Revolutionising CX: The Power of AI and Cloud Collaboration

CX Cloud from Genesys and Salesforce

An integrated solution to improve customer and employee experiences

Staying competitive in customer service

Companies looking to differentiate themselves through customer and employee experiences must continue to evolve and innovate. But underinvestment in Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS), customer relationship management (CRM) and workforce engagement management (WEM) is hindering companies from retaining their competitive edge. For some organizations, employee experience (EX) is not seen as a key element in delivering a satisfying customer experience (CX), although this is quickly changing.

A global research report by Genesys, The State of Customer Experience, reveals the significant impact that disjointed systems and poor customer experience can have on brand loyalty. Most consumers (86%) believe a company is only as good as its service—yet only 13% of businesses have the tools and technology in place to deliver the experiences customers want. Less than half (43%) of consumers felt highly valued after a call—with 25% losing their tempers and 12% in tears. Poor CX kills loyalty—a staggering 77% will switch brands after five or fewer negative customer service interactions.¹

To stay competitive, service organizations must connect experiences and information across channels in ways that improve both customer experiences and agent productivity.

Rising expectations, growing costs and tech stack complexity

In addition to CX challenges, organizations continue to struggle with cost pressures and the growing complexities of new technology innovations. One example is the overlapping of artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities across multiple solutions and determining the ownership of digital channels between vendors. As operations grow and more departments have a stake in the customer experience, tech stacks and integration inevitably become more elaborate and complex.

DISCONNECTED EVERYTHING

Disparate technologies and disconnected systems and channels drive poor experiences and negatively impact the level of personalization customers expect. Data siloed in departments across the organization means you aren’t getting the most from analytics and AI. Without a comprehensive view of the customer journey, there is no carryover of context, and each department approaches customer engagement differently. Not only does this lead to frustrated customers, but employees also grow frustrated because they must search from system to system to find the information they need. Finally, slow implementations and the difficulty of maintaining a complex tech stack with disparate systems and applications delay time to value. A unified solution to view and orchestrate all CX and EX operations must be designed from the bottom up to increase efficiency; improve customer and employee satisfaction; and reduce costs.

RISING CUSTOMER EXPECTATIONS

Channel preferences are changing as customers become more tech-savvy with faster digital options for service. For some, voice is no longer the first preference and isn’t enough to support the myriad of ways customers want to connect and communicate. More than 70% of customers prefer different channels for service depending on context.² Meet your customers where they are—smartphone, tablet or laptop—delivering a great multichannel experience that’s unified and consistent across channels.

DOING MORE WITH LESS

Expectations are higher than ever for customer service teams, but budgets are increasingly constrained. Contact center leaders must balance improving CX against cost control. In fact, improving CX and efficiency are equally the top priority for contact center leaders.3 Additionally, many organizations struggle with a shrinking talent pool, and the need to work with disconnected systems often leads to high handle times and employee churn. Connecting your customer-facing systems can help streamline both customer and employee experiences. Maximize profitability by eliminating repetitive manual processes, costly IT development, and unnecessary ancillary applications.

Facing your challenges head-on

Addressing these concerns requires organizations to align the solutions and technologies involved—CRM, CCaaS, AI and WEM—taking an integrated approach rather than tackling them individually. A piecemeal effort can lead to frustrated customers and employees—and may do little to improve efficiency and operating costs. While poor CX destroys loyalty, the opposite is also true. Better employee experiences drive better customer experiences. And consistently better customer experiences drive customer loyalty. Consider these elements in creating and implementing a holistic CX and EX strategy:

A complete view of the customer journey:

Integrating data gleaned from all sources of customer interactions provides a complete and valuable picture of a customer’s concerns and preferences that can change over time.

Consistency across all channels:

With a single orchestration engine, smart workspace and unified reporting analytics, you increase the odds of delivering consistent, connected experiences. Seamlessly transition from self-service to agent-led conversations. Enable agents to handle all digital and voice interactions for all channels—with access to the same customer data and same set of AI tools— in one smart workspace.

Connected data to leverage AI models:

Use the growing amount of customer data and other information your CRM system and contact center generate more effectively. Leveraging your connected data and large language models (LLM), AI bots can have sophisticated conversations with customers that lead to meaningful outcomes. This frees up agents to handle more complex problems and customers are more satisfied.

Workforce optimization:

AI and automation play a key role in deploying the right agent when a customer requires more than chatbot help. Gamification tools motivate employees and help them align personal goals with business objectives. Speech, text and sentiment analysis personalize professional development.

A holistic customer engagement strategy:

Consider every touchpoint your customers have with your business, beyond just the contact center. With more stakeholders involved in CX today, it’s important to align systems, people and processes with a unified vision and strategy that includes all aspects of customer engagement.

Meeting the moment—and your customers’ expectations— with CX Cloud from Genesys and Salesforce

CX Cloud from Genesys and Salesforce creates a tech stack that makes it possible to deliver robust personalization and connected, end-to-end customer and employee experiences. This jointly released solution natively combines the unified, AI-powered agent workspace in Salesforce with the enterprise contact center and WEM capabilities of the Genesys Cloud™ platform.

With CX Cloud, it’s no longer necessary to rip and replace your current system. Leverage your existing investment in Salesforce and implement a powerful customer service system without disrupting ongoing operations. CX Cloud enables organizations to:

Eliminate application switching to increase agent efficiency

Working from a unified, AI-powered platform, agents can save time and improve their service with an efficient and easy-to-use workspace. The CX Cloud orchestration engine can reduce the need to move between applications and manually search for the knowledge documents required to quickly address customer questions.

Personalize the customer experience

A single, 360° view of the customer and their journey makes for consistent experiences that improve service across channels. No longer do customers need to repeat their concerns, reducing frustration and making it easy for your agents to offer seamless, personalized service.

Consolidate systems and reduce costs

Because CX Cloud is a single, native solution built with pre-integrated data and common schemas, you can reduce total cost of ownership and adapt more easily to shifting trends and new business imperatives. Reduce complexity with out-of-the-box AI models embedded in the platform, reducing the need for custom development. The no-code implementation of CX Cloud accelerates time to value.

Establish a supportive culture to retain employees

Workforce planning and performance insights enable contact center agents and empower their managers. Capabilities include tools to motivate employees; leaderboards; training modules and personalized coaching; key performance metrics; work scheduling; and workload forecasting.

Leading the charge and redefining success

CX Cloud from Genesys and Salesforce builds on more than a decade of strategic technology collaboration. The two companies have designed AI systems that complement each other and continue to invest in ways to improve the customer experience.

Joining these trusted technology leaders is Deloitte Digital, whose leadership in customer experience and deep knowledge of industry and business operations can assist companies in implementing CX Cloud optimally and getting the greatest benefit from AI. We come alongside your organization to help achieve your business objectives and maximize technology ROI. From ideation to realization, we connect innovation with intellectual rigor to drive growth across the entire customer experience.

In a world where customer expectations constantly evolve, we envision, actualize and scale customizable long-term solutions that empower our clients to forge meaningful, lasting connections with their workforce, customers and global community.

QUESTIONS TO HELP YOU GET STARTED

What concerns have your CX professionals expressed regarding customer satisfaction and call center performance?
Where do you want to drive better results in customer service?
How are you utilizing AI to improve customer and employee experiences?
How is your employee experience impacting CX and customer loyalty?
In what area of your contact center would you like to reduce costs?
How are you motivating and evaluating your employees?
What technology integration challenges are you facing?

GET IN TOUCH

Lauren Littlefield
Managing Director
Deloitte Consulting LLP
llittlefield@deloitte.com

Tony Flores
Senior Director,
Product Management
Salesforce Service Cloud
LinkedIn

Chris Becker
Global VP, Architecture
& Industry Innovation
Genesys
LinkedIn

Sources

1. Genesys, New Genesys Report Confirms Customer Experience Drives Brand Loyalty with Nearly One-Third of Consumers Jumping Ship After a Poor Experience. [Press release]. April 5, 2023.

2. Salesforce, State of the Connected Customer, Sixth edition, 2023, p. 14, accessed December 15, 2023

3. Deloitte Digital, Balancing priorities in a new era of contact center transformation, May 2024, p. 1.

About Deloitte

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