#510: Missed opportunities with AI and CX with Tony Grout, Showpad

In this episode of The Agile Brand podcast, host Greg Kistrom interviews Tony Grout, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Showpad, about missed opportunities with AI and customer experience (CX). They discuss the role of AI in content process automation, hyper-personalization at scale, and the importance of data analysis and emotional intelligence in enhancing CX. Tony emphasizes the need for human intervention in AI processes and the significance of ethical AI implementation, especially in the context of data security and privacy.

Takeaways

• 🤖 AI and CX integration is becoming increasingly important for organizations, with significant potential still left untapped.
• 📈 Content process automation enhances the flow of content within an organization, from creation to distribution, allowing teams to focus on strategic and creative tasks.
• 🔄 AI can transform manual workflows by learning from initial manual processes and automating future tasks, improving efficiency and reducing human error.
• 💡 AI helps bridge gaps between marketing and sales teams, ensuring that the right content reaches the right people at the right time, improving overall customer engagement.
• 🎯 Personalization at scale is a challenge for many organizations, but AI can help tailor experiences and communications to individual customer needs, enhancing CX.
• 🚀 AI can significantly improve data analysis, providing insights into customer behavior and preferences, which can be used to create more personalized and effective marketing strategies.
• 🌐 Showpad's Revenue Data Lake consolidates intelligence from buyer activities and social insights, enabling smarter guidance for both sellers and buyers.
• 🛡️ Ethical considerations and data security are paramount when implementing AI, especially in regions with strict regulations like Europe.
• 💻 AI should be transparent and explainable, with clear indicators to users when AI is generating content or responses, to build trust and ensure appropriate human intervention.
• 🧠 Emotional intelligence in AI involves recognizing and responding to customer emotions, helping prioritize responses and tailor communications for maximum impact.
• 🚦 Upskilling teams on AI and setting KPIs around AI adoption is crucial for organizations looking to leverage AI for improved customer experiences.

Q & A

What is the main focus of the Agile Brand podcast?

The Agile Brand podcast focuses on discussing marketing, technology, and customer experience trends, insights, and ideas with enterprise and technology platform leaders. It emphasizes the importance of people, processes, data, and platforms in making brands successful, scalable, customer-focused, and sustainable.

What is Tony Grout's background and his role at Showpad?

Tony Grout is the Chief Product and Technology Officer at Showpad, a sales enablement platform. He has had an extensive career in the industry, working with companies like Meo, Atlassian, Skype, Microsoft, and IBM. He also founded his own company years ago. His role at Showpad involves overseeing the development of the Enablement Operating System (EOS), which aims to bring marketing and sales people together more effectively.

How does AI enhance content process automation?

AI enhances content process automation by learning from manual processes and then automating the flow of work in alignment with business processes. This allows teams to focus more on strategic and creative priorities rather than manually moving documents and content around the organization. AI can also help in automatically routing information to the right people at the right time, based on learned patterns or initial teaching by an administrator.

What are some of the missed opportunities for AI in customer experience?

Some missed opportunities for AI in customer experience include not fully leveraging AI's potential to automate and streamline content processes, failing to use AI for hyper-personalization at scale, and not utilizing AI to bridge gaps between marketing and sales teams effectively. Additionally, there's a missed opportunity in not using AI to help salespeople prioritize their tasks based on customer sentiment and needs.

How does Showpad's platform help in sales and marketing alignment?

Showpad's platform, the Enablement Operating System (EOS), helps in sales and marketing alignment by ensuring that marketing teams can create the right content and put it in the hands of sales teams at the right moment. This drives better revenue engagement with buying teams and helps to address the challenges of connecting these two departments effectively.

What are the roadblocks to achieving more personalization without AI?

Without AI, organizations face roadblocks such as the time-consuming nature of manual personalization efforts, the challenge of handling large volumes of data, and the difficulty in maintaining consistency across different customer touchpoints. AI can help overcome these roadblocks by automating personalization processes and providing insights for more targeted and effective customer interactions.

How does AI help in understanding customer sentiment?

AI helps in understanding customer sentiment by analyzing text, voice, and other forms of communication to determine the emotional state of the customer. This can be used to prioritize responses, tailor communication to meet the customer's emotional needs, and provide guidance on how to respond effectively to different emotional cues.

What is the role of data analysis in AI for customer experience?

Data analysis plays a crucial role in AI for customer experience by providing the necessary insights for AI to function effectively. By tracking and analyzing customer interactions, AI can learn to predict customer behavior, personalize content, and suggest actions that will lead to better customer engagement and satisfaction.

How does Showpad ensure transparency and explainability in its AI capabilities?

Showpad ensures transparency and explainability by clearly indicating to users when AI is generating content or making decisions. They also focus on building trust with AI by ensuring that humans are involved in the loop, especially during critical interactions, and by setting up guardrails to prevent AI from providing unhelpful or inappropriate responses.

What is Tony Grout's advice for organizations looking to improve their customer experience with AI?

Tony Grout advises organizations to upskill their teams on where AI can make a difference, particularly in personalization, and to set Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) around measuring the adoption of AI skills. He emphasizes the importance of an education program and tracking who's applying those skills to ensure effective use of AI in improving customer experience.

Outlines

00:00

🎙️ Introduction and Overview of Agile Brand Season 6

The paragraph introduces Season 6 of the Agile Brand podcast, a platform that discusses marketing, technology, and customer experience trends. The host, Greg Kilstrom, is an advisor to Fortune 1000 brands, a best-selling author, and speaker. The podcast is sponsored by Tech Systems, a full-stack technology services provider. The episode's focus is on AI technologies and their integration into existing systems to enhance sales and revenue teams' connectivity with their audiences. The guest for the episode is Tony Grout, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Showpad, a sales enablement platform.

05:01

🤖 AI and Content Process Automation

This paragraph delves into the topic of content process automation and how AI can transform the way content moves through an organization. It discusses the shift from manual processes, such as emailing files, to more automated systems like SharePoint. AI's role is highlighted in learning from manual workflows and automating document routing and publishing. The conversation touches on the challenges of disconnect between marketing and sales teams and how AI can help bridge these gaps by ensuring the right content reaches the right people at the right time, thus improving efficiency and collaboration.

10:02

💡 Hyper-Personalization at Scale with AI

The discussion in this paragraph centers around the concept of hyper-personalization at scale, made possible by AI. It acknowledges the long-standing promise of personalization in marketing and the challenges of achieving it enterprise-wide without AI. The conversation highlights the roadblocks organizations face in implementing extensive personalization, such as script-based automation and the time constraints on sales teams. The potential of AI to understand buyer context and provide personalized content is emphasized, as well as the importance of aligning AI with business processes.

15:04

📊 Data Analysis and AI's Role

This paragraph focuses on the opportunities AI presents in data analysis and addressing the issues mentioned earlier in the conversation. It discusses the importance of building a Revenue Data Lake to gather intelligence from buyer activities and the use of AI to guide sellers and buyers with more intelligence. The paragraph also touches on the importance of data security, especially in the context of European companies and regulations like GDPR. The need for AI to be transparent and explainable is stressed, with a call for human intervention in critical moments of customer interaction.

20:04

💖 Emotional Intelligence in AI and Customer Experience

The final paragraph discusses the intersection of AI and emotional intelligence in enhancing the customer experience. It defines emotional intelligence in the context of AI as the ability to recognize customer emotions, particularly in non-real-time interactions. The use of sentiment analysis and emotion recognition to prioritize customer engagement and inform response strategies is highlighted. The conversation also extends to the impact of AI on employee experience, suggesting that AI can significantly increase the capabilities of salespeople by automating personalized content creation and enabling A/B testing at scale.

Keywords

AI

Artificial Intelligence (AI) refers to the simulation of human intelligence in machines that are programmed to think and learn like humans. In the context of the video, AI is used to enhance customer experience and automate content processes within organizations. It is a key technology that is being integrated into existing systems to train sales and revenue teams, helping them connect better with their audiences. The conversation with Tony Grout highlights how AI can learn from manual processes and then automate them, improving efficiency and personalization at scale.

CX

Customer Experience (CX) refers to the perception a customer has of a company's products or services, encompassing all interactions and impressions throughout the customer's journey. In the video, the focus is on how AI can be leveraged to improve CX by providing personalized and timely responses to customer needs, enhancing the overall satisfaction and loyalty of customers.

Content Process Automation

Content Process Automation refers to the use of technology to streamline the creation, management, and distribution of content within an organization. It aims to reduce manual effort and increase efficiency by automating the flow of work in alignment with business processes. In the video, content process automation is discussed as a way to allow teams to focus more on strategic and creative tasks, with AI playing a pivotal role in enhancing this process by learning from manual tasks and automating them.

Sales Enablement

Sales Enablement refers to the process of providing sales teams with the tools, techniques, and resources they need to effectively sell products or services. This includes training, content, and technology that empower salespeople to engage with customers more effectively. In the video, sales enablement is a key topic as it discusses how platforms like Showpad help bridge the gap between marketing and sales, ensuring that the right content reaches the sales teams at the right time to drive better revenue engagement.

Personalization at Scale

Personalization at Scale refers to the ability to tailor content, offers, and experiences to individual customers in a way that is automated and reaches a large number of people. It is about understanding customer data well enough to create highly relevant and personalized interactions at a large scale. In the video, personalization is discussed as a significant opportunity for AI in customer experience, where AI can help deliver personalized content and offers that resonate with customers, improving their experience and the effectiveness of sales and marketing efforts.

Tony Grout

Tony Grout is the Chief Product and Technology Officer at Showpad, a sales enablement platform. In the video, he shares insights on how AI can be used to enhance customer experience and automate content processes, drawing from his extensive experience in the industry and his role at Showpad.

Showpad

Showpad is a sales enablement platform that aims to bring marketing and sales teams together by providing tools and resources for effective content sharing and management. It is a tool that helps sales teams access the right content at the right time to engage better with their customers. In the video, Showpad is used as a case study to illustrate how AI and technology can be integrated into sales processes to improve customer experience and efficiency.

Customer Sentiment

Customer Sentiment refers to the feelings, attitudes, and emotions that customers have towards a brand, product, or service. It is a crucial aspect of customer experience and can significantly influence customer behavior and decisions. In the video, understanding and responding to customer sentiment is a key area where AI can provide valuable insights, helping organizations to prioritize their interactions and tailor their responses to better meet customer needs.

Data Analysis

Data Analysis involves the process of inspecting, cleaning, transforming, and modeling data to discover useful information, draw conclusions, and support decision-making. In the context of the video, data analysis is critical for AI to function effectively, as it allows the system to learn from past interactions and behaviors, enabling it to make data-driven decisions and automate processes more accurately.

Transparency

Transparency in the context of AI refers to the ability to clearly communicate and understand how and why decisions are made by AI systems. It involves being open about the processes, algorithms, and data used so that users can trust the system and understand its outputs. In the video, transparency is emphasized as a key factor in building trust with users and ensuring that AI is used effectively and ethically in enhancing customer experience.

Emotion Recognition

Emotion Recognition is the process of detecting and understanding human emotions through various means, such as text, voice, or facial expressions. In the context of AI and customer experience, emotion recognition can help systems to better respond to customer interactions by identifying the emotional state of the customer, allowing for more empathetic and effective communication. In the video, emotion recognition is discussed as a capability of AI that can improve customer experience by enabling more personalized and emotionally intelligent responses.

Highlights

Tony Grout, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Showpad, discusses missed opportunities for AI and customer experience.

AI can help bridge the gap between marketing and sales teams by automating content flow and improving collaboration.

Content process automation enhances the way content moves through an organization, allowing teams to focus on strategic and creative priorities.

AI can learn from manual workflows and automate document management, scheduling, and publishing processes.

Personalization at scale is a significant opportunity for AI to improve customer experience by providing highly tailored content and interactions.

AI can help sales teams prioritize their day based on the emotional sentiments expressed by customers in emails or messages.

Showpad's platform uses AI to link marketing campaigns to the right sellers in their sales process, providing personalized content at the right time.

AI's role in customer experience should be transparent, with clear indicators to users when AI is generating content or responses.

Human intervention in AI processes is still crucial to ensure appropriate and helpful responses, especially during critical customer interactions.

AI can help salespeople AB test marketing messages on a personalized, account-by-account basis to improve engagement and effectiveness.

AI's impact on employee experience includes upskilling teams and enhancing their capabilities to focus on high-value tasks.

Showpad is building a Revenue Data Lake to consume intelligence from buyer activities and social aspects to inform AI-driven guidance.

Data security and compliance with regulations like GDPR are critical considerations when implementing AI solutions.

AI can help identify customer emotions and sentiments from non-real-time interactions, such as emails, to prioritize sales actions.

The future of AI in customer experience involves a focus on ethical use, transparency, and continuous learning from human feedback.

Upskilling teams on AI and tracking adoption through KPIs is a recommended first step for organizations looking to improve customer experience with AI.