Digital disruption, AI and IoT in the CRM space

Colleen Berube, Chief Information Officer of Zendesk, talks about Customer Relationship Management solutions, how small and large companies should deal with them respectively and also the future that is shaping the industry.

What are the main things that businesses should take note while implementing CRM solutions? What are the common mistakes that they make?

When companies start putting systems in place, they think about the processes they want to automate. They will very often take a sort of inside out perspective. They think about it from running their department point of view or the process point of view. However, given the way that technology and markets have evolved, it's really important at this point in history to truly put the customer first.

Companies need to start with: What kind of an experience do I want my customer to have? What are they, given the kind of company that I am, and the kind of interactions that they're going to have with me? My experience is that a lot of companies talk about providing a good customer experience, but very often will make the mistake of not stepping outside their own enterprise and their own internal thinking.

Secondly, companies should plan for success. Even if you start small, assume that you're going to do well and think a little ahead. Maybe today you're only operating in a country or two. But a global mind set will help you make sure that as you get to the point where you do need to scale, you’ll be prepared to do that. This is one of the ways that utilising a service like Zendesk, a SaaS solution, can help you buy some of that global thinking and scalability by taking advantage of our technology.

Third, focus on open and flexible platforms due to fast-changing technology. The only thing a CIO can be sure of is that there's going to be a new technology, and it’s going to be better than the last one. The trick today is to put oneself in a position of being able to move quickly as things change. Then to be able to connect the data that's coming from all of the different touch points that your customer has with you. Your ability to bring that information together seamlessly and gain insights from it and make it actionable is the key to creating this amazing customer experience.

I was just listening to someone from Forrester and they were talking about how companies have to continue to improve the customer experience just for it to be okay. Everyone is consistently raising the expectations with the customers. If you’re not improving, you're going to drop behind.
If you look at the companies that are disrupting the market, the ones that are successful are the ones that have put the customer at the centre. If you're a digital transformer and you do not truly make that transition, you will not survive.

How do small and large companies approach CRM?

Sometimes smaller companies can think that they're too small to get something that's a little more tailored to business. On the flip side, large companies can think that they have to pay a dramatic amount of money to implement CRM successfully. Neither is really true. At Zendesk we have a very customizable solution. I think one of our key differentiators in the market is that it's truly easy to implement. It takes a fraction of the time that some of the larger platform companies might take to implement. It costs a fraction of what they might cost. We're really challenging others in terms of that traditional thinking about assuming you have to spend large amounts of money and time to implement CRM.

Also, when you're a larger business, you tend to naturally have a little bit more complexity to your business. Or maybe you have more products and services. Maybe you have a broader geographic span. You tend to have more departments that are specialised. By nature, there will be a bit more complexity to implementing CRM. In addition to that, you're more likely to use other technologies that need to connect. So, there is a difference. But the concepts are the same.

I'm also going to add something that sounds somewhat contradictory to that. On the one hand so many companies when they're starting with us go in for something hugely sophisticated and complex, even if they're not doing some of the most basic things. For example, if you’re trying to sell a product to your customers and they already have it, it doesn't require an AI to figure that out. So it’s better to start simple and build up the expertise in the context of your customer and getting more sophisticated in the process.

What about chatbots, Artificial Intelligence and their future roles?

There's a lot of conversation these days about computers taking over the world. Where we are today is that so many businesses just don't even have the possibility to staff 24X7. This is one of the first areas where AI and ML can really help. It gives you the ability to automate so many simple requests. We find that, even if you look at the AI that our customers use in our products, that customers are able to resolve an issue using our AI solution.

One of the fascinating things about this space is that if you ask people whether they want to have a human interaction, nearly three-quarters of the time they will tell you yes. But the truth is they don't want to. They really just want to get their problem solved. The numbers are much higher when people can quickly self-serve on the answer. This is where the opportunity is. But from both a customer experience perspective and a business perspective there is also the human interaction for where it matters the most. Like, there are those moments where there is that human connection that really leaves a lasting impression on the customer.

But I think that we will continue to see a lot of evolution in the AI space and it will become more sophisticated. We will find more and more ways to better satisfy customers with it. But I think the people's desire to have that human touch at the right moments will remain.

What about the Internet of Things and predicting problems early?

If you think about what makes up a customer experience, there’s a physical device involved, whether it’s a car or a washing machine or the refrigerator. The experience that you're having with that device is part of your experience. One of my favourite sayings is: If you get to the point to where you have a customer support ticket, it’s already too late. You already had failure in your product or service. It's not only a process of effectively managing that customer experience reactively, but starting to think how we can be more proactive.

Our new Zendesk Sunshine platform allows customers to bring together their information about the customer experience from their Zendesk products with other sources they have, including IoT data as well. It runs on AWS and it's built with open standards. It has three main components: Objects, events and files. It’s like, what do you know about the customer? What do you know about objects that might be related to them? That could be their washing machine. Or it could activities that have already happened. They give you a pretty universal way of connecting data, and finding all the relationships and the patterns that matter.

In terms of an IoT example, let’s take a scooter company service. You can rent these scooters by flashing your smartphone or stick a credit card in and then return it when you want. Imagine a scenario where someone has left it where it didn't belong, or maybe there's a failure in the wheel or something else is happening. Now that scooter company would really like to know if there's something going wrong with that scooter, particularly if it's rented out at the time. They can get information from the customer who's renting it, but there’s also the information that's coming from the scooter through its IoT device about what's going wrong and where it's located. The company can now proactively let the customer know that they need to trade it out for another if something is wrong.

There is more data than we have ever had. But there are better tools than there ever have been to analyse that data. It gives you a much more complete view and looking across your customers you can discern patterns that you were never able to discern before, which will put in a much better position to anticipate what their customers need. Customers would really like for more companies to be proactive to anticipate their needs, but very few companies are actually at that point of maturity and sophistication.

What about the integration of the myriad of social media platforms?

It’s the consumers’ choice which of all these social media platforms they want to interact with. Part of your job as a business is to give people that access and the channels that they want to be on rather than for the channels we provide. We just recently launched integration with WhatsApp’s business API. We're trying to open up more and more opportunities for our customers and to their customers. We recently acquired a company called Smooch that provides interaction with many of these messaging platforms. We're excited about the way that that expands channels that customers can use to interact with.

Regardless of how your customers interact with you, it could be a phone call, it could be an email, it could be through WhatsApp… What you really want to do is to bring that information together in a cohesive way. So when interacting with your customer, they can see the full context of the interactions. Let’s say you call because you have a problem with a product and they don't know that you also Tweeted or they don't know that you sent an email, because they've got their channels completely segregated. Then they’re not combining that to the benefit of the customer. Zendesk does a really fabulous job and gives you the possibility of bringing that information together in a really effective way.

What are some of the things that CRM companies should take note for in the future?

First, there is an ongoing wave of digital disruption and customer expectations continue to rise. There's a declining trust in brands. Companies have to start thinking about building these skills and have the right tools at hand, in order to be able to become much more customer-centric. Second, customers are going to more and more want to see that proactive engagement and companies need to take advantage of the data and the technology. Third, companies will have to leverage AI to drive customer experience starting with the simple things and moving to be more sophisticated over time, so that customers can self-serve as much as possible.