Unlocking the power of intelligent CX with Joey Edwards-Lebair of Zendesk

It's like we're witnessing a symphony. AI might have struck that first chord, but the melody is really made up of so much more. And to your point, we're just entering the era of intelligence CX, so we're just at that overture and it will continue to evolve over the next couple of years. - Welcome to season two of Conversations with Zendisk. I'm your host, Nicole Saunders. We're kicking off this season with a two-part series digging into Zendisk annual flagship thought leadership report CX Trends, which comes out on January 17th. This report covers research that we've done over the past year to understand customer need in the next expectations and what should be driving your CX strategy. I am thrilled to introduce my guest for these two episodes. He's incredibly well-versed in this research and is going to share some deeply powerful insights as we unpack the report and what all of it means. We have this amazing team at Zendisk that focuses on thought leadership and our guest is the senior manager of customer insights on that team. His role involves analyzing all of the emerging trends and providing research-based insights that are essential for customer experience and service professionals. He heads the research that underpins that report, which encompasses data from over 20 countries, covering both consumer and business leader perspectives on what's next for CX. Can you imagine anyone better to talk with us about what's gonna be most important for your CX strategy this year? Okay, without further ado, please welcome one of the kindest, most helpful and deeply knowledgeable people at Zendisk. Senior Manager of Customer Insights, Joey Edwards LeBair. Joey Edwards LeBair, welcome to Conversations with Zendisk. How are you today? - I'm good. Thanks for having me Nicole. I'm excited to be here. - I am so glad that you are here. So you work on the team that publishes our annual CX Trends report. It would be great if you could share with us a little bit about what the CX Trends report is, the history of it and how that research gets conducted. - Yeah, absolutely. So CX Trends is now in its sixth year and its entire focus is to identify and look at the trends evolving the world of customer experience to provide leaders insights into where the market has headed, both from the lens of CX leaders so where they're focusing, where they're investing, how they see technology changing the landscape and from the lens of consumers, what their expectations are from companies both today and tomorrow. And trust me, every year we do this research, consumers surprise me with what they expect. When it comes to how we conduct the research, it's really a global endeavor. We interview and talk with experts both within our own organization and CX leaders around the world to understand what's impacting them and what they're planning for. But the core of CX Trends research comes from two global surveys across 20 different countries, one with 2500 consumers and another with 4500 business leaders where we really try to validate and unpack the trends that we're seeing. And I'm particularly excited for CX Trend 2024 because we're going big this year. We've identified not five but 10 trends that every CX leader needs to know about from AI to data to immersive experiences. And we've doubled down because frankly, so many things are changing in CX right now, really accelerated by a ton of advancements in AI and other technologies, so it's such a critical year. - I've had a chance to review the report and it makes a really compelling case that we are entering the era of intelligent CX. Can you tell me a little bit more about what that means and unpack that for our listeners? - Absolutely, so over the past couple of years, we have really witnessed tools and capabilities getting smarter and smarter each year. But what sets this moment in time apart is really the convergence and synergies of capabilities and technologies coming together. While AI is a massive part of this evolution, it's not the only part where it is phased for several transformative elements or intersecting. The ad bend and application of generative AI and large language models enhance data capabilities that enable better and quicker experiences. And the platforms and technologies both consumers and companies use to create experiences are evolving and becoming more immersive. I get asked this all the time and I always like to tell people, it's like we're witnessing a symphony. And to your point, we're just entering the era of intelligence, CX, so we're just at that overture and it will continue to evolve over the next couple of years. - Love that metaphor, it's a good way to think about it. So as you said, AI is playing a starring role, at least at the moment, right? It's the hot topic do-jure. And now the report says that 70% of CX leaders plan to integrate generative AI into many of their touch points. I think when most people hear about generative AI, their first lot is chatbots, right? And I need to get support from an organization, I'm gonna be talking to a bot. What are some examples of the other ways that organizations are thinking about using AI? What are some of those other touch points? - There are so many different places and ways that AI can be leveraged. I mean, even within chatbots, like you mentioned, it's not just about the actual interaction, right? Which is AI, but it's about the chatbot being able to understand intent and sentiment. So that's also AI. Outside of chatbots altogether, organizations are giving their agents tools that have AI built in. AI that provides relevant information during interaction. AI that coaches the agent. AI that helps craft the message back to the consumer. CX organizations are also leveraging AI to help predict staffing needs or using it to detect fraud attempts. There are just so many ways that it can be leveraged within CX. And I think the one thing that's critical about leveraging AI in CX is ensuring that AI is infused directly into tools and processes. It's not something that's just tacked on. It's literally the foundation and baked into your experiences you offer and the tools that your team leverages. - Why is it so important that it gets baked into those tools? What impact does that have? - I think it just makes for a smoother process of using AI, right? It seems like it's part of something that always was meant to be there that the CX leaders were thinking about that experience and didn't say, "Hey, AI is really helpful." I mean, just kind of put it on top like I was saying that they're carefully selecting and mindfully selecting AI that can just making things so much more efficient and better for the customer. - So one of the trends that we heard in the 2023 report was that customers were really looking for more personalized, customized experiences. Can you tell me a little bit about how AI helps contribute to those experiences and what you're seeing CX leaders lean into as far as that personalization goes? - I think that for AI, one thing that we saw last year, right, was that they were using AI to create those more personalized experiences. One thing that we've seen really this year is that they believe it can do that, but they believe that AI can actually help humanize customer experiences too. So what we mean by humanize is being able to offer that personal touch during interactions, make them more conversational, make them more back and forth like you would with the normal human beings. We're really seeing that humanization become a major part of AI interactions in 2024. - It's so interesting to me how we're constantly talking about this kind of threading the needle of using more technology, more AI, to create something that actually feels more human. So talk to me a little bit about one of the points that was made in the report is that CX leaders, C-A-I, actually leading to stronger relationships with their customers. I assume that that's related to this personalization. Is there anything else about how they're using AI that helps with them? - There's a few reasons that CX leaders believe AI, particularly generative AI, can lead to these stronger relationships with customers like you mentioned. First, it's like you said, AI's ability to personalize interactions by analyzing vast amounts of data on individual customer preferences, behaviors, past engagements is unmatched. No one can really do that to the quickness and ability that AI can. This level of personalization makes interaction feel significantly more relevant to that person. Second, generative AI's capability for real time can textually aware responses, transform digital interactions into engaging conversations. Again, it's not just about, hey, I'm interacting with a bot. I'm having a real conversation, an engaging conversation with a bot. It's like having a conversation with a very smart, very close friends. Furthermore, generative AI can be tuned and even emulate human emotions. There is a balance in the degree that's too much with this, but it can do that. It can understand emotions, understand intent, which really adds that layer of humanization to digital interactions. And in parallel to this, it's everything that I mentioned before, right? AI is empowering human agents by having intelligence baked directly into those tools, which just elevates the human experience and that human touch. I will say the last thing that comes to mind for me is now that we're getting some really good AI experiences, the 24/7 availability of good AI, really that can help a customer wherever and whenever within a interaction, strengthens that bond between a customer and company because they trust that they're able to get the help that they need. So it sounds like everybody's really excited about AI, but we also know that it's been a pretty rapid change. I know that I've lived through the.com boom apps, some experimentation with VR, AI seems to just be like coming out of nowhere and changing things really quickly. And one of the things that you mentioned in the report is that this is actually really unsettling for CX leaders. They're excited about it, but they're also really nervous about it. How is this particular shift and evolution of technology potentially different from ones that we've seen in the past? Again, we have seen over the past year alone such rapid advancements in AI, eye that have just accelerated the pace of change completely. And unlike other height technologies, these advancements aren't just theoretically good or will be good in five years of X, Y and Z happens. They're good now and performing well now. I mean, if you go to Chatchee BT, if you go to Bard, if you go to Proplexity and you interact with these things, they're really good. They kind of blow your mind about how good they are. Number two, I think that the ease of leveraging these advancements sets now apart from the past. I mean, if you look at OpenAI last year, they release the ability for anyone to create their own GPT bot. You can upload documents. You can give it some parameters. And you have a pretty good GPT bot just within a few minutes. I know I've been experimenting with that. And I think what's beautiful about today's evolution is that consumers are also on board. They're interacting with generative AI. They're starting to see companies use generative AI to better their experiences. So they're actually urging businesses to expedite their adoption of Genai and CX. They've gotten a taste in their life. Oh, wow, this is great. Why can't everyone else do this? In one last thing, let's not mistake CX leaders being unsettled or cautious for hesitation because they're not hesitating. They're not just waiting on the sidelines. They're diving in, making strategic moves now, in placing big bets on AI for 2024. They're increasing their AI budget again with that focus on Genai tools and tools for their agents. And the good news is that those who are already adopting and have kind of adopted Genai early are seeing positive returns. In fact, 83% of them report seeing positive ROI if they're already using Genai and CX. Wow, that's a really positive number that's exciting day here. So one of the other interesting sort of dichotomies that was called out in the report is that with these leaders who are so excited about Genai, they're embracing it. They want to get everybody using it. They want to integrate it in their workflows. But their teams are maybe not so much on the same page. So when you looked at how leaders are thinking about AI versus how agents are thinking about the AI, the leaders are like, yeah, we got this. We're implementing things. We've been training people. It's great. And the agents, only 25% of them are saying that they feel like they actually have the right AI tools in place. And only about a third actually understand their company's AI strategy. What is behind that disconnect and what can leaders be doing to help close that gap and understanding? This is probably my favorite trend of the report this year because I believe the disconnect is so important to highlight and solve. The research shows that the disconnect stems from the fact that many CX leaders believe like you said, they have set up their agents for success with AI. They think they provided them effective AI tools. They think they've given ample training. But flip that coin and agents are telling a completely different story. They point towards a lack of adequate tools. So agents feel like they don't actually have the right tools in place to do their job better. They feel like they haven't had enough training, particularly around Gen. of AI. I think 55% of agents have said they've received no training on Gen. of AI. So you know, that really points to needing to explain those things to your agents. And this big disconnect here poses a major risk to CX leaders. They must address these issues as these issues not only hamper the successful integration of AI into CX, but can lead to a decline in customer satisfaction and agent performance. And to close this gap, CX leaders must ensure comprehensive training on AI tools, particularly those Gen. of AI tools, because a lot of times agents are just learning how to use these tools. They must provide AI tools that actually augment agent works and have that intelligence baked it right. We talked about that in the beginning and provide clear guidelines on what Gen. of AI tools agents can use and for what can they use chat GPT can they upload customer information into chat GPT. A lot of agents say they actually don't know what they're allowed to do when it comes to Gen. of AI. I think with this too, get feedback from your agents. Make them feel like they're in the loop. You're going to get some pushback when it comes to talking about AI with agents at first, but it will make for a smoother process overall. And then they'll feel like they can really champion and be part of the success of their own department's organization. So speaking of the agents, obviously one of the things that comes up a lot in this space is what the impact of AI Powered Chatbot is going to mean for human agents. So I'd love if you could tell us a little bit about what you're seeing. And then as the follow up to that, what are some of the AI tools that agents are asking for or want to see? If they're feeling they don't have the tools that they need or want, what are the things they're looking for? Yeah. So for the human agent, it's definitely an evolving narrative. Outside of CX trends, we just completed some separate agent of the future research where we surveyed CX leaders about what they think the future will look like that shed some light onto what this evolution will be. In the near term, some more like today or within the next year, agents and AI will work hand in hand with AI managing the flow of customer tickets, much like a traffic cop and agents are able to dive in to answer questions and troubleshoot problems. Again, very similar to today. But if we look at what the norm will be three years from now, the collaboration between agents and AI will have intensified greatly. Agents will morph into these deep specialized experts, product experts, data experts, and leverage AI as a really invaluable co-pilot. And together, they'll tackle increased challenges and complexities with AI handling more and empowering agents to elevate their service and focus on higher value or more complex issues. And if we were to say, hey, what does five years look like when we ask CX leaders, they think the horizon will shift dramatically and the roles will shift dramatically. Agents will take on this role of conductor where they oversee and manage AI-driven systems. In the future, the vast majority of the interactions that consumers have will be with AI. And human agents will be the ones to ensure that this AI approach remains grounded, customer-centric, and efficient. To the second part of your question about what tools do they actually need, they need tools that provide information to them quicker. Like if they're talking with the customer, they need help in what they should exactly say, what information is relevant about that customer. Anything that adds contextual information to the interaction, so that the customer they're engaging with doesn't necessarily need to repeat what they say. I think that if we look at the next five years, the tools that they need will transform and change, but it's getting agents comfortable with these more powerful AI tools today, so that tomorrow they can really master these tools. So that really makes a ton of sense related to your previous comments about how agents need to be trained. One of my favorite quotes from one of our previous episodes was a guest who said, it's not the AI that's going to put people out of work. It's the humans that know how to use it AI really well, where that is the risk. And it sounds like it's going to be really important for agents, human agents, to be learning how to use these tools, becoming specialists, and how to use them effectively, in really curating things in that direction. So for the chatbots themselves, how is generative AI transforming those? And what can we start to expect to see from the chatbots? I think chatbots for a long time have gotten a bad rap from consumers. And honestly, it's really understandable why we've all had those chatbot interactions where you're put an endless loop or where you're asked to restate the question 100 times. So customer sentiment towards chatbot has been low over the past few years, but now that's changing very quickly due to generative AI that's giving chatbots a much needed boost. Our research shows that 70% of CX leaders believe chatbots are evolving into what we're calling AI-powered digital agents that have the capacity to do so much more. So when it comes to what we can expect to see from these new AI-powered digital agents, these AI-powered digital agents can echo brand traits and embody attributes of your top performing human agents. They're equipped to analyze sentiment. They're equipped to analyze intent to ensure personalized, accurate, empathetic responses to your customers. No longer are they mere basic problem solvers. They are these customers' companions available 24/7 to really help build these stronger, deeper relationships with customers. And we're seeing these digital agents hit the market already. Last year Wells Fargo released a mobile financial advisor, aka digital agent named Fargo, who provides personalized advice to their clients. So the market is definitely moving in this direction, but the pace of adoption varies. Currently only 22% of leaders believe their bots are at this level of digital agent, but 60% of leaders think their bots will be at this level within the next year. Interesting. So it sounds like there's a lot of exciting things to come. Now, earlier in the conversation that you said, the consumer response is always surprising in these reports. What surprised you most about the results for 2024? I think the thing from consumer lens that surprised me the most is how open consumers are to companies using genitive AI and CX. We hear a lot of news of concerns of AI. And those concerns around AI are completely valid, right? From bias, from job loss, but consumers, again, they've gotten the taste of what genitive AI can do to the interactions they're having with companies and they're saying, "Hey, if this company can do it, why aren't you doing it?" And they're seeing how easy it is to you. use these tools, like they're going to Chatchy BT, asking a question, they're saying, oh my gosh, this is amazing. Every company needs to make it as amazing. So they go and they have those basic chatbot interactions. Here's an article that may help you or hey, restate the question and they're frustrated. So I think that's what surprised me most. - That's a great point though. I was listening to another podcast. I was talking about some of the recent developments in generative AI tools. And I started, literally writing a list of all of the things that I would love to go see if AI can do for me yet or that I hope that it will do eventually. So many people are playing with these tools, just for fun or just experimenting with them. And so there's certainly going to be an expectation of, well, if I can play with this on my own at home, certainly businesses should be experimenting and implementing really cool, really well thought out things with it. - Exactly. - What is the most interesting or fun thing that you have seen people experimenting with in AI so far? And whether that's out in the wild or things that you've seen at work, what are a couple of these cases that have sort of caught your eye or attention? - Yeah, I think one use case I thought was interesting. One of our colleagues was experimenting with an enterprise version of chat GPT and they created this little chatbot to help provide information about a specific initiative the company was having where anyone could ask that chatbot a specific question. And it stayed with an entrepreneur and only provided information that was uploaded to it. But it was a new way for employees to consume and find information. I mean, in research, I'm making very long insight documents and to think that now I can upload all those insights into a little bot and have folks just ask that bot questions about it is mind-blowing to me. - That's amazing, but it's so cool. I can't wait to start experimenting with that a little bit more myself. - Well, this has been a great conversation. And I definitely want to pick your brain some more about things like data and privacy and transparency and some of those things we've been talking about. And there's also some other kinds of immersive experiences with AI that we haven't gotten into yet. So let's continue this conversation on our next episode. - Great, yeah, I'm looking forward to it. (upbeat music) - What an insightful conversation. And there's more. Be sure to listen to our next episode where Joey is gonna walk us through some of the other trends that we didn't cover today. Be sure to subscribe so that you don't miss that. Just a reminder that our annual flagship event relate is coming up April 16th through 18th in Las Vegas. I am so excited for this event and you should be too. Registration is open now, visit zendesquerelate.com to secure your spot today. If you enjoyed today's episode, which I hope you did, please consider sharing with a friend or colleague or we would love it if you could write us a review on Apple podcasts. Thanks so much for listening and being a part of his Zendesque community. Until next time, I'm Nicole Saunders for Zendesque, the intelligent heart of customer experience. (upbeat music)