SALT LAKE CITY — While the growing power of automation gives companies more opportunities to change store and contact center operations, it’s not a replacement for people in customer experience.
Companies embracing AI are looking for the right balance between automated experiences and the human element, according to Anna Krementz, VP of client success and sales for NPS Prism at Bain and Company.
Leaders from Sam’s Club and Chime, a financial services company, discussed their approach to striking that balance during a Wednesday panel at the Qualtrics X4 conference in Salt Lake City.
While Sam’s Club is primarily implementing AI in stores and Chime in customer service, both recognize that people still play a key role in their businesses. Technology can streamline experiences, but it’s not a substitute for the human touch.
Implementing AI to reduce repetition
AI can reduce the burden of certain tasks on associates, call center agents and other employees, which in turn frees them up to spend more time with customers.
Walmart's approach to AI, which includes the implementations at Sam’s Club, is to use the technology as a way to empower its frontline while assisting customers.
“We firmly believe in the concept of people first, but how can we use technology to make things easier?” Eva Ouma, VP of data and business insights at Sam’s Club, said during the panel. “We really focus on promoting routine tasks that people really don't want to do.”
One example is Sam’s Club’s autonomous floor scrubbers, which not only keep the store clean, but take pictures of shelves and feed the images into the system, according to Ouma.
Associates can then receive alerts when something needs to be restocked, rather than roam the aisles looking for what needs to be done. As a result, floor scrubbers have eliminated 100 million tasks since their implementation.
“That's an example of how manual tasks get repetitive, and automating it makes life easier for the associate,” Ouma said. “Then what that means is associates are freed up for human interaction.”
Chime takes a similar approach in implementing AI at its contact centers, according to Chris Hernandez, speech analytics lead at the company. Its use of automation targets simple, repetitive inquiries, which reduces the cognitive burden on agents and leaves them better prepared for more complex customer calls.
However, Chime had to put in the work before it knew which kinds of queries were best suited for automation, according to Hernandez. The company drew on its strong data backbone to study where and how AI could be applied in the contact center.
“We try to make sure that whatever we're trying to automate, we do a good job at understanding the downstream impact,” Hernandez said. “I think a lot of companies want speed to market and when they want to launch AI, they just launch it. But we want to make sure the impact is apparent.”
Customers want to talk to people
AI can walk a fine line between helpful and frustrating. While customers may appreciate the convenience of automated assistance, they don’t want to feel like AI is removing the human element.
While it can be tempting to route as many customer service queries through AI as possible as a cost-saving measure, most customers still prefer live agents.
AI is at its best when it’s combined with the option for live support, according to Hernandez. When AI is a good fit it can save customers time and the business money, but only when applied to the right points of friction.
“I think some companies should be cautious about overrelying on automation to try to solve every single problem,” Hernandez said. “It shouldn’t start with using AI as your first contact. Look at the people and processes and understand, ‘Can AI solve for this?’”
Many Sam’s Club customers have embraced its scan-and-go technology to shop and leave without waiting for a cashier, according to Ouma. In these cases, their only human interaction is an associate thanking them as they leave.
However, each store still has a member service desk available for anything customers need, according to Ouma. Shoppers can visit if they need help with something, if they want to report a problem, or even if they simply want to ask another person a question.
