Survey finds global leaders embrace AI & tech, while still investing in human capital

New Delhi: MIT Technology Review on Tuesday launched the report of its latest global survey “Getting to Iconic: How world-leading brands balance talent and technology for CX excellence”, which reveals how Iconic Firms use technology to improve customer experience and how artificial intelligence, despite its advancement, is not likely to replace human’s roles in customer service.

The survey interviewed over 550 senior executives across 30 markets. It reveals that Iconic Firms – those that both maintain the highest levels of customer experience satisfaction, and have world-leading brand recognition – are more than twice as likely than others to employ comprehensive, leading-edge technology solutions in such areas as Next Generation Self-Service, loyalty program management and ‘voice of the customer’ survey analytics. At the same time, Iconic Firms also understand the limitations of a technology-centric approach in managing customer experience, and value human capital investment.

In Asia, not many companies currently use top-notch CX technologies. But at least one-third of respondents from Asia had some CX tech in place, and nearly all Asian respondents have plans to implement it in the near future; in particular, 86% report some plans for AI

Surprisingly, some respondents from Asia’s mature markets are poor adopters; almost no respondents from Japan indicate that they have leading customer solutions deployed

More than half of the Asian respondents have no plans to implement self-service, privacy or user experience tools

Asia respondents indicate they are 10% to 15% less likely to perform aspects of omnichannel management, e.g. enabling customers to personalise their experience online