The devil is in the detail and early adopters are the ones that suffer when that detail bites them in the proverbial.
McKinsey describes these bites (link below) and explains the symptoms and prognosis to get it right second time round.
Robotic Process Automation
(RPA) will only automate what you already do. If the current customer journey and experience is poor, automating processes will only speed up hitting the buffers.
Digital leaders will insist that the team starts with what customers demand now and in the future and works backwards tearing up the current customer journey process if need be.
The journey must be perfect as it is no longer enough to deliver better quality- customers expect that as the norm - in fact they expect 6 key normalities:-
- Quality- no less than perfection
- Ubiquity- what I want where I need it no matter how challenging
- Immediacy- now or at least FAST and predictively
- Disengagement- automate the simple (RPA)& just contact me for the complex
- Intimacy- make be feel like I belong
- Purpose- give me meaning by appealing to my higher motivations
With thanks to "Jerk- 12 ways to Rule the World" by Christopher Surdak
The human aspect of the customer engagement is critical even with effective RPA.
The customer needs to feel she belongs to the relationship with the enterprise whether with a call centre agent, service engineer, insurance claims handler ( you name the human link) or digital communication.
And other links in the chain are the people that put problems right e.g. repair, replace damaged vehicles & property or replace stolen jewellery.
RPA is just a small component in this complete process and digital leaders will need a technology partner offering the complete digital platform to deliver the complete customer journey's 6 key normalities.
Winning awards and adopted by global companies 360Globalnet is one such platform
The economic outcomes often aren’t as rosy as originally projected. While it may be possible to automate 30 percent of tasks for the majority of occupations, that doesn’t neatly translate into a 30 percent cost reduction. People do many different things, and bots may only address some of them. Unless the process and the organization are reconfigured, savings can prove ethereal. Also, bots treat localized pain points. Anyone who’s read The Goal (or stood in line at a cafeteria) can tell you that fixing one bottleneck may just move the problem elsewhere.