Artificial Intelligence is the Key to Improve Customer Experience at Scale

Lou Senko, SVP & CAO at Q2ebanking

Lou Senko, SVP & CAO at Q2ebanking

In early August, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) released its consumer complaint data from February, which was delayed partly due to the increase in complaints. The department received 6,644 airline service complaints in February of this year — nearly double the 3,735 complaints received for the same month in 2022. The data’s release coincided with the announcement that the DOT is investigating several domestic air carriers for what it terms ‘unrealistic scheduling of flights.’ 

The newest DOT investigation was prompted in part by the massive disruptions passengers have faced over this summer’s busy travel season. 

During the four-day period from June 24 to 27, 31,850 flights (a third of all flights nationwide) were delayed. That’s a 25 percent increase from the same period in 2022. During the same four days this year, 6,346 (1 in 17) scheduled flights were canceled. That’s a whopping 374 percent increase over the same period in 2019. 

While some delays and cancellations can be attributed to weather, the bulk of the problems this summer are due to a staffing shortage, according to experts. A CBS News analysis found that the aviation industry has a current deficit of 32,000 commercial pilots, mechanics, and air traffic controllers — and the shortage is growing annually. This is where the DOT’s investigation of ‘unrealistic scheduling of flights’ comes in. Airlines are scheduling more flights than they can handle.

What's happening in the aviation industry is a microcosm of a larger customer experience crisis. Demand in volume and sophistication is at an all-time high, while the ability to meet the demand is hindered by the effects of the pandemic and the great resignation that followed. Though many organizations continue rebuilding their customer service talent, service delivery continues to lag behind customer expectations.

It’s time to re-emphasize the critical importance of the customer experience. In many arenas, customer engagement is exceeding pre-pandemic levels, and unless companies commit to being intentional with their efforts, they risk losing customers — and an important competitive advantage. 

What’s At Stake

Staffing shortages are not just affecting the airline industry. A majority (62 percent) of restaurant operators say their restaurant lacks sufficient employees to support its existing customer demand. Despite employment gains in the past two years, the restaurant industry is still 450,000 jobs (or 3.6 percent) below their pre-pandemic staffing levels. The tech industry is also feeling the pain, though in their case, it’s partly self-inflicted (there were 327,475 tech workers laid off between Q1 2022 and Q2 2023).

‘XLAs are the next wave to define what great customer service looks like and a breakout moment for those delivering these services.’

Financial institutions are suffering the same staffing and skill shortages as other industries. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 55 percent of financial activities jobs were unstaffed in July.

Any company that wants to remain competitive must make the customer experience a priority. A quick look at some numbers illustrates what’s at stake.

● Fifty-eight percent of American consumers will switch companies because of poor customer service. 

● Eighty-nine percent of consumers are more likely to make another purchase after a positive customer service experience.

● Ninety-three percent of customers are likely to make repeat purchases with companies that offer excellent customer service.

● Eighty-nine percent of companies with ‘significantly above average’ customer experiences perform better financially than their competitors. 

Worth noting is that consumers have their expectations set through other experiences in their lives. Whether it’s online shopping or streaming movies, the level of personalization has reached new heights and has set the bar for virtually all experiences.

● Fifty-four percent of consumers say they expect all experiences to be personalized.

● Sixty-three percent of consumers expect businesses to know their unique needs and expectations, while 76 percent of B2B buyers expect the same thing.

The expectations of excellent customer service have grown past a quick response to inbound requests. Instead, customers expect companies to respond in a way that is proactive, high-touch, and personalized. Every organization should know its customers well enough to target the best and most meaningful messages and deploy them to the right customers at the right time.

Unfortunately, staff and skills shortages at companies have not kept pace with customer experience expectations. 

AI to the Rescue

Modern platforms like Q2 are using technology (machine learning and artificial intelligence) to personalize experiences to make interactions more engaging without needing to increase staff. 

In Q2, for example, our products are being designed to deliver highly personalized experiences through behavioral and trait analysis that customizes and tunes the user interface for every user session. The stage is also set to morph how our customer experience is to be measured and how we respond to questions and issues. For years, we have been simulating the user experience with tools, then setting thresholds to alert and report on the success rate of synthetic tests under a commitment in a service level agreement (SLA). 

We have gleaned much valuable information from this exercise, but we must do even better, and that requires evaluating actual end users' real experiences, not just those inferred from tests. Embracing that challenge will require us to move into an experience level agreement (XLA), which will drive us to new levels of visibility, drilling down to the actual steps by each user in real-time. The data is all there – in logs and databases – but not yet currently meant to be used in this manner and not yet easily assembled. To accomplish our goal, we must map the user's journey through the application, plot each step on what success is, and determine what the thresholds for errors and latency are that result in a poor experience. AI is the only way to assemble this level of detail from the vast amount of data we collect and then pivot to real-time insights that we can action upon - no amount of people can execute with the speed needed. Learning which pieces of the transaction journey will impact the actual User Experience and what actions can correct it in real time is the improvement feedback loop AI offers. Today, our 250,000 concurrent users move over $ 5.7 million in 750 transactions every minute, offering a complexity that only AI can navigate.

Once the application journey maps are built and the visibility for surfacing the right concerns, it's imperative to set the proper contractual thresholds. The next step is to attempt to inform those thresholds with context from some sort of industry norm. This is a particularly tough step, as often there aren't 'normal' levels set around transactional level success rates.

XLAs are the next wave to define what great customer service looks like and a breakout moment for those delivering these services. This is a daunting challenge, however, it is worthy of our attention as we strive to enhance the customer experience for tens of millions of individuals.

Those companies that meet the challenge will be flying high.

Customer Experience

Financial

Artificial Intelligence

Machine Learning