Nuance: the company using AI to help businesses deliver on the customer experience promise, no matter what

28 January 2021 | 4784 Shares

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Nowadays, there is no denying that we live the majority of our lives online. Whether it’s working, shopping, banking, or even just catching up with our friends and families, almost every action and interaction has some form of digital grounding.

Of course, this is a trend that has only been accelerated by the ongoing pandemic. Over the last year, we have all needed to change our habits in order to keep those we care about safe and try to prevent the spread of the virus. For many individuals needing to stay at home, communicating online has become a lifeline to the outside world. The same can be said for businesses.

Whilst digital interactions are nothing new, recent months have seen face-to-face communication between businesses and their customers become almost non-existent. Yet, despite the change in circumstances, customer expectations have continued to rise. People still want to feel as if they are getting a personalised service, even from a distance. Which presents a new problem for businesses in every sector; how to recreate the authentic in-person experience in our online world?

With businesses under more pressure to deliver their products and services than ever before, providing a frictionless experience and maintaining a personalised customer journey from start to finish has never been more difficult to achieve. But, in this period of chaos and uncertainty one company leading the charge when it comes to digital customer engagement is Nuance Communications.

Experience meets innovation

If you haven’t heard of Nuance yet, you should listen very carefully. Over the last twenty years, the team there have been responsible for pioneering many of the AI-powered technologies that we use in our day-to-day lives. Whether it’s messaging a live chat agent on our favourite retail website or using our voice to verify personal details with our bank, there’s a good chance that the conversational AI that enables these interactions to take place was developed by Nuance.

The company holds over 3,000 patents, and its AI-powered, intelligent engagement solutions are currently trusted by 2,500 leading brands worldwide. In fact, Nuance supports 31 billion intelligent customer interactions, and prevents £1.5 billion in fraud losses every year.

We included more of a deep dive into how Nuance is using AI to boost engagement, whilst protecting both organisations and customers alike from fraud attempts, during the last article in this series. If you had the chance to take a look, you’ll already know that Nuance works with some of the world’s leading brands – from Barclays Wealth and Investment Management and Natwest (formerly Royal Bank of Scotland) to Telefonica and Deutsche Telecom. If not, you can find out more here.

Bringing the in-store experience online

One industry that could particularly benefit from Nuance’s expertise and technology during this time of change is retail. Those working in the sector have faced many challenges over the last few months and with the majority of brick-and-mortar operations set to remain closed – or at least restricted – for some time, the pandemic has undoubtedly acted as a catalyst for serious change.

The eCommerce market is poised for long-term growth, which means that retailers must find a way to bring the in-store experience online. Many have already invested in Nuance’s AI-powered solutions such as virtual assistants, live chat, and integrated messaging services in order to deliver frictionless experiences across all channels and help customers in real-time. But don’t just take our word for it…

Ten of the world’s largest 15 retailers have already implemented Nuance’s technologies. In fact, global clothing chain H&M became one of the latest organisations to take advantage of the Nuance Intelligent Engagement Platform last year, deploying 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. Meanwhile, Rakutan recently implemented Nuance’s Intelligent Engagement AI services to drive a better AI-based customer engagement experience.

Last summer, Nuance took customer interactions to another level – for both retail and non-retail businesses – by adding support for Google’s Business Messages. This new feature helps customers to find and message online retailers from within Google platforms, like Maps and Search. This means that organisations can extend their virtual assistant and live chat deployments to new digital channels, enabling them to manage more customer conversations and increase agent utilisation.

Reducing the pressure

As well as helping organisations to deliver seamless customer experience from a distance, intelligent engagement AI technologies can also help to reduce some of the demands currently being placed on employees, especially when it comes to those responsible for online support and sales.

In recent months, employees and businesses alike have had to grapple with an almost immediate shift to remote working, whilst facing some of the most substantial historical volumes of customer inquiries and requests. One such business was Dixon’s Carphone Group, a market leader in electronic goods and mobile device sales across eight countries. With physical stores forced to close and demand for its products dramatically increasing, the companies live chat division – with only 25 agents – could have easily been overwhelmed.

Nuance worked with Dixons to deploy 100 new live chat agents and a conversational virtual assistant within just weeks. Between them, these solutions now support around 90,000 chats every month and handle 16,000 customer interactions weekly, dramatically reducing the burden that had previously been placed on staff.

Find out more

Whilst the last few months have been challenging, they have taught us some valuable lessons, especially when it comes to customer engagement. As we look towards the future, modern AI-driven technologies are set to play an increasingly important role.

Take a look at Nuance’s Creating Compelling Customer Conversations  webinar series to find out more about how some of Europe’s leading brands are continuing to deliver authentic, personalised experiences, regardless of whether a customer interaction is taking place in-person or online.