7 Facts & Digital CX Truisms Of The Intelligent Business Revolution – People would rather have a bad experience with a machine than a human!

As we all look to a future where artificial intelligence and digital continue to collide to create ever better intelligent digital experiences it is worth remembering a few basic facts:

1. People would rather have a bad experience with a machine that a human, they expect more from a human! While people vent and curse at unhappy digital experiences they somewhat expect them to be frustrating, in fact are delighted when they are more than satisfactory. But they always expect to be able to escalate to a human when they get in trouble .. and when they do escalate they expect the human to help .. not just be kind and fail .. but actually help. If you aren’t going to help them don’t let them talk to anyone and if you are going to let them talk to someone make it effective.
2. The Intelligent Digital Revolution will take longer than the visionaries think – John Zimmer, Lyft co-founder says “self-driving cars will handle the majority of Lyft’s rides within 5 years, and all of them within 10 years’ – sorry John but phooey unless Lyft is only operating in NYC & SF!!
3. Escalations from intelligent digital experiences will require intelligent people – 2 years ago I sat with a global contact center leader of a major financial services company who when asked the biggest impact of the roboadvisor revolution they were embarking on said she now takes 1.2m calls a month from customers saying “I am on your website .. what the heck do I do now” and isn’t sure how to handle the escalation of roboadvisor calls.
4. Misdirection – one of the most powerful tricks / obstacles in the transformation book – The march will be slowed by additional ecosystem players, like insurers and regulators .. when the robotic doctor permanently disables the patient through an error who gets sued. That is a legal and regulatory issue whose wheels turn slow.
5. The first 30% will be faster than we think, the middle 30% slower and the rest takes forever – There are many millions of people performing simple tasks, just because they are cheaper than the simple automation available historically. Many of these people are computer assisted. As AI enables low cost automation of more complicated tasks these people will be gone first, very quickly. However, the core of jobs will take much, much longer as technology matures.
6. Offshore outsourcing companies and countries will be hit hard and fast – Many of the outsourcing strategies of the past 20 years have been simple “cheaper labor” strategies. The winners have to “better, faster, cheaper” not just “cheaper”. The major outsourcers already see this. Offshoring companies and countries need to uplift skills fast and even get ahead of this intelligent automation boom.
7. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link – many digital business models are ecosystems of interconnected companies and systems, connected by API’s (sometimes digital API’s and sometimes human to human “API’s”). Many digital processes fail because something in the chain is not sophisticated enough and not enough people understand the end to end process. Resolving these issues will take time.