The role of AI and data in shaping the future of CX
Customer experience (CX) is evolving rapidly, with AI and data transforming how businesses interact with customers. In this episode of CX Minutes, Johan Salzmann, Account Executive at Salesforce, shares insights on balancing AI with human interactions, breaking down data silos, and preparing for the future of customer engagement.
CX Minutes with Johan Salzmann, Salesforce and our host Sabina Persson, Custellence.
What’s covered in this episode
The power of AI and data in CX: How to balance technology and human interaction
Many businesses focus on hyper-personalization and loyalty programs, but Johan highlights a crucial yet often-overlooked trend—using data to enhance human interactions.
Why this matters:
- Data should empower employees, not replace them, ensuring a human touch remains central in CX.
- Businesses that integrate customer data into real-world interactions create more seamless and meaningful experiences.
Related: AI in Customer Experience: How to Stay Ahead (Salesforce)
How is AI changing customer experience today?
Artificial intelligence is revolutionizing CX by automating routine tasks, providing businesses with greater efficiency, and allowing employees to focus on high-value interactions.
“If you haven’t already started exploring autonomous agents, now is the time. In a recent survey, marketers estimated that AI could save them up to five hours per week, freeing up time for more strategic tasks.”
The Benefits of AI in CX:
- Enhancing personalization without overwhelming human teams
- Automating repetitive tasks to improve efficiency
- Providing real-time insights for faster decision-making
Further reading: Customer Experience in the Age of AI (Harvard Business Review)
What are data silos and how do they hurt CX?
CX isn’t just about customer service—it’s the sum of every interaction a customer has with a brand. However, many organizations struggle with siloed data, preventing a seamless experience.
How to break down data silos:
- Utilize integrated CX platforms to ensure a seamless experience
- Encourage cross-department collaboration between CX and tech teams
- Centralize customer data across marketing, sales, support, and ecommerce
Related: The essential guide to customer data integration (and its impact) (Insider)
What businesses can do today to improve
Johan emphasizes the importance of breaking down organizational silos by bringing together all relevant departments—sales, customer service, marketing, and ecommerce—to collectively map the customer journey.
Steps to Take:
- Identify opportunities for improved data-sharing and collaboration
- Gather stakeholders from different departments
- Map customer interactions across all touchpoints
Key takeaways from Johan
- AI and human interaction must work together to create a seamless CX experience.
- AI-driven automation is freeing up time for CX teams to focus on high-value work.
- Eliminating data silos leads to better customer insights and smoother operations.
- AI will drive decision-making in CX, making data more actionable and insights faster.
- Cross-functional collaboration is crucial to maximizing the potential of AI and CX improvements.
👉 Want to dive deeper? Watch the full CX Minutes episode with Johan Salzmann here.
Frequently asked questions (FAQ)
How can businesses balance automation with human interaction in CX?
AI should streamline processes while maintaining a human touch. Employees should be empowered with real-time customer insights, ensuring meaningful interactions.
What are autonomous agents, and how will they impact CX?
Autonomous agents are AI-powered assistants that handle routine CX tasks, such as responding to common customer inquiries. This allows CX teams to focus on more complex and valuable interactions.
How can companies break down data silos?
Businesses should foster collaboration between CX and tech teams, ensuring customer data is integrated across all departments for a unified experience.
What role will AI play in CX decision-making?
AI will automate data collection and provide real-time insights, allowing CX professionals to make faster, data-driven decisions.
Final thoughts
Johan Salzmann’s insights highlight the importance of combining AI-driven efficiency with human engagement, breaking down data silos, and preparing for a future where CX is more automated yet more personalized than ever.
Now is the time to invest in AI, improve internal collaboration, and develop a data-driven approach to customer experience.
Transcript
Intro
0:08 Sabina Persson, Custellence: Hi everyone I’m Sabina from from Custellence, and you’re so very welcome to the video cast CX minutes. It’s six questions, six minutes and all about custom experience.
So this is a series where we bring you actionable insights, practical knowhow, and personal stories from top professionals. All in just about six minutes, that’s the ambition.
Welcome Johan
0:30 Sabina: And with me today I have Johan Salzmann from Salesforce. Welcome Johan! How are you?
0:38 Johan Salzmann, Salesforce: Hi Sabina, I’m good thank you. How are you doing?
0:41 Sabina: I’m good, I’m good. It’s great to see you again, we know each other a little bit from before. But do you want to just short say you know, who you are and what you do over at Salesforce?
Who are you and what do you do?
0:52 Johan: Absolutely! So my name is Johan Salzmann. I work as an Account Executive at Salesforce. And I work with our digital products, which means our marketing automation products, our ecom products. Salesforce has such a diverse range of products these days.
So we are many different teams and I work in several different verticals as well, managing some of Sweden’s biggest companies. Making sure that they have the right solution from Salesforce in their tech-stack.
What’s one overlooked CX trend, that you think people should pay more attention to right now?
1:28 Sabina: Got it. Alright, now let’s talk about the future of CX. What is one overlooked CX trend that you think people should pay more attention to?
1:38 Johan: Great question! Because we have been talking about so many different trends lately, hyper personalization, loyalty programs. And one trend which I see as super important and one of my favourite ones, is actually where you use data with human interactions, to create a sweet spot of a customer experience.
There is nowhere I feel as appreciated as when I walk into an example like, a suit supply store. Where the person meeting me and greeting me. Knows my purchase history, my preferences, my service cases. All those different interactions that I’ve had with the company online or in person.
So I think to optimize the customer experience person to person is actually one thing that we should look into more.
2:30 Sabina: Yeah that’s a good one thanks. And, how do you see. we have to talk about this of course, because it’s on everyone’s lips. How do you see AI shaping the future of customer experience?
2:42 Johan: I think this will be everything for everyone working with customer experience the. And one key trend is the autonomous agents, the digital labor. That will do so much for us in the future. I think it’s hard to even predict, how much help we will get from these autonomous agents. So if you haven’t already started to deep dive in the subject of autonomous agents, it’s time to do that today.
And we previously did a survey just recently, and marketeers estimate that they could save up to five hours per week with the use of AI agents. And that adds up to a lot of free time to optimize other stuff when you’re working. Optimize the things that you like to do more for instance.
How do you see AI shaping the future of customer experience?
3:38 Sabina: Yeah great, and speaking of CX. So how do you see the role of CX changing in, or involving in organizations going ahead?
3:45 Johan: And I would say that the experience is the sum of all, the contacts a customer has with your organization. And something that you as a CX person need to do, is to maintain that high quality contact, no matter what department the customer has an interaction with.
One challenge we see today is that data lives in silos, so customer support store their data, ecom their data, sales department, the actually in store persons or whatever business you’re in.
So what I would like to do is, that I would like to see the owner of CX actually more involved with the tech teams. Taking more ownership of data and making that data shared between departments, to make those great customer experiences. And a lot of those interaction that we do manually today, will probably be automated. The people working in customer service departments will be less, because agents will take care of so many easy work tasks.
So yeah, I think the the role of CX will actually evolve a lot. We could actually minimize the amount of processes, and manual things that we do. And instead focus on the value creating parts.
5:19 Sabina: Got it, got it, and breaking down silos as you said as well right?
5:22 Johan: Yeah, definitely.
What’s one thing about CX that will look completely different in 10 years?
5:24 Sabina: Yeah good. Now, what is one thing about CX, CX again, that will look you know, completely different, in let’s say 10 years time?
5:39 Johan: I think it will evolve so much faster than it does today. So what we have seen now with generative AI it’s just a beginning. And it might be hard to predict what it will look like in 10 years. But I think that a lot of things will be automated for us. Insights will be served to us, through our platforms.
So if you work with CX today, I think one thing that you should do is, start to learning what can platforms do for us. What insights can we get served through AI. And can we use those insights to make better decisions.
So I think in 10 years we will have such a huge kind of decision layer, so we can focus a lot more on making good decisions, instead of collecting data from the customer journey. Because that takes a lot of time at the moment, it comes from different places and a lot of manual work.
If you we’re to give one piece of advice, what would that be?
6:45 Sabina: Yeah, got it. Okay and, so if you were to give just one piece of advice on this topic, what would that be?
6:54 Johan: So where I find the most value, is when I gather the departments in front of me. When I stand in front of a crowd where I have gathered sales reps, service reps, maybe decision makers, ecom managers and marketing automation managers. People from the entire organization. And then we start mapping up, what does the customer journey look like, what’s your touch points, what’s your touch points. And how can we bring all this together and actually work with more data, and share data in a better way.
I think we have so many ways to use data in a more creative way. And my background is that, I’ve worked with both advertising agencies as a consultant, and I worked as a CMO creating campaigns, and now I work for Salesforce where we’re very data driven.
And I think the sweet spot here is when you use creativity and data. To create these awesome customer experiences, and also break down silos. Because the data that service generates, could actually be gold for ecom.
So to my advice would be to gather the departments more often, and try to draw insights from them as a collective, instead of working department by department to gather insights.
8:28 Sabina: That’s music to my ears.
8:30 Johan: Absolutely.
8:31 Sabina: And with that, we’ve already been through all the questions. You were amazing, thank you so much for, I mean super valuable advice honestly.
8:40 Johan: Thank you for having us.
8:42 Sabina: It was my pleasure. And with that it’s a wrap! So we thank you all for watching, and see you next time. Bye!
Check out other episodes of CX Minutes here.
By Tove Lundell
