An optimal customer experience stands or falls with the quality of the processes in your organization and the alignment between those processes. If these are not in order, it can cause a lot of frustration for customers and employees. If you want to get your processes in order and stay one step ahead of your competitors, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the key. Guido Mulder, IBM Solution Advisor explains how you can start small but focused with AI and get your processes in order.
Unclear processes often arise gradually. They grow and mutate over the years and can therefore become quite elusive. Employees have to do a lot of manual work, there’s a lot of inefficiencies, and customer wait times are longer than necessary. With IBM Cloud Pak for Business Automation, you automate as many processes as possible without being stuck with a complicated and expensive process. You can use a suite of solutions for which you only pay for what you actually use. Within Cloud Pak for Business Automation, you can set your own priorities. Prioritize processes that are essential within your organization. But where do you start?
Quality of processes
Let me give an example of a bad process. If you want to purchase a complex product or service, such as a mortgage, the application often takes a very long time. On average, there is about 4 to 8 weeks between the consultation with a mortgage advisor and the final approval from the lender.
Wrong dates
It also happens frequently that information is out of order. A friend of mine is diabetic. At his first mortgage interview, he asked if this affected the conditions of the proposal because he didn’t see this in the offer. Only upon underwriting did it become apparent that the costs for his life insurance was much higher. A clear example of processes that are not in order.
No overview of problems
Another example is problem solving. Think of a wrongly delivered item, an error in a quotation or a recall for a certain product. If your processes are not in order and you are dealing with a complex chain of suppliers and partners, it is very difficult to resolve a dispute. There is a lack of overview, and the available information is often incomplete.
No optimal customer experience
Customers today are demanding in terms of service. They want custom personalized service. But if you don’t know customers well, it’s almost impossible to provide them with an optimal customer experience. The data may be there, but it is scattered throughout the organization, leaving the necessary picture incomplete. Especially in corona times, poor business automation was a major problem. Companies that needed additional credit had to wait for months to get an answer, let alone approval. Simply because each time additional documentation was needed or additional people had to look at the request. The result was that entrepreneurs got into financial trouble or even went bankrupt. With business automation, that request for additional credit could have been arranged quickly.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) can help
In all three examples above, AI can provide a solution. This really doesn’t require complicated, expensive processes. A small start often helps. Consider the use of a chatbot that points out missing pieces. Useful, for example, when a customer applies for a mortgage. This way, you can be sure that the customer has provided all the necessary documents and the employee has done its work correctly. A logical next step is, for example, robot-assisted process automation (RPA) in which the entire process of such a mortgage application is automated.
One step further is when you want to effectively address and solve customer problems so that you can keep customers on board. A lot of information is present in the organization, but hidden in silos. To unlock that data, you need AI. With it, all that information from those silos is brought together, linked and analyzed. By doing this you can identify problems, determine the cause and determine where the responsibility lies for solving the problem. So you can anticipate more quickly and offer a better customer experience.
AI also helps you anticipate future wants and needs. Indeed, AI can help you answer questions such as: who is that customer, what is the risk profile, what services and products did the customer already purchased, and what are the possible cross- and up-sell opportunities? In addition, all kinds of relevant external factors, such as market developments, weather conditions and, for example, a global corona- pandemic can be brought in. This allows employees to make a well-considered decision more quickly and, consequently, the process handling is also much more structured and faster. A customer is, therefore, more likely to (continue to) commit to you.
SoftwareONE is happy to help you design and manage your processes. We can advise you on the technology needed to design smarter processes and offer customers an optimal customer experience. During a so-called IBM garage session, I can map and redesign your processes together with IBM. We examine the bottlenecks. In doing so, we use visualizations and innovative tooling.
This is a submission from SoftwareONE. Through this link you will discover how to get even more out of the cloud and chart the right course.
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