Survey: Vast Majority of Organizations Intend to Invest In AI, but 44% Unsure Which Technology Will Best Meet Business Needs For CX

CallMiner’s CX Landscape Report finds macroeconomic pressures, technical challenges, and risk considerations are influencing investment and application of AI

CallMiner’s annual CX Landscape Report, conducted in partnership with Vanson Bourne, reveals nearly half (49%) of global customer experience (CX) and contact center decision makers firmly believe that artificial intelligence (AI) technologies will help them achieve greater efficiency to optimize CX strategies when under financial strain, and a third (33%) agree AI adoption will be critical to how their organization approaches CX in the future.

While the past year was marked with an increased return to normalcy – such as travel, more time in offices, and unmasked face-to-face interactions – macroeconomic challenges persisted, including inflation and a global cost-of-living crisis, affecting individuals and organization alike. The 2023 CX Landscape Report explores how modern organizations are strategically gathering and using customer data to successfully address these challenges, enhance CX, and ultimately improve results enterprise-wide.

In fact, the report found 45% of surveyed senior CX and contact center leaders strongly agree that they want their organization to do more with fewer resources in the current economy.

“In a year where most industries faced evolving economic pressures and rapid technology adoption, organizations have had to adapt their CX strategies accordingly,” said Paul Bernard, President and CEO, CallMiner. “CallMiner’s annual CX Landscape Report captures how contact center and CX leaders are navigating this shift, the challenges they face in collecting data and meeting customer expectations, and what more they can be doing to drive value across their organizations.”

Some advancement in customer data collection and analysis, but still room for improvement

While there has been positive momentum, the majority of organizations are still collecting mostly solicited CX and customer satisfaction feedback (71% in 2023 vs. 79% in 2022), compared to unsolicited feedback. Solicited feedback includes traditional methods, like customer surveys, while unsolicited feedback is contained within contact center conversations, social media interactions and more.

Further, there is still a significant number of organizations (45%) predominantly analyzing this customer data manually. This is a missed opportunity, especially when considering that automated analysis allows organizations to make more data-driven business decisions compared to those with primarily manual processes (61% vs. 51%).

“Solicited data from surveys or reviews only provide a small snapshot of customer satisfaction and sentiment insights,” said Bernard. “Organizations that rely on antiquated, manual methods for the collection and analysis of customer data will find it harder to uncover trends and respond to the evolving needs of their customers.”

Organizations are adopting AI solutions to understand customers, while considering the risks

Survey respondents indicated they’re looking at a range of AI-powered solutions to invest in over the next 12 months for CX purposes, including generative AI solutions (43%) and conversation intelligence solutions (34%). However, among those who at least have plans to implement AI, 44% are or expect to be unsure of what type of AI technology will best meet their business needs when collecting and analyzing CX data.

Many are also considering the risks of AI. The top three fears in relation to leveraging AI technology for CX or customer service use cases are: exposing the company to security and/or compliance risks (45%), spreading misinformation (43%), and giving biased, discriminatory or inappropriate responses to customers (41%).

“When used with appropriate safeguards and a well-defined strategy, AI can make it easier to deliver exceptional customer experiences,” said Bernard. “However, the most successful organizations will be the ones that combine AI-powered solutions with human-in-the-loop oversight.”

Internal misalignment tempers technology and data potential

Forty-seven percent of respondents strongly agree that digital transformation has unlocked a wealth of data for CX teams – however, more than two-thirds (68%) say this data is often not harnessed to their organization’s best advantage.

The report found many organizations are not doing enough with the insights that are being unlocked by customer data collection and analysis. For example, only around a third (35%) of organizations surveyed offer regular group training and retraining for their employees, and less than a fifth (18%) carry out tailored 1:1 coaching.

Organizations are also struggling to communicate effectively across departments. Half of organizations (50%) lack effective communication between departments when aligning on CX data/feedback, which is limiting the success of CX data utilization, with 43% citing a lack of clarity on how to act on data insights. And despite regularly sharing CX and satisfaction metric reports with their boards, 84% believe that the use of this data by leadership should be improved.

“The CX and contact center industries are constantly evolving,” said Bernard. “In conducing this report year over year, we aim to shed light on the challenges organizations are facing, as well as where the opportunities are for improvement and success. I’m encouraged by the progress that’s been made in areas like breadth of data collection and AI adoption, and believe that the outcome of these advancements will be better customer and employee experiences and ultimately, transformational business growth.”

Download the 2023 CallMiner CX Landscape Report here.

Survey Methodology

700 global senior decision makers from contact center and CX departments participated in the CX Landscape Report survey, including in the US, U.K. and Ireland, South Africa, France, and Germany. Respondents hailed from organizations that had a contact center with 100 or more employees across healthcare (public and private), financial services, technology, and retail sectors.

About Vanson Bourne

Vanson Bourne is an independent specialist in market research for the technology sector. Their reputation for robust and credible research-based analysis is founded upon rigorous research principles and their ability to seek the opinions of senior decision makers across technical and business functions, in all business sectors and all major markets. For more information, visit www.vansonbourne.com.