Customers of communications and media service providers in Asia have given their critical judgment on use of artificial intelligence (AI) for customer care and commerce, and said how they want software robots or chatbots to serve them in a new study of over 2,500 consumers.
As part of the study, a survey of CEOs and other senior decision makers on AI spending at some of the largest communications and media companies in the region also revealed how plans for a rise of the robots for frontline customer interactions could be hampered by wrong investment choices and a lack of human talent. These are part of the findings from a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Amdocs in the Americas, Europe and Asia.
Love their speed and convenience but don’t force robots on us until they’re more human and smarter, say consumers
Nearly a third (31 percent) of consumers in Asia interact with virtual agents at least once a week because its more convenient (46 percent) and quicker (46 percent), but 47 percent say this is only because they had no other option. If offered a choice, 83 percent would prefer to speak to a human since human agents better understand their needs (81 percent) and can address multiple questions at once (60percent). Bots, say consumers, cannot deal with complex requests (their biggest problem), deliver personalized offers as well as humans (second biggest problem) or understand human emotions (third biggest problem).
Consumers also have strong views on how they want bots to look like and behave. Forty-eight percent prefer their bot to look like a human, as opposed to 20 percent who want to see an avatar. Although 43 percent of consumers don’t care either way, 42 percent prefer them to be female, rather than male (15 percent). Sounding polite (1), intelligent (2) and caring (3) are by far the highest in terms of preferred bot personality traits, followed by fully customizable (4) and funny (5). But, sounding serious and authoritative rank much lower than other attributes with only 14 and 12 percent of consumers, respectively, saying they would appreciate these attributes in a bot.
Service provider investments not focused on what’s bothering consumers
Service providers are not investing in the right areas in terms of their AI investments. Thirty-eight percent of service providers in Asia are prioritizing AI investment in increasing information security and privacy and 33 percent in speed of response. What customers rank as top areas for improvement such as bots delivering better personalization or more comprehensive information are lower on service providers’ priority lists with eight and four percent, respectively, prioritizing these. Thirty-one percent of service providers are also creating avatar images for their bots while consumers prefer human-like images. They are also investing in features that consumers don’t find as desirable, with more than half (56 percent) of service providers building their bots to sound serious and nearly a quarter (24 percent) to sound authoritative. The fact that 39 percent of consumers experiencing problems with today’s bot service don’t complain about it means the industry is working in the dark.
Inability to grow, not cut, human workforce is the biggest risk to AI strategies
Eighty-seven percent of service provider AI decision makers in Asia say that 85 percent of customer interactions will be with software robots in five years’ time. And almost a half of these decision makers (46 percent) fear they are lagging behind their competitors in the use of AI to improve the customer experience. To catch up, over a half (58 percent) plan to increase their AI budgets by at least six percent in the next 12 months and 87 percent intend to expand their AI workforce within the year.
But this expansion might still not be enough. Contrary to the common perception that tomorrow’s service provider will be run more by robots than humans, only four percent of service providers see AI as the opportunity to replace a large number of staff. Most decision makers (67 percent) actually see the lack of human skills to set up and run AI as one of the top two risks to delivering on their AI strategies, just behind technology not being mature enough (79 percent). A thirdare seeking external support, predominantly from their existing vendors as opposed to native AI solution providers (25 vs eight percent).
“Consumers have a good sense of how bots can serve them, better-developed than perhaps the industry’s. Their level of frustration with today’s bots is striking; a third even say they will take their business elsewhere if the poor service continues,” says Gary Miles, general manager at Amdocs. “The good news is consumers actually believe that if anyone can get AI right, the communications and media industry can. And that’s ahead of banks and retailers. So AI could be a winning gambit for service providers as long as they sync up their AI investment priorities with what customers actually want.”
