By Carter Busse, CIO, Workato
The typical customer experience (CX) today looks radically different from what it was fifteen years ago as retail, the service sector, and other industries have learned to anticipate the customer’s every desire before the customer has even thought of it.
Consider the customer service offered by a gym. Most gym memberships now come with a mobile application that offers a seamless CX, featuring omnichannel integration of virtual coaching and real-time statistics to measure your performance when using the physical equipment. You likely have access to personalised workout plans, the option to sync with a smartwatch, gamification and rewards, and 24/7 chat support.
Many of these features are built on new technologies; by embracing these developments and being an early adopter of tech such as artificial intelligence (AI), the CX industry has kept up and even anticipated modern customer demands. However, customer expectations will inevitably continue to rise, so the CX industry must go above and beyond to maintain satisfaction and loyalty across its customer base.
For this reason, business leaders are rapidly turning to seamless integration and management of systems, data, apps, and experiences, also known as enterprise orchestration, to boost efficiency and offer a superior CX ultimately geared toward customer retention and business success.
Keeping customers, driving success
Business leaders across all sectors are under huge pressure to deliver a curated, quality customer experience, so the efficiency provided by AI orchestration is highly impactful. It enables businesses to meet the customer demand for high-quality, personalised interactions and bolsters resources during busy periods, such as the holiday season.
Against the backdrop of the cost-of-living crisis, inflation, and general economic uncertainty, orchestration is an invaluable tool for customer retention. Businesses cannot afford to lose the revenue of their existing clientele, as attracting new customers has become increasingly competitive, especially since the cost of acquiring new customers can be up to five times higher than retaining existing customers. The pressure for organisations to deliver superior customer service and keep their clientele satisfied means that customer retention is the fastest-growing priority for companies implementing orchestration, as found by Workato’s 2024 Automation Index.
The perfect match
Customer retention has become the number one business priority and AI-driven orchestration is the ideal solution. Automation is inherently an experience-based process and thus perfectly suited to customer experience. Each element of orchestration translates to a smoother experience for the customer. Therefore, every time a business invests in orchestration, they are investing in the customer experience. In other words, AI helps to create intelligent, efficient services that maintain customer relationships.
Organisations are also beginning to understand the impact that orchestration can have on customer retention. Workato’s Index revealed a 226% growth of automation in customer support and calculated that, out of all automated processes, 30% focus on either the customer, employee, or end-user experience. Orchestration is being implemented successfully to track issues, field customer enquiries, and dramatically increase how quickly customer service teams assign the appropriate solution.
Orchestration in action
There is a plethora of ways orchestration can be implemented to benefit customer retention, enhancing efficiency across every stage of the CX from elevated customer support through service desks and chatbots to automating returns and refunds. Returns and refunds are the most popular element of the CX to be automated, as it alleviates the workload of managing a huge volume of inventory, especially as £27B worth of goods are forecast to be returned by UK customers this year. Orchestrations can also manage key customer touchpoints like the onboarding process or customer surveys.
The sophisticated personalisation that generative AI allows within orchestration can greatly improve customer interactions. In addition to 24/7 availability, generative AI trained on customer data and interaction history can be automated to provide responses personalised for the customer, in the business’ tone of voice. No matter the customer, an orchestrated interaction will be appropriate and respectful, as it has been trained to carefully understand an infinite number of cultural nuances – often a CX pain point.
While the benefits of employing orchestration for customer retention are clear, it is not a human substitute. Instead, AI orchestration is a natural workplace partner for the team to collaborate with to deliver a superior CX. Some research suggests that UK consumers often prefer asking their customer service questions to a human, with 77% having intentionally avoided an automatic chatbot. Effectively integrated orchestration, therefore, includes humans ‘in the loop’, maintaining a human role alongside automation.
Unlocking business growth through CX orchestration
One of the greatest impacts of orchestrating customer service is automating burdensome workloads so that time and resources can be reinvested in customer retention. For example, using AI chatbots as a customer service first-response ensures a personalised, best-in-class service, minimises costs, and also frees up the time of human support agents to focus on the most complex queries.
Orchestrating customer requests and other processes enables a team to prioritise business-critical issues like customer retention that drive success, growth, and revenue. The speed and personalisation in which orchestration is provided to CX can increase customer satisfaction, which in turn boosts loyalty. Customer retention is crucial for any company looking to remain competitive in today’s market and orchestration should be incorporated into any business strategy geared toward long-term success.
