Qualtrics uses AI to analyze customer needs for better CX
Qualtrics unveils new generative AI tools to minimize time spent searching for and disseminating customer feedback and creating text responses to increase brand loyalty.
The experience management vendor said Tuesday at a press briefing it will invest $500 million in AI capabilities over the next four years.
It also unveiled its updated platform, XM/os2, which lets users access tools supported by Qualtrics AI and generative AI in all Qualtrics products.
Building emotional intelligence
In addition, Qualtrics released and unveiled a slew of new generative AI-backed tools to improve CX by aiming to replicate the emotional intelligence and discernment of a human.
One tool can decipher sentiment in customer feedback videos. Another can suggest automated text responses and action steps for agents responding to a dissatisfied client.
"Like humans, AI can learn from experiences, it can adapt to changing circumstances, and for the first time, it's able to understand human emotion," said Qualtrics CEO Zig Serafin. "It can enable empathy and connection in entirely new ways, and it can align with human values, even when a human is not at the wheel."
Such capabilities illuminate the waning divide between man and machine as androids become more anthropoid -- at least over text.
Like most generative AI tools that have mossed over the tech landscape, Qualtrics' new offerings can create suggested responses, text summaries and graphic representations of data.
In Qualtrics' case, its goal is to simplify experience management and increase personalization and brand loyalty.
Quickly identifying customer sentiment
Christina Sansone, vice president of CX transformation at DISH Network VP of CX transformation, highlighted the new Qualtrics XM Video Feedback capability, which analyzes and summarizes customer feedback videos.
Qualtrics XM Video Feedback can generate transcriptions, detect subjects' sentiments and emotional intensity, and organize subject matter into topics and chapters. It shortens the time it takes to disseminate customer videos and create a feedback reel from a month to minutes, according to Sansone.
The ability to share the voice of customers across our organization faster, and be able to respond to feedback more efficiently, is going to make a huge difference for us.
Christina SansoneVice president of CX Transformation, DISH Network
"The ability to share the voice of customers across our organization faster, and be able to respond to feedback more efficiently, is going to make a huge difference for us," Sansone said.
Video Feedback automated summary capabilities are now available for early-access customers and will be generally available Aug. 15, according to Qualtrics.
Responding to dissatisfied customers
Qualtrics Frontline Team Assist, which captures and analyzes agent calls, also got a new generative AI capability.
This new tool helps mollify unhappy customers who have shared grievances on social media. Instead of relying on a team member to sift through social media posts to find a dissatisfied customer, the new Frontline Team Assist tool quickly identifies critical posts about a company and drafts empathetic messages with specific product offerings that relate to the customer's complaint, membership level and activity history.
Another similar new tool is Real-Time Agent Assist for contact center workers. Real-Time Agent Assist also makes suggestions based on the customer's complaint and relationship with the company.
For example, when interacting over chat with a platinum loyalty user whose luggage was delayed, Real Time Agent Assist suggested issuing a $200 electronic Visa gift card to the customer, to smooth the experience.
These generative AI capabilities in Frontline Team Assist and Real-Time Agent Assist will be generally available in 2024, according to Qualtrics.
Getting closer to customers with genAI
Such real-time interaction assistance tools were most memorable for Forrester analyst Richard Saunders, who attended the press briefing.
"The most unique features, from a core customer feedback perspective, were those for dynamic feedback capabilities," Saunders said.
However, it's important that organizations provide adequate supervision to these tools to minimize unsuitable responses, Saunders added. But he said he also sees the benefits of using generative AI for tasks with closer customer contact.
"While risk is associated with this approach, it is also innovative in connecting language, predictive and generative AI uses to measure, analyze and orchestrate experiences in an automated way," Saunders said. "Execution will be the key to proving the value of these new solutions in the wild with Qualtrics' customers."
Mary Reines is a news writer covering customer experience and unified communications for TechTarget Editorial. Before TechTarget, Reines was arts editor at the Marblehead Reporter.
