How to best use AI in CX Research

Written by Sian

In today’s fast-paced CX landscape, leveraging the power of Generative AI (Gen AI) is a critical component in running a successful CX programme. At Watermelon, we understand the challenges you face when managing complex customer data and the need for swift, actionable insights. That’s why our R&D team is continuously developing our survey platform and reporting with AI-driven features.

We’re focusing on three core areas to make your work easier:

• Text analytics

• Intelligent insight summaries

• Survey design - question routing based on customer responses

These features help reduce the time associated with manual tasks, so you can focus on creating effective CX transformation in a shorter insight cycle.

How we currently use AI

Text Analytics

A core way that we are harnessing the potential of AI is in the automation of text analytics. Through automation, we enable real-time understanding of the nuances in customer feedback and help you identify and prioritise themes based on the impact they have on your customer experience.

At Watermelon, we utilize cutting-edge AI models, including deep neural networks and unsupervised machine learning, trained specifically on CX data from a variety of touchpoints and interactions—such as feedback, churn responses, and conversations across phone and chat. This ensures that the insights you receive are highly accurate and actionable, tailored to the intricacies of your customer interactions.

AI in text analytics allows you to scale and automate analysis while reducing manual effort, saving time and cutting costs. Human intelligence plays a crucial role in reviewing the AI-generated results, ensuring accuracy and customising the analysis to align with your organisational objectives. Additionally, our AI categorises themes by sentiment, providing a clear view of the emotional impact customers experience across various journeys and channels, helping you deliver a more emotionally resonant and effective customer experience

Intelligent Insight Summaries

One of the most impactful ways we leverage Generative AI in our platform is through Intelligent Insight Summaries. These real-time, concise summaries provide a clear overview of the key themes that have the greatest influence on driving customer experience—both positively and negatively. This gives you a solid, evidence-based foundation for further data interrogation and to prioritize actions and initiatives that will have the greatest impact on improving your service and customer satisfaction.

Our platform allows you to filter insights by customer profiles, including behaviour, demographics, and experience. This means you can easily drill down into specific subsets of the feedback and text analytics by customer segment and receive tailored summaries for each group, helping you make more informed, segment-specific decisions.

Additionally, the platform lets you pose specific questions to further interrogate the feedback, such as “Tell me the top five negative themes customers have related to customer support from the contact centre?” The system will then generate a summary in your preferred format, such as bullet points or a brief report, streamlining your ability to pinpoint critical insights.

We also use AI tools to create rapid summaries that answer a core insight objective, quickly identifying the "so what" to guide your deeper analysis. This helps you quickly identify key areas for further investigation, so you can take action faster and more effectively.

Survey Design

AI-powered survey design is transforming how you collect and analyse customer feedback. Our platform uses AI to dynamically tailor survey questions in real-time based on each customer’s profile, experience, or previous responses. This allows you to delve deeper into key areas, uncovering insights that matter most to your customers and organisation, whether you're exploring key themes or investigating areas of concern

AI also helps identify at-risk customers who may have shared negative feedback, automatically triggering follow-up actions, such as personalized emails, apologies, or targeted offers. This proactive approach helps the jeopardy management process and mitigates the risk of churn, allowing for real-time intervention when necessary.

Surveys can be customized based on customer demographics, location, and behaviour, ensuring that each interaction feels relevant and personalized. By tailoring content and presentation, customers are more engaged, driving up the quality of insight and response rates. AI also facilitates easy multilingual survey delivery, ensuring every customer receives a survey in their preferred language, enhancing the inclusivity of your CX research.

We also complement our use of modelling (using factor analysis and regression) with AI tools to ensure survey efficiency. This includes refining the language for clarity, identifying redundant questions, and ensuring the survey remains focused and cost-effective. The result is a smoother survey experience for customers and higher-quality insights for you, all while minimizing the risk of survey fatigue.

The future of AI in CX Research

Our Research & Development team will continue to dedicate time to exploring the latest AI developments and evaluate how they can be applied to enhance your customer experience efforts. We’re committed to not just staying current with AI, but also ensuring that the capabilities can be leveraged to deliver more precise, actionable insights for your organisation.

Our AI-supported tools are evolving to help you in key areas such as:

Sophisticated question techniques, e.g. trade-off questions to design the optimum product and price point and customer segmentation

• Product improvement and innovation

• Jeopardy management

• Using virtual assistants to support in gathering customer feedback

• Incorporating AI-driven social listening tools alongside customer feedback

• Greater trend detection across VoC and social media

• Prediction of key metrics such as CSAT, NPS for customers in future interactions

We’ll be providing quarterly updates on our AI advancements in CX research. If you’d like to stay informed or discuss how these tools can enhance your research efforts, don’t hesitate to reach out—we’d love to explore how we can support you.