Nowadays, more and more smart devices are connected to the Internet and more and more people are using intelligent virtual assistants, such as Siri and Cortana, that guide consumers’ purchasing choices and are able to take charge of device operations, such as transactions and automatic payments.
As noted by Gartner, so-called “machine customers” represent the new growth opportunity of the decade.
WHO ARE “machine customers”?
As this market matures, an autonomous car will know when it has a flat tyre, find the nearest repair shop, book a service and send all relevant details about itself. The car will ask if you would like to place an order from your favorite restaurant and can text your family to let them know your arrival time.
There are currently over 7 billion phones, tablets, PCs, smart watches, smart speakers, and connected personal and business printers that can potentially act as “buyers”.
Each of these devices has an ever-improving ability to analyze information and make decisions.
machine customers IMPACT ON contact centerS
According to Gartner, by 2030, at least 25 percent of businesses’ purchasing and replenishment requests will be delegated to machines, which are virtual assistants or smart devices that perform customer service tasks on behalf of their human customers, such as reporting issues or gathering information. on the products.
These dynamics consequently have an impact on the current contact center and customer service model: by 2024, machine customers will generate 100 million requests for customer support, while by 2026, 20% of the volume of contacts incoming customer service will come from “machine customers”.
BY 2024, 100 million customer service inquiries will come from machine customers
Advances in conversational AI, automation, and low-code technologies therefore affect how customers will interact with customer service.
The era of machine customers will reset customer expectations on “low effort experience” standards, in which machines will communicate with each other to provide a service to the customer, generating a huge competitive gap between companies, capable of responding to these needs and others who do not understand what is happening.
DEVELOPING A MACHINE CUSTOMER STRATEGY IS MANDATORY
According to Gartner, to respond to the change, companies and contact center providers are called to implement a “machine customer strategy” which involves investments in conversational AI platforms to enable bot-to-bot communication.
As specified by Gartner,
“Organizations without a machine customer strategy in place won’t have a good way of distinguishing between human and machine customers. They may see their non-chatbot channel performance get worse without understanding why.”
Gartner
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