Personalization overrules the one-size-fits-all approach. With the emergence of online services, coupled with advancements in AI, consumer demands have changed over time and businesses have evolved to meet these demands. 

In the age of AI, especially with widespread adoption of generative AI (GenAI), the workplace is changing rapidly, leading to increased operational efficiency, improved workforce management and reduced operational costs, while meeting sustainable goals.

In 2023, Gartner forecast that by 2025, 80% of customer service and support organizations will be applying GenAI in some form to improve agent productivity and customer experience (CX). 

From a customer standpoint, evolving services are helpful and can be customized based on personal requirements. Organizations are embracing AI for a variety of benefits today. These include implementing the technology in CX to speed up time-consuming tasks, build integrated process flows and gain insights on customer trends.

“AI enhances CX by intelligently managing data, which includes monitoring interactions and social media. While these capabilities can significantly improve operational efficiency and training, it is vital that we handle this data with the utmost respect for privacy, adhering to stringent data protection laws and ethical standards to maintain trust and ensure security,” says Mohsen Amiribesheli, Senior Technical Architect, AI Lead (Cloud Native and GenAI Labs) at HCLTech.

“Through AI, we aim to deliver hyper-personalized experiences that are not only tailored to individual needs but also mindful of the potential pitfalls of over-personalization. While crafting messages that resonate personally with each customer, we must also ensure these algorithms offer a balanced variety of choices, preventing the narrowing of user experiences and avoiding the echo chamber effect,” adds Amiribesheli.

Forrester expects that throughout this year and beyond, GenAI will give CX teams a huge boost, according to a CIO report. Additionally, more than two-thirds of service professionals, according to Salesforce, believe GenAI will help them serve their customers better, the CIO report added.

Improving CX with Behavioral Experience Orchestration

From an HCLTech perspective, hyper-personalization is enhancing CX across various formats, opening the window to Behavioral Experience Orchestration (BEO) that is at the “happening hype” stage and currently a microtrend of Internet of Behavior (IoB).

“BEO is pivotal in synchronizing customer interactions across all platforms, enhancing loyalty through personalized, seamless experiences. However, integrating GenAI within this process must be approached with caution to prevent over-dependence on technology. We strive to complement human judgment with AI, ensuring our teams retain critical decision-making skills and continue to drive meaningful customer engagements,” says Amiribesheli.

IoB devices, embedded in everyday objects, infrastructure and environments, are collecting vast amounts of data, providing insights into behavior, preferences and personalization, leading to adaptive learning systems. For example, a fitness app can be hyper-personalized in a way that suits people with different body types and skillsets.

AI recognizing users’ behavioral intent

This has been made possible with deep learning and natural language understanding capabilities of AI that are growing fast with access to more data and user behavior recognition.   

Behavioral Intent Recognition (BIR) enhances natural language processing capabilities, allowing AI systems to comprehend user queries and commands in a conversational manner. This natural interaction contributes to a more user-friendly and intuitive experience that helps BIR tailor CX and deliver more accurate content based on individual user preferences in real time by analyzing user behavior.

Based on their individual needs and dynamic user data, this enables the algorithm to proactively anticipate user needs and streamline the user journey. This ensures a more intuitive and efficient experience, as the enhanced AI and ML systems with GenAI capabilities can predict and fulfill user requirements in advance. 

BIR’s improved data analysis and pattern identification for accuracy and efficiency enhances engagement and ensures users receive information that aligns with their specific interests.

BIR is also paving the way for new-age human-machine collaboration that simultaneously enhances surveillance by detecting threats and preventing crime, prompted by heightened security concerns.

How agent experience is improving personalization

In healthcare, while AI chatbots and agents are assisting patients, semi-autonomous robotics are enhancing CX by providing a human touch — making automation beneficial in retail and healthcare sectors. 

CX agents are now equipped with tools that reduce their workload to execute their goals. This is driven mainly by switching between screens and applications to find the relevant information to engage with a customer and deliver excellent customer service.

“A seamless agent experience includes questions such as — is it easy to find customer information? Can the agent easily switch between interaction channels and can they access information to handle complex enquiries?” says Sanjoy Ghosh, Executive Vice President, ERS at HCLTech.

Today, the availability of customer data provides the details of a customer, what type of account they have, the products or services they’ve availed and the level of service and support to which they’re entitled.

“Our approach to enhancing agent experience with AI involves providing comprehensive access to customer data and interaction histories, which facilitates more personalized service. However, it’s crucial to balance AI support with the need for agents to maintain autonomy in their roles. This balance helps prevent a total reliance on AI, fostering an environment where technology supports rather than replaces human skills, and ensuring integration is smooth and effective,” says Amiribesheli.

However, enabling agents with holistic customer data, real-time sentiment analysis and transcription in each conversation is a critical step. This is where empowering agents with BEO, BIR and Behavioral Profiling is changing the game. Agents can steer their conversations to better outcomes with customer context and behavioral insights — taking hyper-personalization to the next level. 

With maturity in AI-ML systems, while proactive personalization has become possible, BIR tailors CX by analyzing behavior and preferences live for targeted marketing. However, if not implemented mindfully, BEO could lead to over-personalization, where individuals are only exposed to tailored experiences, limiting creativity.

Building hyper-personalization that lasts

“While hyper-personalization has been enhancing customer satisfaction, loyalty and engagement today, to amplify value proposition, platforms will no longer stay standalone in the age of AI. There will be hyper-connected ecosystem platforms that will help businesses stay ahead of competitors,” says Ghosh.

For example, HCLTech’s Bespoke is a next-gen agent workspace solution that equips Amazon Connect users with AI-powered intuitive omnichannel interaction capabilities to elevate agent experience and deliver operational efficiency. 

“Bringing multiple channels, real-time customer sentiment and translation under a single intuitive desktop interface or a single pane of glass view, elevates agent experience by empowering them to drive valuable customer conversations, simplistic agent workspace design and rich customer insights. This results in enhanced brand loyalty and customer lifetime value with positive experiences,” adds Ghosh.

“The Bespoke agent workspace is built to adapt. It’s interoperable with back-end systems such as CRM, flexible to identify and adapt agent screen based on incoming media type and has customizable agent view to accommodate growing business needs.”

Among business benefits that include hyper-personalization and omnichannel support, this gives organizations operational efficiency with decreased average handling time and improved workforce productivity. The enhanced CX includes improved customer inquiry resolution rate, faster and accurate responses and greater customer retention.