We have some good news for you : robots are about to replace humans. People are finally going to be able to focus on what they do best : having relationships with other humans.
Artificial intelligence evrywhere : what is left for real people
Artificial intelligence is already everywhere. Some people find this alarming. Other find it great. One thing is sure : artificiel intelligence is getting every day more clever. Look for instance at the recent advances of algorithms in the game of Go and in Poker.
Fortunately the Human brain is far from being surpassed by computers. Computes are not yet able to be creative and the good news, as I explained in an earlier post, is that with increased automation we may be able to focus on what we do best : creativity and invention.
Collective intelligence : still possible in a clustered world ?
Despite the globalization trend, let’s face it : we are losing every day a little bit more of our social instinct. We are ordering food to be delivered home instead of going to the restaurant ; we are ordering everything online instead of going to stores. Our banks are online, our services are digitized. We are getting less and less used to interacting with other humans. Are we still able, in these conditions, to leverage collective intelligence to reinvent our world and create tomorrow’s breakthrough innovations that are needed to save this planet ?
Good news for firms focusing on service quality with a human face
If you follow the theories on customer satisfaction and loyalty, this trend towards more automation and less human touch may actually be a very good news … for those willing to resist and propose alternative models. Let me explain.
First of all you have to remember that satisfaction building is a mechanism that is based on expectations. A customer will feel (dis)satisfaction through the inconscious comparison he/she makes between his/her expectations and what was actually delivered. You may want to refer to this article where I explained the expactations / satisfaction creation dynamics.
Second, imagine that most consumers get accustomed to automated computer-enabled interactions : automated hotlines, chatbots, selg-ordering processes, automatic lockers to get your parcels, digital applicationd to manage your insurance products, self-banking, … Human interactions in a retail setting will become rarer and rarer. Customers, in 10 years, will become unaccustomed to human relations in a B2C context.
Tomorrow’s winners will be firms investing in humans to interact with other humans
Yet human interactions will still exist. Either in brick-and-mortar stores or on the phone, real people won’t be replaced completely. Imagine for one moment that a firm invests heavily in building a first-class service quality, teaches employees empathy and warmth. How do you think customers will feel ? The gap between their expectations, forged by years of desinvestment in human-powered service, and the actual performance of those will be so huge that their satisfaction will sky rocket.
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Posted in Marketing.
