EDITOR’S QUESTION
DON SCHUERMAN, CTO AND
VICE PRESIDENT OF PRODUCT
STRATEGY AND MARKETING
AT PEGASYSTEMS
AN ADDITIONAL
APPROACH THAT
ORGANISATIONS
CAN TAKE TO
HANDLE THE
INFLUX OF
CUSTOMER
DATA IS BY
INTRODUCING
PROCESS
AUTOMATION.
s businesses continue
to rollout their Digital
A
Transformation plans
– which have been
accelerated by the
Coronavirus pandemic
– an inevitable side-effect has been the
explosion of data, specifically customer
data, as consumers have been forced to
shift almost their entire life online.
But organisations must not let this
valuable information go to waste – it can
be harnessed to help improve customer
interactions. However, because of the
increase in the scale and complexity of
customer data and the need for real time
insights, businesses need AI to step in.
Used wisely, Artificial Intelligence (AI)
yields a deeper understanding of
customers across different contexts
and channels. AI can read signals and
sense your customer’s unique intent – to
purchase, to upgrade, to get support,
even to cancel – before they act.
By feeding the technology with real-time
data, AI can serve up unique, relevant
actions – offers, yes, but also conversation
and guidance – automatically, or guide
customer service representatives (CSRs)
to make the right offer at the right time.
In highly regulated industries, AI can
also be an invaluable transparency tool
to demonstrate why you are presenting
particular offers to specific customers and
prove that no unconscious bias is at work.
An additional approach that organisations
can take to handle the influx of
customer data is by introducing process
automation. For example, this type
of automation can digitise forms for
employees and automate their routine
processes, meaning customer service
representatives don’t have to spend as
long trawling through information to get
to what they need. Instead, they have
more time to spend interacting with
the customers who need serving most,
providing a truly tailored service.
Lastly, as the volume of data grows,
organisations need to be sure they
have the correct governance in place to
guarantee compliance and keep customer
data safe. For any successful Digital
Transformation journey, governance is
an important aspect to have as it helps
organisations to properly manage data
assets and ensure they have the right
customer data processes in place. ◊
32 Issue 17
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