Creating Customer Experience: ‘Can modern business still feel human?’

IN the fast-paced journey towards digitisation, many companies overlook a simple truth: customers are human beings, not data points. Artificial Intelligence (AI), chatbots and self-service portals promise efficiency and accuracy in what they deliver.

- By Dhammika Kalapuge

However, these tools often risk tipping away the emotional connection with customers — the very connection that builds loyalty. Therefore, greater emphasis must be placed on ensuring that digitization does not lead to standardisation or robotisation but instead promotes customisation and personalisation. In this process, think of shifting from Tech to Touch, using technology to capture customers’ attention and strengthen emotional connection. This is the paradox of modern service: the more digital we become, the more human we must be.

Artificial Intelligence versus Human Intelligence

Of course, technology, commonly referred to today as Artificial Intelligence (AI), can replace humans in specific areas, by excelling at repetitive, routine and mundane tasks thus improving efficiency. AIs main advantages include enhanced productivity through automation, improved decision-making through data analysis, and round-the-clock operational capability. It is well established that AI-based systems are fast, accurate and consistently rational. Yet they are not intuitive, emotional or culturally sensitive, qualities that make humans truly effective.

AI lacks the Emotional Intelligence (EI) and creativity that are inherently human. While AI can recognise and analyse emotions to some extent, it may not have the capability to truly understand the implications or to respond in a meaningful way. AI abilities depend largely on the data it processes. Humans, by contrast, are more capable of imagining, anticipating, feeling and exercising judgment in changing situations — abilities that AI still struggles to emulate.