For many of today’s leading brands, AI is already having a huge impact on customer engagement. But the arrival of 5G changes the game—opening the door to greater automation, personalization, and prediction, at every customer touchpoint. We invited Kelsey Ziser, Curator of The 5G Exchange, to discuss this revolution with our in-house experts. Here’s what you need to know.
When telcos talk about 5G, they usually focus on the obvious benefit to consumers: lightning-fast speeds. But for those of us in the business of customer engagement, 5G is about so much more than quick downloads and stable connections.
With the ultra-low latency of its new network architecture, 5G is set to transform customer experiences in deeper, more profound ways—by unlocking the true potential of AI.
In our recent webinar, Kelsey Ziser, Curator of The 5G Exchange, interviewed in-house experts Dan Valcour and Manar Alazma to discuss exactly how this combination of 5G and AI will usher in a whole new world of customer engagement.
We’ve summarized the most important takeaways below:
A new fabric that supports smarter engagements
As Dan, our conversational AI Evangelist so neatly put it, “5G will provide enterprises with a new communication fabric.” And that fabric will better connect the powerful technologies that many enterprises already have.
“At the moment, back-office systems are often siloed,” explained Manar, Vice President of Product management at Nuance, “But when we tie them to the same communication fabric as the AI we’re using to engage with customers, that AI suddenly has access to real-time customer data. And ultimately, it means you can create more intelligent customer experiences.”
More powerful automation, personalization, and prediction—in more places
What will these smarter, 5G; AI-enabled experiences look like? Manar and Dan unpacked three core areas of improvement: automation, personalization, and prediction.
Leading brands are already applying these principles in their customers engagement channels—Global retailer H&M is the latest organization to take advantage of the Nuance Intelligent Engagement Platform. They recently deployed a combination of virtual assistant, live chat, and Google’s Business Messages to assist customers through their shopping experience and provide real-time answers to inquiries But with 5G’s new architecture, enterprises have the opportunity to apply them more effectively, at even more points in the customer journey.
Manar used the example of virtual assistants to illustrate the uplift in personalization possible with 5G. “To be truly effective, they need to be more than just FAQ bots,” he explained. “But that’s difficult without real-time access to customer data. With that connection to back-office systems, virtual assistants can be more transactional, more personalized, and more valuable to the customer.”
But what about bringing personalization, automation, and prediction to other parts of the customer journey? “As 5G enables more enterprises to use edge computing, all endpoints will become equally valuable,” explained Dan. “You’re no longer bound by the network, and you can use complex AI technologies at every point. Whether it’s a mobile phone, IoT device, or smart TV, enterprises will have more opportunities to engage using rich media.”
Be prepared to thrive in the 5G era
But these new, AI-powered experiences won’t come into being automatically as 5G rolls out worldwide. Enterprises will need to make sure they have the right strategy and tools to identify and seize the new opportunities.
“As you think about automating more customer experiences and introducing more personalization, you need to think about how you bring consistency and unification across all your channels and experiences,” said Manar. “You need to think about the tooling suite you’re going to use. You don’t want to be managing every channel separately—you need a single omni-channel tool.”
This growing need for holistic customer engagement management and tooling has shaped the development of our own Nuance Mix platform over the past 24 months.
As Dan explained, brands that can transition to a single, cloud-native platform will be better positioned to unlock the full CX potential of 5G. “As enterprises move to cloud-native platforms for design, development, and promotion, it’s going to be easier to push changes and updates,” explained Dan. “It’s an essential change that needs to happen if enterprises want to automate more parts of the customer journey.”
