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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