Artificial intelligence (AI) has long been transforming how companies engage with their customers. With the right AI tools and software in tow, like chatbots offering instant support and predictive analytics tools that predict customer behaviors and needs, businesses can create more efficient workflows that enhance the customer experience and cater to overall customer satisfaction.

Whitepaper

CallMiner CX Landscape Report: 2024

Discover how practitioners around the globe using data, analysis & AI to improve customer experience based on this landmark survey from CallMiner.

This guide highlights 25 AI customer experience examples and their benefits, including:

• AI-powered chatbots give employees more time to complete other necessary tasks, like training
• Companies can use AI to create hyper-personalized experiences for customers without compromising privacy
• AI translation tools can break down language barriers between businesses and their customers.
• Businesses can engage customers using AI-powered elements on their websites.

In this article:

• How can AI enhance CX?
• How AI is transforming CX: 25 examples
• Drive CX improvements with conversation intelligence
• Frequently asked questions

How can AI enhance CX?

AI helps businesses deliver more efficient, proactive, and personalized customer service, thereby improving customer experience. Over the past several decades, businesses have consistently found more and more uses for AI tools and software, including:

• Quicker response times: AI can automate many customer service tasks, like creating after-call summaries, routing calls, and offering self-serve options to customers, allowing agents to focus on speedier service.
• Around-the-clock availability: AI tools, like chatbots and automated ticketing systems, can respond to customers immediately and be available 24/7, whenever a customer needs assistance.
• Personalization: AI algorithms analyze customer data to provide personalized product and service recommendations based on user preferences and behaviors. These algorithms can also predict customer needs before they happen by analyzing past trends and current data.
• Data-driven insights: Businesses can use AI tools like conversation intelligence software to analyze vast amounts of data to make informed business decisions, such as what products to upgrade or whether to decrease the price of a service.

The 2024 CallMiner CX Landscape Report is here! One key takeaway? #AI continues to transform the contact center and #CX.

Findings reveal 👇
💡87% of CX leaders say genAI is key for their teams
💡91% agree AI will help optimize #CX strategies
💡and more!

Download the report ⬇️

— CallMiner, Inc. (@CallMiner) September 10, 2024

How AI is transforming CX: 25 examples

1. Holiday Inn Club Vacations uses AI to stay compliant. “Holiday Inn Club Vacations was trying to grow and take advantage of opportunities, but they needed help with compliance and making sure they were following compliance requirements for collections. It was a big task.

“With CallMiner, Holiday Inn Club Vacations now has just one person doing 100% of call monitoring to make sure they're in compliance with regulations. They've also been able to more effectively identify trends, hear what owners are telling them, and react at the agent level to their owners' needs.

“Within the first year of using CallMiner, Holiday Inn Club Vacations was able to pay for CallMiner 4x over, just using the silence feature, achieving a 5-10x ROI.”

- Holiday Inn Club Vacations Earns 4x ROI with CallMiner Call Monitoring, CallMiner; X: @CallMiner

2. Google helps customers try on clothes virtually. “Forty-two percent of online shoppers don’t feel represented by images of models, and fifty-nine percent feel dissatisfied with an item they shopped for online because it looked different on them than expected. Now, thanks to our new virtual try-on tool on Search, you can see whether a piece is right for you before you buy it.

“Virtual try-on for apparel shows you how clothes look on a variety of real models. Here’s how it works: Our new generative AI model can take just one clothing image and accurately reflect how it would drape, fold, cling, stretch and form wrinkles and shadows on a diverse set of real models in various poses. We selected people ranging in sizes XXS-4XL representing different skin tones (using the Monk Skin Tone Scale as a guide), body shapes, ethnicities and hair types.”

- Lilian Rincon, Virtually try on clothes with a new AI shopping feature, Google; X: @Google

3. Heathrow Airport has AI help manage its customer query workflow. “[Heathrow Airport] quickly jumped on the Salesforce GPT bandwagon, implementing several features now available within the vendor’s Service Cloud solution. Those included AI-assisted generated replies to service queries, case deflection, and automated case summaries. Heathrow supports these capabilities with relevant data and business context from Data Cloud.

“‘This is saving their agents huge amounts of time and effort,’ added Marc Benioff [CEO of Salesforce]. ‘[It shows] what our Service Cloud can do for customers, not only with delivering high-quality customer service, but delivering incredible new levels of productivity.’”

- Charlie Mitchell, Salesforce on the Potential of Further Layoffs, GenAI In Customer Service, & More, CX Today; X: @cxtodaynews

4. BloomsyBox boosted customer engagement using AI. “[BloomsyBox] used Generative AI to elevate their Mother’s Day campaign. Master of Code Global, in partnership with Infobip, developed an eCommerce chatbot for this purpose.

“The bot led customers through a playful quiz, rewarding those who answered correctly with a free bouquet. Winners could then use the intelligent feature to create customized messages for their mothers. This innovative tactic deepened buyer connections with the brand and skyrocketed engagement metrics. The initiative resulted in a 60% quiz completion rate, a 78% prize claim ratio, and 38% of clients opting for generated greetings.”

- Ivan Pohrebniyak, How 17 Global Brands Use Generative AI for Customer Experience Boost, Master of Code Global; X: @master_of_code

5. Chatbots help Sephora’s customers get what they need when they need it. “When it comes to customer service, chatbots can streamline a company’s processes and provide personalized services. Beauty products retailer Sephora® uses AI-powered chatbots to help customers with product recommendations, give skincare advice, and assist with order inquiries.

“The chatbots are available on Sephora’s website and mobile app, and they mimic natural conversations to produce relevant responses. The bots also learn from each customer interaction to improve their responses over time. By using AI, Sephora can enhance customer engagement, reduce wait times, and deliver tailored recommendations.”

- T. Leigh Buehler, AI in Customer Service: Revolutionizing Digital Retail, American Public University; X: @AmericanPublicU

6. Mercari’s chat-based shopping assistant gives personalized recommendations. “Now when you shop, just start a convo, and the ChatGPT-powered assistant will ask questions and serve up real-time recommendations, based on your conversation. It scours the Mercari marketplace to help you discover what you’re looking for – even if you’re not sure what that is.”

- Meet Merchat AI, your Mercari personal shopper, Mercari; X: @mercari_app

7. AI-generated concise call summaries help Telstra’s agents respond to customer needs efficiently. “Telstra is Australia’s leading telecommunications and technology company, offering a full range of communications services throughout the nation and beyond. The company’s ongoing innovation keeps pace with surging technological progress, making for constantly evolving services and products. Telstra’s frontline staff and customer service agents require a vast technical knowledge base in the face of this increasing complexity.

“The company saw an opportunity to help them respond to customers more quickly and effectively with the support of generative AI. So it developed two cutting-edge generative AI tools based on Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service. Even early in rollout, the Ask Telstra and One Sentence Summary tools are delivering promising results, with 90 percent of employees using One Sentence Summary reporting time savings and increased effectiveness, resulting in 20 percent less follow-up contact. Eighty-four percent of customer service agents using the Ask Telstra solution agree that it has a positive impact on customer interactions.”

- Telstra dials in elevated customer service with Azure OpenAI Service, Microsoft; X: @Microsoft

8. TGH Urgent Care reduced overwhelming call volumes by offering an AI-driven voice bot. “In the face of overwhelming call volumes, TGH Urgent Care powered by Fast Track turned to LivePerson’s Conversational AI and new Voice bot. As an early adopter of the Voice bot, the urgent care provider enjoyed a significant reduction in daily calls with 40% deflected to SMS messaging, boosted response rates, and has alleviated stress on customer service teams and front desk staff.

“TGH Urgent Care’s integration of human agents, artificial intelligence, and automated customer service has resulted in an efficient, streamlined patient experience, all while managing an unprecedented surge in patient calls.”

- Fast-track to value: LivePerson Voice bot AI delivers for TGH Urgent Care, LivePerson; X: @Liveperson

9. AI helps balance quality patient care with ethical responsibility. “Charles Jones of Pfizer discussed the imperative of integrating AI responsibly in drug development and patient care. Adhering to stringent guidelines and fostering a culture of innovation has allowed Pfizer to use AI to expedite clinical trials while keeping ethical and equitable considerations at the forefront, he said.”

- The future of customer experience in an AI-driven world, PwC; X: @PwCUS

10. Workday improved its latency by 5x using Amazon SageMaker. “Workday Inc. (Workday), a leading provider of solutions that help organizations manage their people and money, is highly focused on putting its engineering effort toward developing products that have built-in artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities. To help free its engineers from infrastructure maintenance, Workday adopted Amazon SageMaker, a fully managed service that helps its teams build, train, and deploy machine learning (ML) models for any use case. By using AWS services, Workday’s engineering teams can rapidly iterate and deploy complex models, including large language models (LLMs), to production.

“...Its engineers can fine-tune their LLMs with high-quality data by using Amazon SageMaker Notebook Instances to prepare and process the data to train their LLM models. Workday’s engineers then deploy their models for inference to achieve optimal performance and costs while reducing operational burden. For example, Workday used Amazon SageMaker to pilot a closed-book ML application that could analyze job descriptions, invoices, and contracts. During this pilot, Workday saw its ML inference latency improve by a factor of five.”

- Workday Accelerates Generative AI & ML Product Development Using Amazon SageMaker, Amazon AWS; X: @awscloud

11. Spotify suggests personalized music suggestions to listeners. “Spotify employs AI in customer experience to refine music personalization by delving into users' listening histories, generating bespoke insights, and suggesting tailored music selections. Since 2017, this commitment to AI has propelled Spotify into a new era of personalization.”

- How Spotify, Airbnb, & IKEA Use AI in Customer Experience, Enterprise AI Today | Virtasant; X: @Virtasant

12. Brinks used AI to make sense of customer data dating back to 1994. “Brinks is a 163-year-old business well-known for its fleet of armored trucks. The company also licenses its brand to a lesser-known, independently operated sister company, Brinks Home. The Dallas-based smart home technology business has struggled to gain brand recognition commensurate with the Brinks name. It competes against better-known systems from ADT, Google Nest, and Ring, and although it has earned stellar reviews from industry analysts and customers, its market share is only 2%. But its systems have generated a wealth of product usage information; its call centers have accumulated voluminous historical customer-level transaction data; and its field reps have been gathering competitive data since it began operations, in 1994.

“Brinks wanted to find a way to use all this information to accelerate growth and optimize every customer touchpoint across all channels, especially in its messaging, personalization, and delivery of the user experience. In the fall of 2020, working with OfferFit, an AI start-up, the company tested thousands of combinations of messages and offers, varying the creative content, channel, and delivery times.

“It reorganized its structure around customer acquisition, service, and renewal and began using AI to optimize service-call scheduling, help cross-sell recommendations from call center reps, and conduct customer outreach for wireless system upgrades. In less than two years Brinks increased A/B testing from two or three tests a day to roughly 50,000 (with the capability to add more as needed).

“This process has dramatically reduced the need to wait for test results and has allowed Brinks to personalize every customer touchpoint. During the first half of 2021, its average direct-to-consumer (DTC) package size increased from $489 to $968. DTC revenue per user increased from an average of $42.24 to $45.95 during the same period. Overall revenue increased 9.5% compared with the same period in 2020.”

- David C. Edelman and Mark Abraham, Customer Experience in the Age of AI, Harvard Business Review; X: @HarvardBiz

13. Lemonade cuts down on claims processing times with the help of AI. “[Lemonade] has implemented an AI-powered claims processing platform, which is designed to improve the speed and accuracy of claims processing.

“The platform uses natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning algorithms to analyze claims and assess the likelihood of fraud. The system is able to automatically approve certain claims, reducing the need for human intervention, and can identify potential fraud cases for further investigation.

“Since implementing the AI-powered claims processing platform, Lemonade has reported significant improvements in claims processing times and cost savings. The platform has helped the company to automate the claims process, reducing the amount of time and resources required to process claims.”

- AI For Business – 30 Case Studies That Led To Competitive Advantage, Digital Transformation Skills

14. Excscientia uses AI to speed up drug therapy discovery. “Exscientia uses generative artificial intelligence (AI) throughout the design-make-test-learn (DMTL) cycle to discover new therapies for patients quickly and relatively inexpensively. Conventional drug discovery methods can take up to 15 years and cost over 2 billion dollars, with an average failure rate of 90–96 percent because scientists hunt for specific drug candidates among 1060 bioavailable small molecules.

“Built on Amazon Web Services (AWS), Exscientia’s innovative DMTL solution incorporates in silico design—using generative AI algorithms to design compounds in the cloud—and automated robots that make drug candidates in a lab. ‘We use generative AI to solve for efficiency and effectiveness,’ says David Hallett, Exscientia’s interim CEO and chief scientific officer. ‘By predicting the molecular features of a safe and effective drug in silico, we minimize the number of costly experiments. Our platform, built in collaboration with the AWS team, is optimized for speed. We can repeat many DMTL learning loops, improving our drug candidates with every iteration.’”

- Exscientia Uses Generative AI to Reimagine Drug Discovery, Amazon AWS; X: @awscloud

15. Kelsey-Seybold Clinic uses AI analysis to better understand patients’ needs. “Kelsey-Seybold Clinic selected CallMiner Eureka, a conversation analytics platform, to gain greater insights into patient experience, call performance and agent performance. With CallMiner, Kelsey-Seybold can now automatically analyze 100% of patient/staff phone-based interactions to gain timely actionable feedback and guidance.

“This includes understanding if patients are struggling to book appointments, if they unknowingly need medical attention and more, and then using those insights to direct staff in real time to better support patients in the moment and deliver better outcomes.”

- Kelsey-Seybold Clinic Uses CallMiner to Improve Patient Experience with Reporting Automation, CallMiner; X: @CallMiner

16. DigitalGenius uses AI to organize and make it easier to respond to emails. “Having a person read every email a company gets to try to figure out what the customer needs and how to deal with it can be a very time-consuming task. That is why companies are using AI to speed up the process.

“[One] company offering this sort of tool is DigitalGenius with their core customer service product. Some companies are using this AI-powered technology to scan and tag emails to direct them to the right office. The system also provides agents with macros and clips from the best past responses to quickly create a response.”

- Jon Walker, Use Cases of AI for Customer Service – What’s Working Now, Emerj; X: @Emerj

17. AI plays an important role in breaking down language barriers. “AI-powered tools, such as machine translation and real-time translation services, are reshaping how businesses interact with customers. Advanced neural networks and deep learning algorithms constantly improve translation accuracy, enabling seamless communication in multiple languages.

“AI’s role extends beyond content translation. Sentiment analysis tools can interpret customer feedback from various languages, helping businesses understand and address customer concerns more effectively.”

- AI is Breaking Down Language Barriers in Customer Service, Reverie Language Technologies; X: @ReverieTech

18. IKEA’s AI chatbot allowed employees to spend more time on critical training. “IKEA, a retail powerhouse hosting over 882 million customers annually, faced a surge in online inquiries, overwhelming their customer support agents. Anticipating a potential crisis, in 2023, IKEA proactively addressed this challenge by launching an AI bot named Billie.

“This strategic move drastically alleviated the burden on call centers as Billie efficiently handled generic customer queries. The result was a remarkable shift – instead of being tied up with routine support calls, IKEA employees found themselves with valuable time redirected toward interior design training.”

- How Spotify, Airbnb, & IKEA Use AI in Customer Experience, Enterprise AI Today | Virtasant; X: @Virtasant

19. Amazon uses AI for hyper-personalization without compromising privacy. “Amazon Web Services delved into the importance of balancing personalization with privacy. Leveraging traditional machine learning alongside generative AI (GenAI) can create hyper-personalized experiences without compromising user data integrity, she said, emphasizing the role of privacy-enhancing technologies as crucial.”

- The future of customer experience in an AI-driven world, PwC; X: @PwCUS

20. Macy’s introduced a mobile assistant to address customer questions. “When you’re shopping in a big department store, it’s sometimes difficult to find an associate who can help you. That’s why Macy’s has turned to cognitive AI technology to help its clients navigate its stores and locate associates in a much faster way.

“Introduced as ‘Macy’s on Call,’ this smartphone-based assistant can provide personalized answers to customer queries. It can tell you where products or brands are located or what services and facilities are available in each store.

“This gives human assistants more time to deal with issues that call for in-person attention or to answer questions that are too complex for AI to answer.”

- Anna Rubkiewicz, 5 Companies Using AI for Customer Service, HubSpot; X: @HubSpot

21. Airbnb uses AI algorithms to present suggested stays to travelers. “While Airbnb allows users to search for lodging in specific regions, the platform’s AI technologies also work to find potential matches outside of the designated search area. To do this, the AI-driven customer experience algorithm analyzes a wide range of factors, including price preferences, previous stays, and trip duration.

“By presenting listings for a broad array of locales, Airbnb helps its hosts get bookings while also opening users’ eyes to new destinations. The result is an engaging experience that benefits both sides of Airbnb’s lodging ecosystem.”

- How AI can improve your customer experience in 2023, Adobe Experience Cloud; X: @Adobe

22. Domino’s helps customers order quickly using an AI chatbot. “Domino’s Pizza added a chatbot to make the pizza ordering process smooth and effortless. With the chatbots, customers can reorder or submit a new pizza order. They can also track their pizza delivery by chatting with Dom, the company’s chatbot. Besides providing engaging and straightforward communication, the chatbot makes ordering pizza convenient. No need to download an extra app to your phone, dial a phone number, or open a website to order pizza. This system lowers the bar for entry. In turn, Domino’s improves pizza sales and supports a better customer experience.”

- AI Customer Experience Examples: Real-World Examples of Putting AI into Your Customer Experience, Broadvoice; X: @broadvoice

23. Foundever implemented real-time agent guidance to improve collections efforts. “Together with CallMiner, Foundever and its client, a private U.S. telecom provider, leveraged conversation intelligence to provide real-time guidance for agents, improving collections outcomes.

“The Foundever team selected CallMiner RealTime to pilot a new real-time analytics program, assisting the telecom provider within its collections department. Real-time guidance within conversation intelligence leverages artificial intelligence (AI) to deliver in-call alerts to recommend the next best action for agents, while a conversation is still in progress.

“‘CallMiner’s real-time capabilities stand apart from the competition because they provide agents with true real-time guidance to drive specific outcomes or alert management,’ said Diluckshnie Jayawardena, Head of Customer Success, Analytics, Foundever. ‘Its ease of setup and open APIs enabled us to get up and running quickly and integrate with other technologies in our analytics stack.’

“Using the Agent Assistant feature within CallMiner RealTime, the Foundever CX analytics team built in-call alerts for agents based on challenging situations that impacted collections outcomes, including $/Productive Hour, Average Balance Collected, Average Full Balance Collected, Return Rate, and Average % Same-Day Payment.

“After implementing the two-month pilot program, the CallMiner and Foundever teams delivered significant results across five major collections KPIs compared to baseline for the U.S. telecom provider, including:

• 1.96% increase in dollars collected per productive hour
• 3.12% increase in average balance collected
• 1.90% increase in average full balance collected
• 2.20% increase in return rate
• 0.62% increase in average same-day payment rate”

- Foundever Bolsters Real-Time Agent Assistance with Conversation Intelligence, CallMiner; X: @CallMiner

24. ScottsMiracle-Gro associates can get personalized, real-time suggestions using a generative AI tool. “In 2024, ScottsMiracle-Gro started testing an app for field sales associates – their term, not ours – that includes an AI agent that functions as a first-of-its-kind “gardening sommelier”, providing highly tailored gardening advice and product recommendations on demand.

“Built on Google Cloud Vertex AI, the tool is available on mobile devices and allows associates to access product information in real time, replacing a 450-page training document of product information.

“Associates can ask questions in natural language prompts and receive detailed product knowledge and advice which they can then share directly to in-store retail partners or consumers. In time, ScottsMiracle-Gro plans to launch a consumer version of the generative AI powered tool.”

- Leila Hawkins, 7 ways companies are using generative AI in customer experience, CX Network; X: @CX_Network

25. Klarna uses AI for self-assisting customers and employees. “Klarna, a Swedish-based fintech company known for its ‘buy now, pay later’ (BNPL) services, has revolutionized its operations through the extensive use of generative AI. With over 150 million active users and more than 5,000 employees, Klarna processes over two million transactions daily. Recently, Klarna disclosed that 90% of its employees use generative AI daily, demonstrating the company’s commitment to leveraging AI for enhanced efficiency and customer satisfaction.

“Klarna’s AI journey began with the licensing of OpenAI’s models in 2022, recognizing the potential to boost profits and operational efficiency. The company developed its AI Assistant to automate customer service tasks and Kiki, an internal AI assistant, to aid employees across various departments.

“Klarna’s customer service AI Assistant was developed to handle a wide range of customer service queries, including refunds, returns, payments, cancellations, disputes, and invoice inaccuracies. This AI operates around the clock, offering support in over 35 languages. Since its deployment, the AI Assistant has managed 2.3 million conversations annually, covering two-thirds of all customer service interactions. This comprehensive integration has significantly streamlined Klarna’s customer service operations, providing real-time updates on balances, payment schedules, and spending limits, thus enhancing the overall customer experience.”

- Case Study: Klarna’s Revolutionary Use of AI in Customer Service and Operations, AI Expert Network; X: @aiexpertnet

Drive CX improvements with conversation intelligence

While organizations are adopting AI to assist with data collection, many still aren’t using automated processes to analyze #CX data.

The good news? As orgs fully implement AI, the percentage of those automating processes for analyzing CX data increases. ⤵️

— CallMiner, Inc. (@CallMiner) October 15, 2024

Artificial intelligence is a powerful tool to improve customer experience, but the right software is key to leveraging AI to its fullest potential. CallMiner is an advanced customer experience platform that leverages conversation intelligence to analyze 100% of customer interactions across all channels, delivering valuable insights into customer sentiment, behavior, and emotions.

These insights not only improve customer experience but also drive improvements across the enterprise. Book a demo today to see how CallMiner can elevate your customer experience with the power of AI.

Frequently asked questions

Is AI replacing customer service?

No, AI isn’t replacing customer service. Instead, AI can assist customer service agents in several ways, like handling common customer queries to reduce the time agents need to spend answering repetitive questions and offering detailed, automated call summaries for agents to use when responding to customer needs.

What is an example of AI for customer service?

One example of using AI for customer service is adding a chatbot to a website that can provide automated responses to customers. For instance, if a customer wants to know the company’s hours for that day, the chatbot can respond within seconds, giving the customer the information they need without the customer having to contact support.

Which companies use AI for customer service?

According to Tidio, about 63% of retail businesses use some form of AI to improve their customer service. Additionally, HubSpot reports that, of companies that do use AI for customer service, 92% state that it’s improved their ability to respond to customer needs.

Specific companies that have used AI to enhance the customer experience include Starbucks, Brinks, Airbnb, Amazon, Google, and Sephora.