Listening To Customers Is Key To Enhance Customer Experience: Ragy Thomas of Sprinklr As per Thomas, brands such as L'Oréal, McDonald's and Dell, among others, are working tirelessly to deliver a better customer experience

"Consumer behavior is shifting online and brands have to change their business model accordingly," said Ragy Thomas, chief executive officer of Sprinklr. He said we live in a global village of 7 billion people of which 1 billion are present online, allowing them to discuss which brand or service is better. He said customers' experience across all touchpoints becomes essential for a brand to scale.

India-born Thomas founded Sprinklr, an American software company based in New York, to develop a SaaS customer experience management platform for global brands in 2009. While speaking at the Collision Conference he said it's indispensable for brands to listen to customers and act accordingly.

"The biggest challenges that brands face while improving the digital customer experience is the ability to listen to its customers," he added. He said when there is a one-on-one conversation it is easy for a person to understand what the other is saying. However, he said global brands are listening to thousands and thousands of conservations. To listen to these many voices with different languages, analyze it and later send it to the required teams for action is the problem. This can only take place with the help of artificial intelligence (AI) and digital listening.

According to him, the second biggest problem that brands face is what can be done to provide a great experience for customers after hearing the problem. According to him, the front offices of several companies that interact directly with consumers are broken.

On asking why AI is the need of the hour to enhance customer experience, Thomas said a person can understand 100 languages all at the same time. Explaining further he said AI and algorithms help to break the sentences and phrases and allow the brand to process this information and provide a better customer experience. Giving an example he said if a hissing noise in a laptop is noted then AI can help one to connect with a customer agent who is more proficient in this area thus delivering a swift response.

As per Thomas brands such as L'oreal, Mcdonalds and Dell, among others, are working tirelessly to deliver a better customer experience.

However, he concluded that at present many people still think running surveys and then delivering them to executives is customer experience.

"I don't think it is customer experience but it is personal feedback. Customer experience management is the ability for you to holistically work across your silos to engage, reach and listen, across all channels, where they are," he added. Thomas believes for all the brands across the world to leverage advanced technology to listen to customers and work on it will still take another 10 to 20 years.