50% of Customer Service Departments Lack the Tools to Provide Automated Personalized Responses

A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Ada found that of more than 100 customer service decision makers in the US, Canada, and the UK, only 21% of those firms surveyed provide highly personalized automated customer service experiences. According to the Forrester Opportunity Snapshot published today, while over 90% of leaders agree that the ability to understand customer history and provide personalized responses beyond simplistic “frequently asked questions” are important factors in customer service success, less than half have chatbot platforms that enable them to build automation with empathy and accuracy.

According to the study, available for download here, most of the currently available conversational platforms that automate interactions across the customer journey are not business-friendly (i.e., are designed for implementation by IT users), cannot access enterprise-wide data to personalize interactions, and are primarily focused on providing answers to frequently asked questions.

Over half of respondents indicated that the chatbot solutions being used within their organizations must be customized by IT teams, leaving business users disconnected from their customers and making it difficult to create compelling experiences.

Furthermore, 50% of those surveyed also acknowledge that those business users which make up CX teams do not have a technical background, further feeding into the overreliance on IT. This results in customer frustration and negative experiences that lead to customer churn, according to 48% of respondents.

According to the survey, AI-powered chatbot technologies that can be customized and operated by CX teams are essential for companies looking to deliver a positive customer service experience. Ideally, these solutions will integrate into the larger business tooling infrastructure and make it easy to offer a high degree of personalization.

The survey results also show that when customer service interactions are personalized, the benefits include: decreased operational costs; more productive agents; greater visibility into customer needs, expectations, and behaviors; more satisfied customers; increased customer engagement; and more loyal customers.

“Based on feedback from our own clients, we know that the quality of customer experience has a direct impact on a company’s bottom line,” said Mike Murchison, CEO of Ada. “When customer service teams are empowered by technology and have access to tools that make it easy to personalize customer interactions, it positively impacts the success of the entire business.”

The Opportunity Snapshot was commissioned by Ada. To create the profile, Forrester Consulting conducted a custom online survey with customer service decision makers at enterprises in the US, Canada, and the UK. Surveyed organizations had customer service departments of at least 300 agents, receiving 5,000 or more inquiries per month. The custom survey began in February 2019 and was completed in March.

About Ada

As the market leader in Automated Customer Experience (ACX), Ada personalizes engagement across the customer journey by putting the power of AI in the hands of the people who know your business best. Ada makes it simple for non-technical teams to build an automated, enterprise-class chatbot that saves time, reduces costs, and improves engagement. Headquartered in Toronto, Ada enables clients around the world, like TELUS, Square, and Air Asia, to provide their customers with 24/7 personalized support in more than 100 languages

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