A global Forrester study commissioned by LogMeIn has pointed to a widening gap between the leaders and laggards in customer experience (CX). CX has matured this year, according to LogMeIn, but at the same time the drive for digital transformation is now means some are making bigger moves towards data-based intelligence, including AI. The Forrester study, Short-Term Wins and Continuous Optimisation: The Roadmap To Customer Engagement Success, surveyed 463 global CX decision makers and found that the customer engagement maturity gap is widening as more channels emerge. Organisations must look to establish a foothold with artificial intelligence (AI) to accelerate their CX maturity, it suggests. Ryan Lester, senior director of customer experience technologies at LogMeIn, said that in a changing landscape of customer expectations and preferences, companies must be agile when it comes to their customer engagement strategy.

Chatbots for B2B are a very hot topic, but so far there are few live examples to share. In this pacesetter case study, see a successful B2B chatbot in action. Like many organizations, TSIA member Citrix, a leader in employee productivity tools, was challenged with increasing call deflection while simultaneously improving customer experience. With their customers ranging from small privately owned businesses to large enterprise organizations, they needed a solution that would meet the specific needs of each buyer. While this appeared to be an impossible feat, Citrix was able to accomplish this goal by implementing Bold360, LogMeIn's AI chatbot and live-agent software.

When it comes to most things business, AI is making its mark as the must-have technology. Whether we are talking about customer-facing chatbots to help with engagement and conversion or AI working in the background to help make critical business decisions, AI is everywhere. And the expectations of what it can and should be able to do is often sky-high. When those expectations aren't met, however, it's not always the tech that's to blame. More likely, it's the humans who brought it on board.

Vanson Bourne and Bold360 powered by LogMeIn surveyed business leaders and consumers across the globe to understand how these groups view Customer Experience (CX), determine where there is still friction in CX, and define how emerging technology like Artificial Intelligence (AI) can help deliver better outcomes. Join me and other CX, Service, and IT leaders at LogMeIn's CXNext in Boston on June 5th, 2019 to discuss the impact of AI-powered customer engagement across industries and business functions. We'll let you know when we release more educational articles covering beneficial applications of AI for customer experience.

AI is making inroads into enhancing customer service and the overall customer experience, sometimes in a directly customer-facing role; sometimes behind the scenes in support of human customer service agents; and often in a hybridization of these roles. Paddy Srinivasan is professionally involved bringing AI to all things customer service- and customer experience-related, and I enjoyed speaking with him recently. Micah Solomon: How much of a mark is AI making today in customer service and support, and how is it helping to optimize the customer experience overall? Paddy Srinivasan, SVP and GM, Customer Engagement and Support at LogMeIn: AI is changing the face of customer service as we know it. Whether it's a customer-facing chatbot helping customers answer simple questions or an agent-facing [internal] bot offering assistance with more complicated questions, almost every interaction can now benefit from having some level of AI around it – even if the customer doesn't directly see it.

Artficial intelligence (AI) can be used in the frontline of customer service, helping customers get instant answers, fast outcomes and consistency. The infuriatingly long wait for a phone call with a live agent, just to receive an over-simplistic answer, is now being replaced with chatbot technology, powered by AI, for an immediate solution. "Chatbots are capable of sourcing data at a much faster speed than an individual working behind the scenes," explains Bernd Gross, chief technology officer at Software AG. "This not only speeds up the time taken to deliver a service, but it also frees up employees' time to focus on more value-added tasks." This frontline revolution is in its early stages, but there are a number of industries that have already embraced self-service customer experience.

As Artificial Intelligence technology continues to grow, you may be wondering, "how will AI impact the future of business, jobs, and daily life?". If you're a student (or know one), you can turn those thoughts & ideas into a scholarship opportunity! Currently enrolled college students are eligible for the Bold360 Artificial Intelligence Scholarship program!

Artificial intelligence may seem futuristic and, in the future, AI will indeed be a large part of our lives. But, this technology is present today in some environments and expectations for additional adoption in the near term are bright. Straight-up customer service solutions sometimes rely on AI as well. Of course, these are just a couple examples of what's possible with AI and McKinsey says AI has the most potential in retail marketing and sales. It can be used to improve upon customer service, personalization, pricing, and promotion.

But that is all changing. Today's AI is more intelligent, contextual and can understand a customer's intent to help them get to where they need to be. Tools like chatbots and virtual assistants have quickly grown to become an integral part of many CX strategies across a variety of industries -- from retail to travel to financial services. And while there are still questions and reservations about the actual ROI of AI in customer service, more and more real-world use cases are revealing the true benefits of using AI in this capacity. So the question remains: Will AI be a friend to the customer experience or more of a foe?

LogMeIn, the company that provides authentication and other connectivity solutions for those who connect remotely to networks and services, has made another acquisition to expand the products it offers to customers, specifically in its new Bold360 CRM platform, launched in June. The company has picked up Nanorep, a startup out of Israel that develops chatbots and other AI-based tools to help people navigate self-service apps. LogMeIn is paying $45 million plus up to $5 million more in earn-outs based on performance and employees staying put over the next two years. Nanorep had raised just under $7 million from investors that included Titanium out of Russia (which had also backed Cloudyn, recently acquired by Microsoft), Oryzn Capital and OurCrowd. The startup already had around 500 large customers, including big names like FedEx, Toys"R"Us and Vodafone.