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Forbes
27-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Checkup Time: The Lurking AI Danger That Can Kill A Successful Business
Businesses need quality data. If they operate on the wrong data, their tools can guide them in the ... More wrong direction. When's the last time your organization had a thorough data checkup? Not just a quick scan, but a deeper, more thorough search for hidden problems that could lead to disaster? The chances are it's been far too long. Surveys have found that the vast majority of businesses rely on stale data, which ushers in a host of hazards. 'Failing to update data regularly can have significant consequences for businesses, including targeting the wrong contacts, making decisions based on outdated information, and exposing the organization to unnecessary risks,' Moody's warns. While these dangers have existed for decades, they've gotten far bigger in the last couple of years. Businesses are rapidly adopting and deploying AI-powered technologies that offer tremendous benefits, like vastly improved CX (customer experience). But if they operate on the wrong data, these same tools can guide an organization in the wrong directions. Just as AI can attract customers, it can also repel them. Nextiva explained in a research survey The Leader's Guide to CX Trends in 2025, 'AI can predict what customers need, assist during live conversations, and save time through automation without making reps feel marginalized. However, poorly implemented AI will frustrate customers and drive them away.' Data hygiene is key One of the biggest mistakes companies make in implementing AI is poor data hygiene. 'AI learns from the data it's fed, and the results can be damaging if that data is outdated, inconsistent, or biased,' Nextiva explained in a blog post. 'Bad data can lead to inaccurate predictions, skewed insights, and poor personalization. For example, if your CRM (customer relationship management tool) includes duplicate customer records or missing information, an AI-driven email campaign could send irrelevant messages, or worse, the same message twice.' Today's consumers want to feel that brands recognize and respect them. They want interactions to be personalized. Irrelevant or duplicate messages send the exact opposite signal. Working with organizations across a wide array of industries, I see this happen all the time. And these days, data decays (becomes obsolete) more quickly than ever, given the rapid pace of change in both business operations and consumer habits. People constantly update what they want or need, and their expectations keep climbing higher and higher. Sending them the wrong messages is just one way your business can go wrong. Recent research highlights other pitfalls as well. For example, a study on financial risk management found that poor data hygiene 'can expose firms to legal consequences and damage customer trust.' Also, independent researcher Anshul Vyas wrote, 'As AI models increasingly demand real-time or streaming data for predictions, the pressure on IT infrastructure, cloud security, and cyber resilience intensifies.' Then there's the environmental impact. 'Storing and processing data has an environmental cost, so 'data hygiene' is gaining importance,' researchers Sergiu-Alexandru Ionescu, Vlad Diaconita, and Andreea-Oana Radu of the Bucharest University of Economic Studies wrote in a recent study. This problem is especially big for financial institutions, which are 'notorious for hoarding data due to regulatory needs (e.g., storing years of transaction records) and analytical ambitions,' they added. These concerns are likely to grow as businesses put increased focus on climate efforts. In addition to tracking their carbon footprint, some are now looking at their 'nature footprint,' which the World Economic Forum describes as 'a holistic understanding of a company's impacts and dependencies on nature.' How to get a clean bill of data health Businesses should use data cleansing tools to automate validation, eliminate duplicate records, purge stale information, and more. They should also conduct regular audits. It's helpful to assign a data steward as well. As defines it, 'A data steward is an information technology employee who controls the quality of data a company gathers and the method it uses to collect it. These stewards are important for a company's data security by creating and enforcing data policies.' Crucially, businesses should combine all their communications into a single AI-powered tool like a unified customer experience management platform (UCXM). These kinds of technologies can automate numerous processes including for data hygiene, while protecting privacy and security. The importance of data hygiene is a powerful reminder that, even in this era, humans are still in charge. AI tools are packed with potential, but even the best are only as good as the data they run on. With employees overseeing data hygiene, your business can proceed much more confidently into the new world of AI -- and trust that you'll maintain a clean bill of health.
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Steerco Launches First AI-Powered Platform Built For Customer Success Managers
PHOENIX, May 27, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Steerco, the AI platform purpose-built for Customer Success and Account Management teams, today announced the public launch of its newest product: an agentic AI assistant that automates QBRs, account reviews, and success plans — so CSMs can finally stop working like report writers. Most CS tools are made for executives. Steerco flips that. It's the first platform built for the people actually doing the work. From prepping for customer calls to tracking goals and risk signals, Steerco handles the strategic busywork so CSMs can focus on outcomes, not formatting slides. "Steerco does your homework, so you can do your job," said Zach Hawley, CEO and Founder of Steerco. "This isn't another copilot. It's your least annoying teammate, one that shows up on time, preps your docs, and doesn't need handholding." What You Can Do with Steerco: Auto-generate account reviews, QBRs, and success plans in minutes Track product usage, stakeholder engagement, and customer health in one place Flag expansion and churn risk using internal signals and market intel Try It - No Surprises Steerco offers a "try before you buy" experience. Users can create a few account plans, success plans, and engagement summaries before hitting the paywall. A credit card is required to get started, and full AI access is unlocked with a paid plan. Key Features Include: Agentic QBR Automation – Go from review to plan to prep in one click Live Success Plans – No more Word docs. Share live customer-facing workspaces AI-Driven Signals – Pull from product usage, CRM trends, and external events Compliance-Safe AI – Every output is logged, private, and traceable Why Now? AI is changing how post-sale teams operate. According to Zendesk's 2025 CX Trends report, 70% of customers can already tell which companies are using AI effectively. Steerco gives CSMs and AMs a head start — not just another tool to manage. Try Steerco Today Visit to start your trial. About Steerco Steerco is an AI-powered SaaS platform that automates reviews, success plans, and customer prep workflows for CS and AM teams. Built for the people doing the hard work, not just presenting it. Steerco helps you reduce prep time, manage more accounts, and scale post-sale strategy without burning out. View source version on Contacts Media Contact: sales@
Forbes
21-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
The New Era Of CX Starts With A Smarter Hello
For Call Routing Optimization, Learn a Lesson from GPS Nearly a quarter of businesses (24%) are using AI for call routing optimization, and another quarter are planning to follow suit. That's what my company learned when we surveyed customer experience leaders in a wide range of companies for The Leader's Guide to CX Trends in 2025. There are two key lessons in this. First, any business not tapping into the potential of this technology will fall well behind its competitors. And second, among businesses that do adopt technologies for optimizing where calls are routed, the differentiation will lie in how well those systems perform. Amid all of the potential of AI, it's easy to lose sight of the fact that consumers still like to call companies. Data compiled by CMSWire shows that customers prefer speaking by phone to a human for urgent and non-urgent issues; 61% of call center leaders say volumes have increased since 2021, despite the availability of self-service solutions and chatbots; and 71% expect companies to deliver personalized interactions. So not only is call center volume still very high, it's also facing a burden of higher-than-ever expectations. Getting a caller to the right agent as quickly as possible is a must. Lots of tools claim to offer that capability. But they're not all created equal. In a blog post, Ken McMahon with Nextiva provided a helpful analogy. 'You're running late for an appointment and need to get there as soon as possible,' he wrote. 'A basic GPS might simply provide you with the shortest route, regardless of traffic conditions… An advanced GPS, however, uses real-time traffic data to suggest the fastest route. It optimizes your journey by considering factors like traffic flow, road closures, and accidents. That's how intelligent call routing (ICR) works.' What kind of information does a top-notch ICR system include? Obvious factors like the type of service needed, its level of complexity, and what kind of expertise may be relevant come into play. But so do many other factors that are less obvious. A recent study published in the journal Frontiers of Computer Science reviewed a great deal of research around the characteristics that systems can pick up in order to route a call to the best possible agent. Ecaterina Coman of Transilvania University in Romania focused on businesses in which the initial call goes to an interactive voice system rather than a human agent. But intelligent call routing can also operate in the background when a person takes the initial call. Researchers have found that 'the effectiveness of call routing to the agent can be improved if machine learning systems are implemented to obtain biometric data from the customer's voice, such as the caller's age, gender and emotional state,' she wrote. Dramatically enhancing the customer experience My team breaks down the process into a series of steps leveraging data, analytics, and automation. AI-powered intelligent call routing systems collecting caller input like account numbers, reasons for callings, location, account history, previous interactions and more. The system analyzes all this to understand the caller's intent and match it with predefined routing rules and agent capabilities. This is where skill based routing comes into play. Software determines the unique combination of skills most likely to help provide what the caller is looking for. And because the organization measures employees' skill sets, it can determine who should take over the call. Of course, availability factors in as well. With all this information, intelligent call routing sends the call to the right person. The process is designed to get callers' issues resolved with the highest possible success rates, dramatically enhancing CX. Call routing optimization does not automatically require a whole new set of tools. These days, a unified customer experience management (UCXM) platform can include this functionality. By streamlining all communications into a single, AI-powered platform, organizations give everyone access to the information they need and maximize the information available for all parts of the customer journey to work in sync. When people drive, they want to get to their destination as quickly as possible, with the smoothest, most comfortable ride. When they call a business, they want the same thing -- a quick, smooth experience, getting them where they were trying to go. With the best call routing optimization in place, organizations can make this happen, and pull ahead of the competition.
