Standard Life has been creating virtual reality experiences to help with customer interactions, in the hope of improving vulnerability training and awareness.
According to Riffat Tufail, head of Phoenix Group's customer vulnerability division, it is important to use technological developments such as AI and virtual reality to improve training and understanding about the customer journey.
She said Standard Life has created a virtual reality experience of a vulnerable customer interaction. "Colleagues do this as part of their training programme.
"We also have accessibility aids that colleagues can wear, to help them understand what it is like to access websites and make phone calls.
The main takeaway is that AI can do a great job at the basics and the simpler tasks.Riffat Tufail, Phoenix Group"We are also dabbling with augmented reality. The whole AI space is very interesting".
Tufail was speaking to FT Adviser during a break at a conference that was focusing on how different companies in Britain are using AI to improve customer service and experience.
She said: "The main takeaway is that AI can do a great job at the basics and the simpler tasks.
"If you point AI to the simpler tasks, what you are left with in the contact centres and the front line is the more complicated cases, where clients are able to get that human touch and have those personal interactions."
She said she believed AI could be "changing the role of the customer service agent".
As well as giving people the option of how they would like to deal with companies, it can also be woven into the whole journey so that someone can start out with a virtual assistant and then move "seamlessly" into a different channel.
Tufail added: "But the technology can capture and recognise what people have already told us, so they do not have to repeat things over and over, especially if they are going through difficult circumstances."
simoney.kyriakou@ft.com
