and entity of the utterance are recognised from linguistic input and the appropriate, pre-trained answers are given. This requires a large number of variations of the customer's utterance to be stored so that training material for CLU is available. The sentences and questions are available as example utterances, whereby ChatGPT can help to formulate this multitude so that tedious design work is no longer necessary. When using generative AI, there are no pre-trained answers to utterances, but associated answers. Here, the world knowledge of the generative AI is linked to your own data, which must be prepared and entered accordingly. The answers given are generated and enriched with the company data that has been entered.
The next presentation was given by Michael Kloos (CreaLog) and was about applications in Microsoft Teams. Teams has now become a central communication channel, especially as a customer application for network operators. On the one hand, Teams can be integrated via the CreaLog platform or your own voice or chat bots can be made available as apps in Teams. The presentation introduced three use cases: Policy based recording via Teams in the Azure Cloud, i.e. voice recordings for banks, in healthcare or in the legal system via network operators. Teams chatbots can be used as an easy entry point for AI in companies and can be made available to employees at various application levels. In addition, voicebots can also be integrated into Teams as part of a multi-channel platform, managed via the CreaLog Low Code Service Creation Environment. This enables voice chat as with telephony via Teams.
On day 2, intensive work was carried out in three parallel workshops. Anne Schilling provided insights into the importance of good Voice UX design. Michael Kloos created a low-code bot in five essential steps. While Anna Mutska tested the right promting for successful communication with ChatGPT.
The concluding, well-attended panel discussion addressed the transformation of communication behaviour, the importance of well-coordinated internal processes with regard to the provision of data for customer enquiries, and the relevance of multichannel interaction options between customers and companies. From a technical point of view, the appropriate platforms for multichannel interaction are available. What is important is a customer-oriented design and successful implementation. Developments are progressing rapidly and today we have possibilities that we could not have imagined two years ago. ‘Where will we be in five years?’ was the big question at the end of the discussion, inviting free associations.
The potential of AI in CX lies in personalising the user experience for each customer and making associated processes more efficient in order to quickly help the customer with their request and turn inquiries into experiences. Innovative, efficient and customer-oriented services that stand out from the competition through the targeted use of AI create competitive advantages for companies. Customer service is the field in which the use of AI can particularly develop its potential, since high communication volumes arise here and routine tasks are automated by bots and AI, allowing human employees to focus on tasks that create higher added value. The guiding principle for the use of AI, which Sophie Hundertmark coined at our summit, ‘as much human as necessary, as much machine as possible’, underlines this interplay between AI and employees, which maintains the balance between automation, increased efficiency and personal interaction through regular optimisation.
Technological advances that optimise the customer experience and ensure continuous improvement help to ensure that customers accept these technologies. Customers need to be able to get used to new technologies step by step and recognise that they bring advantages for them. The strategy for successful implementation is based on a step-by-step approach. Starting with the identification of suitable AI use cases to make the roadmap feasible and realistic. The challenge in many AI projects is the high complexity, which can be avoided by targeted prioritisation, making AI projects a success. In this new environment between humans and machines, it is necessary to adapt the IT system architecture using flexible platforms and to focus on omni- and multichannel platforms for the future. Customers must be able to use the channel of their choice to enter into communication. The customer experience is taken to a new level, with a consistent service experience everywhere.
Of course, your own employees must be trained in data-driven handling and receive further training in change management as the new technology is introduced. Not only customers have to accept innovations and be introduced to them step by step, but also in-house, competent data handling and acceptance of the new must be created.
