Customer Experience Excellence – How to Leverage Human Intelligence to Enhance AI

At least for now, Artificial Intelligence (AI) cannot replace Human Intelligence – when it comes to compassion, empathy, authenticity, or genuine concern.

I asked the AI engine Bing to “demonstrate empathy.” Bing’s response was a rudimentary definition of empathy and vague references to “stepping into someone else’s shoes.” In short, AI failed to demonstrate empathy.

While authentic human connections have yet to be emulated or matched by technology, AI does offer considerable customer experience value. For example, I will be loading the last 15 years of my weekly blogs into my AI tool and asking it to repurpose my content. Over the months ahead, I will tweak AI drafts and use relevant redrafted content in future weekly newsletters. This use of technology allows me more time to leverage my uniquely human strengths in content creation.

However, to use tools well, we need to understand their best application. So, let’s look at AI’s customer experience strengths.

• Personalization: AI can analyze your customer data and create personalized experiences for each individual. AI can use your customer’s past purchase history and browsing behavior to suggest products or services likely to interest them.
• Predictive analytics: AI can analyze data to anticipate customer needs and preferences. This helps you tailor your offerings and promotions to suit your customers best.
• Sentiment analysis: AI can analyze your customers’ feedback on social media, email, and other channels to understand how they feel about you and identify areas for improvement.

By contrast, here are Human customer experience strengths.

• Emotional Intelligence: We can understand and connect with others on an emotional level, enabling us to deliver personal experiences. AI can recognize patterns and make data-driven decisions, but only a person can understand or respond to the emotional needs of another.
• Creativity and Imagination: People are imaginative, allowing us to think outside the box and create unique experiences. AI is limited by the data it is trained on and cannot generate original ideas or concepts without human input.
• Flexibility and Adaptability: We can adapt to changing situations and respond to unexpected events in a way that AI cannot. AI is programmed to follow specific rules and algorithms, and it cannot deviate from them without the help of people.
• Personal Touch: People can offer a personal touch that AI cannot replicate. Humans can connect beyond words, such as through a smile, a handshake, or a hug.

The future of customer experience excellence requires us to know when to deploy AI and when to leverage qualities that make us uniquely human. We must also be able to balance technology with humanity.

To blend AI with uniquely human qualities to achieve customer experience success, please get in touch with me at josephmichelli.com/contact.