Author transcript
Sean Nolan: What do consumers want from AI in customer service and the contact center? That's the subject of new research from NTT DATA, and also the topic of today's discussion. I'm joined by Sashen Naidu, Executive, Head of Global CX Practice, Cloud and Security at NTT DATA, and he's going to walk me through some of the key findings from this research.
Hi Sashen, thank you so much for your time today, and I'm really looking forward to discussing the findings of a recent NTT DATA report. I'd like to start by looking at consumer attitudes towards the use of AI in customer service and in the contact center. So, can you start by giving us a bit of background about this report and maybe walking us through some of the findings that really stood out to you?
Sashen Naidu: Sure. Well, firstly, thanks for having me, and appreciate your time. This report was really a focus on both consumers and business attitudes. We focused on UK and I, and we interviewed 560 business professionals as well as 1,600 consumers, and we were really wanting to understand how consumer preferences have changed and what plans businesses have in terms of investing in a lot of the newer technologies. So emerging technologies like AI, agentic AI, and we were wanting to look at what progress has been made to date, as well as the levels of trust and satisfaction. So trying to understand how real AI adoption is being adopted into businesses and operations.
Sean Nolan: Yeah, definitely. Thank you. And in terms of findings from your side, was there any particular findings that stood out to you?
Sashen Naidu: Yeah, so in terms of the key takeaway, what we've seen is that consumers are not opposed to change. They certainly have a lot more trust in traditional methods of interaction, but they are showing an openness to innovation and AI. I think they are very realistic. They're giving businesses a green light to modernize customer service, but provided these technologies deliver real benefit rather than just operational cost savings. So, I don't think they're anti-technology, but they are certainly focused on trust. And a lot of it is underpinned by empathy and direct human contact. So new technologies will only deliver true value if they're built to enhance and respect that fundamental customer trust, with human engagement being key to that. So really augmenting and supporting rather than replacing.
Sean Nolan: Yeah, absolutely. I think if you go on social media, you go on the internet now, you'll see a lot of public negativity towards AI. But actually one finding that stood out to me was this kind of openness towards AI and this acceptance of AI when it comes to customer service and the contact center. So was that quite surprising to you to see actually that despite maybe what the media and the public are saying about AI, that actually there's this real openness and acceptance of AI when it comes to this specific use case?
Sashen Naidu: Not really. In customer service we've always embraced technology. A good example is robotics and process automation, RPA, and the contact center has always been a sort of training ground for new technologies because of the demonstrable value that it can add to a business. So I think our report and the findings confirms that customer resistance to AI is entirely a myth. The public is, as I said, not anti-tech but they are very pragmatic, and the consumer anxiety isn't about AI itself, it's more about the soft factors like trust, human empathy, and that to me is really important, that will always be essential to great customer experience. In fact, what we're seeing is that consumers are open, but they see a lot of the newer tools and capabilities as enhancements rather than replacements. And it's going to have to be a fine balance between technology-driven speed and authentic human empathy. So that is really important.
Sean Nolan: Yeah, absolutely. I think you mentioned there about, you know, customers still have preferences. They still have some factors that they keep in mind, like empathy, like authenticity. And I think that's actually shown in some of the research around the channels that they prefer to use. So traditional channels like phone calls and emails were actually quite high in terms of preferences, whereas things like a chatbot were lower down in customer preferences. What have you made of those findings, and what should business leaders take from that research?
Sashen Naidu: I think it just reiterates some of what I've touched on, which is business leaders need to recognize that customers strongly prefer channels that involve direct contact with humans, specifically phone, email, live chat. And the preference isn't just demographics, but really about the situation. So in an urgent or complex customer situation, they are looking for emotional reassurance and trust, and that dictates the customer lifetime value and churn. And we've got to shift our perspective from trying to retain customers to using technology to build communities of loyal brand advocates, because it is about the experience, and AI shouldn't force people away from traditional channels. It is about building a hybrid ecosystem, because AI can efficiently handle simple, predictable queries, but more importantly, it can augment and support human agents to deliver the high empathy, complex care that customers value. So how do you weave that together? That is the challenge that businesses need to focus on.
Sean Nolan: Yeah, absolutely. I think as something we're seeing at CX Today is that these hybrid environments where AI agents and AI tools can really augment the human customer service agents, and working together, the AI and the human can actually provide customer care to a really high level. So that's definitely something we are seeing on our side as well. I want to focus next on a question that kind of speaks to more of the advice for enterprise leaders right now. Based on this research and based on your experience and things you've seen, what are some common mistakes or challenges that businesses are facing when they look to roll out AI in the customer service and in the contact center?
Sashen Naidu: Yeah, I think the data clearly shows that the primary barriers to change are more operational and pragmatic, as opposed to technological or rooted in consumer resistance. A common mistake that companies make is trying to layer sophisticated AI tools on top of a deeply fragmented, siloed environment. And what we find is that results in an inflated, unrealistic view of customer satisfaction. For instance, in banking and financial services, we've seen that they've been overestimating satisfaction by about 16%. And the successful adoption of AI really depends on legacy modernization, because if customer data is scattered across disconnected CRM, billing systems, and other legacy infrastructure, all that happens is AI will automate and highlight these challenges at a faster scale. So AI still needs to have a strategic vision, careful analysis, clear architectural planning by leaders, and to be able to support that. So the amount of effort needed to ensure that a business has the right foundation is critical, because AI is fantastic, but it is only as good as the data that is available. So that we find is often misunderstood, that AI is just going to come in and fix everything. It certainly can accelerate things, but just as much as it accelerates the good, it also accelerates the bad.
Sean Nolan: Yeah, absolutely. I think definitely that foundation underneath the AI is so important, and as you say, it can exacerbate those issues, those flaws in the foundation, and actually then potentially create even worse customer experiences after that. So having that solid data foundation is really critical for AI to then go on and improve the customer experience. So, just a data point to share based on the report, we've seen 52% of businesses are having challenges integrating with their legacy systems, and that's one of the top three challenges, followed by data privacy and security concern, so that was 40%, and interestingly it was internal skills that was also cited. So it is really important that that foundation, like we said, coupled with people having the right knowledge and skills to be able to use that data, is really important.
Sashen Naidu: Yeah, absolutely, that skills element is also crucial, and I think it speaks to that this kind of AI colleague versus human agent tension and how to successfully optimize those two groups working together.
Sean Nolan: Absolutely. I think that's a really good point. Finally, I just want to ask a kind of a forward-looking question here. Fast forward a few years down the road, and NTT DATA runs this survey again, what do you think would be some major changes you might see in the responses and in the research if we were to do this research again in the future? Do you see any kind of changes in perspective, or in the challenges that enterprises are facing, if we look to the future?
Sashen Naidu: Yeah, absolutely. I think I would say not just in the next three years, but at the pace of change in the next 18 months, we expect to see a dramatic shift towards truly AI-native operations, moving away from just automated bots and agentics, to highly sophisticated, context-aware environments with human in the loop. So businesses that succeed will be the ones that heavily invest in foundational capabilities, things like AI-driven omnichannel routing, and we're starting to see a lot of the cloud native providers do that already. And we've seen a lot of the contact center business leaders agree that this has significant transformation potential. So it's all about organizations adopting agentic AI, customer journey analytics, because it'll give them granular, real-time understanding of what is causing customer challenges and customer pain points. We see the contact center evolving into a seamless platform where switching between automated support and live humans will be completely fluid and effortless.
Sean Nolan: Yeah, really exciting. I think especially what you mentioned there about having a granular view of customers and their pain points, that really enables the personalization and the sort of next level customer service from that, and I think that's a really exciting point that definitely we'll be keeping a close eye on at CX Today. But thank you so much for your time today, Sashen. It's been really great to speak with you, and yeah, thanks so much.
Sashen Naidu: Thank you. Appreciate your time and look forward to chatting further.
Sean Nolan: And thank you for watching. Don't miss another discussion like this by creating your account on CX Today.
