See what one leading tech strategist predicts for the future of customer service and relationships.
/ An interview with Dr. Mark van Rijmenam
The following summarizes an interview facilitated by Capterra team member Kyle Rich and strategic futurist Dr. Mark van Rijmenam. This conversation was edited for length and clarity.
Has technology reached a tipping point where it's fundamentally changing relationships between businesses and their customers?
We sat down (virtually) with Dr. Mark van Rijmenam—a leading strategic futurist, keynote speaker, five-time bestselling author, and founder of the Digital Futures Institute—to explore the technology available now and what may emerge in the future that will change how businesses and customers interact[1].
While his vision looks far into the future, he provides concrete advice on how businesses can (and must) incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) and other cutting-edge technology into their customer service strategy today to stay ahead of the competition.
Start with your data…
Technology changes not only how businesses interact with customers but also how customers want to interact with businesses. Central to these changes is data.
Van Rijmenam explains:
“Data is increasingly playing a crucial role in the relationship. And any organization should use data to have a detailed understanding of who [its] customer is, who its future customers could be, or if a customer wants to leave.”
Dr. Mark van Rijmenam
Leading tech strategist
Without data, you have blind spots; you lack insight into your customers’ sentiment, needs, or expectations.
“You need to use internal and external data sources, sources that aren’t siloed, to gain this holy grail of a 360-degree customer profile,” notes van Rijmenam.
“That's the starting point. Once you have the data, you're able to do the analysis, and to better predict who your customer is going to be, when they're about to churn, and what their needs are.”
Explore customer data software on Capterra
…Then improve the conversation with conversational AI
No matter what industry you’re in, such predictive analytics can tell you what products your customers need.
“Once you have done the analysis,” continues van Rijmenam, “you can start to look at how you can automate those customer journeys. For example, you can use conversational AI chatbots to automate and streamline your customer support.”
Unlike the often clumsy and frustrating early chatbots, conversational AI chatbots use natural language processing and natural language understanding to create human-like communication between chatbots and customers.
Because it is combined with machine learning, it’s also always improving the algorithms it uses and the quality of the responses it can give customers.
Find the right service for your business in Capterra's list of Artificial Intelligence Companies in the United States.
Expect generative AI to revolutionize customer communication
Van Rijmenam has been looking into the future that’s already being realized with generative AI, which is essentially artificial intelligence that can use data to create (generate) synthetic media. He explains how generative AI allows you to create synthetic images, videos, 3D objects, code, text, anything.
“Developments are going at breakneck speed,” he says, adding that he is reading about new use cases nearly every day, including generative AI that can create 3D assets and virtual worlds from 2D images or even from a string of text, a major milestone for the technology.
And the better you are at creating the input text, the better the output is. For businesses, this can be used to craft better customer communication. It will be able to automate the content creation process at a level never before possible, even while mid-conversation with customers.
Van Rijmenam says that companies are now able to use generative AI as a collaborative partner to brainstorm ideas, write emails, or summarize a conversation and highlight the best points from it, similar to how you’d work with a human colleague or assistant.
Assess your needs to guide your business' investment
What does your business need? Predictive analytics? Conversational AI chatbots? Generative AI? To sort it all out, you need to ask and answer a few key questions as well as use a simple framework to ensure you use these new tools effectively.
Van Rijmenam offers a commonsense approach for you to follow:
Identify your processes.
Identify your customer journey, which comes down to getting a complete view of customer interactions and behaviors.
Distribute all data—whether aggregated on-premise or in the cloud—so it’s accessible to everyone who needs to make decisions about the customer.
Use predictive analytics tools so you can make predictions about anticipated customer churn, what kind of products they need, and the best messaging and pricing.
Automate communication channels using conversational AI, generative AI, and other tools to optimize the process.
Not only can small and midsize businesses (SMBs) use this straightforward framework the same way larger businesses can, it's essential for them to strategically incorporate these leading technologies now, or risk getting left behind. Van Rijmenam explains:
"If you don't incorporate these technologies, you are one or even five steps behind your competitor. You really need to use the whole spectrum of technology. Five years ago, big data became a prerequisite for competitive advantage. I could now argue that the data, AI—all these technologies are a prerequisite for competitive advantage."
Dr. Mark van Rijmenam
Van Rijmenam uses his own experience to prove that SMBs can do this, and successfully. Using AI, he was able to write a book, "Step into the Metaverse," in three months, including 100 in-depth interviews, and 150 surveys[2]. To make this possible, he used AI tools to schedule, transcribe, and summarize interviews.
“If I could use these technologies as a small company, everyone can use it. And the technologies are there, and it's not expensive anymore.”
Dr. Mark van Rijmenam
He added that he uses an application on his website that allows him to turn all his articles into audio versions with the click of a button. It’s easy-to-use and inexpensive tools like these that businesses can take advantage of to work smarter while potentially reaching an entirely new audience.
Make sure your human team knows how to collaborate with your machine team
Technology should make your employees’ work easier and more productive, not harder. But some employees may be afraid that technology will replace them.
If you’re serious about evolving your business from a digital perspective, van Rijmenam emphasizes that everyone within your organization needs to understand these technologies and how they will affect both the business and their jobs—from warehouse employees up through the CEO.
By explaining how AI works in tandem with irreplaceable human skills, your team will better understand how to use AI as a tool for improved outcomes overall. If you use AI to automate processes, for example, highlight how employees won't have to focus on tedious, mundane tasks. Instead, they can focus on more challenging, engaging, and rewarding work, which—in turn—creates a better customer experience.
“I believe overall,” says van Rijmenam, “if we can create this wonderful collaboration between humans and machines, we are able to create better business, better products, better service, and a better bottom line in the end.”
Dr. Mark van Rijmenam
Anticipate (and prepare for) what's ahead with this final advice from our strategic futurist
We asked van Rijmenam what three pieces of advice he would share with a small or midsize business that's just getting started with building a more digital, customer-centric relationship.
Here's what he said:
Educate yourself and everyone in your organization. What's out there? How can you use this technology? Businesses often have a blind spot, and if you don't know about such tech, how will you use it? And if only one person in the company knows about it, that person could be ignored. Beyond this, educate yourself in a way that is easy to understand and has everyone speaking the same language—the language of the digital world.
Once you've educated yourselves, experiment. Try to get first-hand experience with different technologies. Are they beneficial? Use different Software as a Service (SaaS) models to understand how generative AI can help with creation. And if it doesn't work, it doesn't work! That's fine. At least you tried it; that offers you a different perspective.
Finally, have a more long-term approach to digital technology[3]. So often, businesses focus on the short term and don’t consider long-term consequences.
At the end of our conversation, we asked van Rijmenam to help us look further into the future. What might our customer relationships look like?
“If you look out to three years,” he says, “I think generative AI is going to have a big impact. Long term, I think we’re going to move to a more immersive internet, where we move from 2D to 3D.”
He explains that this will give businesses the ability to have different conversations in different formats with customers.
“More long term, toward the start of the next decade, we will have the possibility of having a hyper-realistic experience, as if we are in the same room when we could be on opposite ends of the globe.”
He believes this will have a big impact because it's much more natural for humans. With this new technology, van Rijmenam sees data creation expanding tenfold or hundredfold.
And that leads to his question for each business: “As an organization, if you don't use the data that you have today, how on earth are you going to use the data tomorrow?”
Feeling overwhelmed at the thought of getting started with AI? You don't have to do it alone.
Browse our list of top artificial intelligence service providers and learn more about their service offerings in Capterra’s hiring guide.