Businesses are successfully using artificial intelligence (AI) to power more personalised, intelligent interactions with their customers, but face challenges around transparency and lack of customer data, according to new research from customer engagement platform, Twilio.
Its fifth annual State of Customer Engagement Report states that Australia has the widest customer experience gap—86 per cent of businesses say they provide good or excellent customer engagement, yet only 54 per cent of consumers agree.
Additionally, Australia has the widest brand perception gap of all APAC countries, showing a whopping 45 per cent difference between a brand’s perceived understanding of their customers and what consumers actually think (compared to 27 per cent in Singapore and 15 per cent in Malaysia). Globally, only five countries—France, UK, Spain, Brazil and Italy—show larger perception gaps.
Also, in Australia, 85 per cent of brands believe AI will improve customer engagement, but only 22 per cent of consumers agree. Again, indicators point to poor activation of data as a reason for the disconnect and this struggle is felt globally.
While more businesses are embracing AI, only 16 per cent of brands globally strongly agree that they have the data they need to understand their customers and just 19 per cent of businesses strongly agree they have a comprehensive profile of their customers.
“Customers today expect personalised experiences, but Australian consumers are notoriously sceptical,” says Liz Adeniji, area vice president of APAC sales for Twilio Segment.
“Here we are seeing a lot of brands pouring resources into creating these experiences and deploying AI initiatives, but they are still not properly collecting and unifying the data they need to execute them properly and consumers can tell.
“Brands need to invest in more foundational work around their use of data and consider other measures like improved data security to instil greater trust and ensure their AI and personalisation attempts aren’t missing the mark.”
Check out the full article in our technology feature in the latest winter edition.
