Summary

Experts of Experience: Accenture Lead Explains Why Customers Are Leaving non-AI Companies

Hosted by Lauren Wood and presented by Salesforce Customer Success, the "Experts of Experience" podcast delves into the transformative impact of AI on customer experience (CX). In the March 12, 2025 episode titled "Accenture Lead Explains Why Customers Are Leaving non-AI Companies," host Lauren Wood engages with Kevin Yalowitz, Accenture's Software and Platforms Industry Lead, to uncover critical insights into consumer behavior, AI adoption challenges, and strategic leadership in the evolving CX landscape.

1. Introduction

Lauren Wood sets the stage by highlighting the dual nature of AI advancements—promising efficiency and personalization while presenting implementation challenges for businesses and trust concerns among consumers. Kevin Yalowitz joins the conversation to provide his expertise on how organizations are navigating these complexities.

2. Consumer Comfort and Perception of AI

High Adoption Rates with Mixed Sentiments

Kevin Yalowitz reveals surprising findings from Accenture’s global surveys:

Adoption Comfort: "Two thirds of the folks that we surveyed were actually comfortable with gen AI... That's a material amount of adoption in a short period of time." (00:00)
Content Perception: Consumers believe "60% of their content in search is generative, 40% of the music they listen to is generative." (02:37)

Concerns About Bias and Misinformation

Despite high comfort levels:

Bias and Misinformation Concerns: "60% said that they were concerned with bias and misinformation." (05:16)
Enhancement of Online Experience: Among weekly Gen AI users, "88% think that AI dramatically enhances their online experience." (05:16)
AI Creativity: A notable "83% of those folks think that AI can be more creative than humans." (05:16)

These insights underscore a dichotomy where consumers embrace AI for its benefits but remain wary of its implications on trust and authenticity.

3. AI's Impact on Creative Industries

Balancing AI and Human Creativity

Lauren Wood and Kevin discuss the potential displacement of human creativity by AI:

"Consumers are now going to be looking for the human element. That human touch is going to be the differentiator." (07:33)
Concerns arise in areas like music and visual arts, where the "magic kind of gets taken out of it if it's not the genius behind someone who spent their entire life learning how to create this thing." (07:33)

Premium Human-Created Content

Kevin suggests that distinguishing between AI-generated and human-created content could elevate the latter to a premium status:

"It sort of places human created content almost on a pedestal now, right? That actually can become the premium thing." (07:39)

4. AI in Enhancing Customer Support and Purchasing Decisions

Proactive Customer Support

AI-enabled proactive support can significantly enhance customer satisfaction:

Netflix Example: "Netflix has become really good at proactively telling you that there is an issue... That should enable more players to be able to do that." (10:35)
Trader Joe’s Example: "Trader Joe's employees can actually take like a bouquet of flowers out of stock and give it to someone because they're having a bad day or it's their birthday." (11:36)

Human Interaction in Emotional Scenarios

While AI can handle routine issues, human empathy remains crucial in high-emotion situations:

"If you have an angry person, you need a person to connect with them and bring them back down. It is very difficult for AI to emote and show empathy." (14:38)

5. Organizational Impact of AI Adoption

Aligning Product and Support Teams

Effective AI adoption requires seamless collaboration between product and support teams:

Kevin emphasizes the importance of bridging the gap between these teams to enhance CX:
- "Connecting those two and using AI to ensure that there's a real understanding of what those two parties need to do together is a major opportunity to get this right." (19:48)

Case Study: T-Mobile

T-Mobile exemplifies successful CX transformation by prioritizing customer experience over traditional practices:

"T Mobile took an experience that was very much driven by lock-in contracts and they created the UN carrier... their lifetime value of a customer is longer than it ever has been." (19:23)

6. Challenges in AI Implementation

Data Readiness and Infrastructure

One of the primary hurdles in AI adoption is ensuring data quality and infrastructure readiness:

"Baseline is company. Typically the data in a company to enable AI to actually do a job is super messy." (31:27)
Efforts have focused on cleaning data to facilitate effective AI and machine learning applications.

Top-Down vs. Bottom-Up Approaches

Implementing AI across an organization requires strategic approaches:

Top-Down: Necessary for large-scale workflow integration and ensuring data security.
Bottom-Up: Encourages experimentation and individual productivity enhancements, fostering innovation from within.

Kevin advises a balanced approach:

"We think that the top-down approach is kind of a requirement to do some of this big instantiation... having a bottoms up approach and allowing your teams to have the... to play with, new AI tooling can actually surface some really exciting things." (35:26)

Managing AI Tools and Guardrails

Establishing clear guidelines and boundaries is essential to prevent misuse:

"We have to create really clear guardrails and they are very good at following direction." (33:55)

Employee Resistance and Productivity Tools

AI can act as a force multiplier but may also face resistance due to fears of job displacement:

Kevin highlights the emergence of AI tools aimed at enhancing employee productivity and the importance of demonstrating real business value:
- "Companies are tired of gen AI hype. They want to see real business value and that's determined in revenue growth or cost." (34:53)

7. Leadership Strategies for AI Transformation

Customer Obsession as a Guiding Principle

Both Lauren and Kevin stress that a relentless focus on the customer should drive AI initiatives:

Kevin's advice: "This is going to sound a little silly but it's be customer obsessed." (46:18)
Lauren reinforces the need for top-down support and aligning all teams towards customer-centric goals.

Aligning Objectives and Key Results (OKRs)

Ensuring that all teams share common goals related to customer satisfaction fosters better collaboration:

"Having aligned OKRs... It's essential because if the product team is not incented to reduce support cases... this will never get fixed." (24:24)

Empowering Teams with the Right Tools

Leaders should both mandate strategic AI integrations and enable teams to explore AI tools within set boundaries:

"Make the tools available and let them decide... the snowball effect is going to happen when people see that that's very useful and benefits them." (42:40)

8. Conclusion: The Future of AI in Customer Experience

Embracing AI for Competitive Advantage

As AI becomes integral to CX, companies not investing in AI-driven customer experiences risk falling behind:

Lauren asserts, "All the companies that are not investing in AI and their customer experience... they're going to be left in the dust." (23:48)

Final Takeaway: Stay Customer Obsessed

Kevin encapsulates the episode with a fundamental principle:

"Step back and look at everything that I'm working on it and really, and really dissect. Is there something we are doing that would come across as not being obsessed with our clients?" (46:22)

Lauren echoes this sentiment, emphasizing the necessity of understanding and prioritizing customer needs to drive successful AI integration.

This episode of "Experts of Experience" offers a comprehensive exploration of how AI is reshaping customer experience, highlighting both opportunities and challenges. Through the insights shared by Kevin Yalowitz, listeners gain a nuanced understanding of the strategic imperatives for leveraging AI to foster customer loyalty and drive business growth in an increasingly AI-driven marketplace.

Notable Quotes with Timestamps

Kevin Yalowitz [00:00]: "Two thirds of the folks that we surveyed were actually comfortable with gen AI... That's a material amount of adoption in a short period of time."
Lauren Wood [05:16]: "Consumers are now going to be looking for the human element. That human touch is going to be the differentiator."
Kevin Yalowitz [07:39]: "It sort of places human created content almost on a pedestal now, right? That actually can become the premium thing."
Lauren Wood [14:38]: "If you have an angry person, you need a person to connect with them and bring them back down. It is very difficult for AI to emote and show empathy."
Kevin Yalowitz [19:23]: "T Mobile took an experience that was very much driven by lock-in contracts and they created the UN carrier... their lifetime value of a customer is longer than it ever has been."
Kevin Yalowitz [31:27]: "Baseline is company. Typically the data in a company to enable AI to actually do a job is super messy."
Lauren Wood [35:26]: "We're going to start using AI whether you like it or not."
Kevin Yalowitz [46:18]: "This is going to sound a little silly but it's be customer obsessed."
Lauren Wood [46:58]: "If we put ourselves in our customers' shoes... then we can really understand what do they care about and bring that back and make that our north star as well."

Timestamps Reference

00:00
02:37
05:16
07:33
07:39
10:35
11:36
14:38
19:23
19:48
23:48
24:24
31:27
33:55
35:26
42:40
46:05
46:18
46:58

Summary

Experts of Experience: Accenture Lead Explains Why Customers Are Leaving non-AI Companies

1. Introduction

2. Consumer Comfort and Perception of AI

High Adoption Rates with Mixed Sentiments

Kevin Yalowitz reveals surprising findings from Accenture’s global surveys:

Adoption Comfort: "Two thirds of the folks that we surveyed were actually comfortable with gen AI... That's a material amount of adoption in a short period of time." (00:00)
Content Perception: Consumers believe "60% of their content in search is generative, 40% of the music they listen to is generative." (02:37)

Concerns About Bias and Misinformation

Despite high comfort levels:

Bias and Misinformation Concerns: "60% said that they were concerned with bias and misinformation." (05:16)
Enhancement of Online Experience: Among weekly Gen AI users, "88% think that AI dramatically enhances their online experience." (05:16)
AI Creativity: A notable "83% of those folks think that AI can be more creative than humans." (05:16)

These insights underscore a dichotomy where consumers embrace AI for its benefits but remain wary of its implications on trust and authenticity.

3. AI's Impact on Creative Industries

Balancing AI and Human Creativity

Lauren Wood and Kevin discuss the potential displacement of human creativity by AI:

"Consumers are now going to be looking for the human element. That human touch is going to be the differentiator." (07:33)
Concerns arise in areas like music and visual arts, where the "magic kind of gets taken out of it if it's not the genius behind someone who spent their entire life learning how to create this thing." (07:33)

Premium Human-Created Content

Kevin suggests that distinguishing between AI-generated and human-created content could elevate the latter to a premium status:

"It sort of places human created content almost on a pedestal now, right? That actually can become the premium thing." (07:39)

4. AI in Enhancing Customer Support and Purchasing Decisions

Proactive Customer Support

AI-enabled proactive support can significantly enhance customer satisfaction:

Netflix Example: "Netflix has become really good at proactively telling you that there is an issue... That should enable more players to be able to do that." (10:35)
Trader Joe’s Example: "Trader Joe's employees can actually take like a bouquet of flowers out of stock and give it to someone because they're having a bad day or it's their birthday." (11:36)

Human Interaction in Emotional Scenarios

While AI can handle routine issues, human empathy remains crucial in high-emotion situations:

"If you have an angry person, you need a person to connect with them and bring them back down. It is very difficult for AI to emote and show empathy." (14:38)

5. Organizational Impact of AI Adoption

Aligning Product and Support Teams

Effective AI adoption requires seamless collaboration between product and support teams:

Kevin emphasizes the importance of bridging the gap between these teams to enhance CX:
- "Connecting those two and using AI to ensure that there's a real understanding of what those two parties need to do together is a major opportunity to get this right." (19:48)

Case Study: T-Mobile

T-Mobile exemplifies successful CX transformation by prioritizing customer experience over traditional practices:

"T Mobile took an experience that was very much driven by lock-in contracts and they created the UN carrier... their lifetime value of a customer is longer than it ever has been." (19:23)

6. Challenges in AI Implementation

Data Readiness and Infrastructure

One of the primary hurdles in AI adoption is ensuring data quality and infrastructure readiness:

"Baseline is company. Typically the data in a company to enable AI to actually do a job is super messy." (31:27)
Efforts have focused on cleaning data to facilitate effective AI and machine learning applications.

Top-Down vs. Bottom-Up Approaches

Implementing AI across an organization requires strategic approaches:

Top-Down: Necessary for large-scale workflow integration and ensuring data security.
Bottom-Up: Encourages experimentation and individual productivity enhancements, fostering innovation from within.

Kevin advises a balanced approach:

"We think that the top-down approach is kind of a requirement to do some of this big instantiation... having a bottoms up approach and allowing your teams to have the... to play with, new AI tooling can actually surface some really exciting things." (35:26)

Managing AI Tools and Guardrails

Establishing clear guidelines and boundaries is essential to prevent misuse:

"We have to create really clear guardrails and they are very good at following direction." (33:55)

Employee Resistance and Productivity Tools

AI can act as a force multiplier but may also face resistance due to fears of job displacement:

Kevin highlights the emergence of AI tools aimed at enhancing employee productivity and the importance of demonstrating real business value:
- "Companies are tired of gen AI hype. They want to see real business value and that's determined in revenue growth or cost." (34:53)

7. Leadership Strategies for AI Transformation

Customer Obsession as a Guiding Principle

Both Lauren and Kevin stress that a relentless focus on the customer should drive AI initiatives:

Kevin's advice: "This is going to sound a little silly but it's be customer obsessed." (46:18)
Lauren reinforces the need for top-down support and aligning all teams towards customer-centric goals.

Aligning Objectives and Key Results (OKRs)

Ensuring that all teams share common goals related to customer satisfaction fosters better collaboration:

"Having aligned OKRs... It's essential because if the product team is not incented to reduce support cases... this will never get fixed." (24:24)

Empowering Teams with the Right Tools

Leaders should both mandate strategic AI integrations and enable teams to explore AI tools within set boundaries:

"Make the tools available and let them decide... the snowball effect is going to happen when people see that that's very useful and benefits them." (42:40)

8. Conclusion: The Future of AI in Customer Experience

Embracing AI for Competitive Advantage

As AI becomes integral to CX, companies not investing in AI-driven customer experiences risk falling behind:

Lauren asserts, "All the companies that are not investing in AI and their customer experience... they're going to be left in the dust." (23:48)

Final Takeaway: Stay Customer Obsessed

Kevin encapsulates the episode with a fundamental principle:

"Step back and look at everything that I'm working on it and really, and really dissect. Is there something we are doing that would come across as not being obsessed with our clients?" (46:22)

Lauren echoes this sentiment, emphasizing the necessity of understanding and prioritizing customer needs to drive successful AI integration.

Notable Quotes with Timestamps

Kevin Yalowitz [00:00]: "Two thirds of the folks that we surveyed were actually comfortable with gen AI... That's a material amount of adoption in a short period of time."
Lauren Wood [05:16]: "Consumers are now going to be looking for the human element. That human touch is going to be the differentiator."
Kevin Yalowitz [07:39]: "It sort of places human created content almost on a pedestal now, right? That actually can become the premium thing."
Lauren Wood [14:38]: "If you have an angry person, you need a person to connect with them and bring them back down. It is very difficult for AI to emote and show empathy."
Kevin Yalowitz [19:23]: "T Mobile took an experience that was very much driven by lock-in contracts and they created the UN carrier... their lifetime value of a customer is longer than it ever has been."
Kevin Yalowitz [31:27]: "Baseline is company. Typically the data in a company to enable AI to actually do a job is super messy."
Lauren Wood [35:26]: "We're going to start using AI whether you like it or not."
Kevin Yalowitz [46:18]: "This is going to sound a little silly but it's be customer obsessed."
Lauren Wood [46:58]: "If we put ourselves in our customers' shoes... then we can really understand what do they care about and bring that back and make that our north star as well."

Timestamps Reference

00:00
02:37
05:16
07:33
07:39
10:35
11:36
14:38
19:23
19:48
23:48
24:24
31:27
33:55
35:26
42:40
46:05
46:18
46:58

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Accenture Lead Explains Why Customers Are Leaving non-AI Companies

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Summary

1. Introduction

2. Consumer Comfort and Perception of AI

3. AI's Impact on Creative Industries

4. AI in Enhancing Customer Support and Purchasing Decisions

5. Organizational Impact of AI Adoption

6. Challenges in AI Implementation

7. Leadership Strategies for AI Transformation

8. Conclusion: The Future of AI in Customer Experience

Notable Quotes with Timestamps

Timestamps Reference

Summary

1. Introduction

2. Consumer Comfort and Perception of AI

3. AI's Impact on Creative Industries

4. AI in Enhancing Customer Support and Purchasing Decisions

5. Organizational Impact of AI Adoption

6. Challenges in AI Implementation

7. Leadership Strategies for AI Transformation

8. Conclusion: The Future of AI in Customer Experience

Notable Quotes with Timestamps

Timestamps Reference