WHAT’S BUZZING
Chatbots and conversational commerce are top priorities for Apac CX leaders
Seven in 10 CX leaders in Asia Pacific (Apac) believe chatbots will help their brands build a stronger connection with their customers, according to the Customer Experience Trends Report by Zendesk.
This is largely due to AI chatbots evolving into skilled digital agents, playing key roles in customer service and the overall customer experience. Their ability to mirror brand styles and evaluate customers’ feelings and desires enables them to deliver tailored, accurate responses.
Since 78% of consumers in Apac expect chatbots to have the same level of expertise and quality as highly skilled human agents, businesses are planning to boost their AI investments to upgrade their chatbots into digital agents.
Conversational commerce is also top of mind for brands in Apac. Nearly three-quarters (72%) of CX leaders in the region are partnering with external vendors and experts to implement conversational commerce.
See also: Younger consumers in Singapore more receptive towards AI agents
Brands are also turning to social media and in-store influencers for sales. This approach attracts new consumers and caters to those who prefer shopping at home. Meanwhile, 66% of Apac CX leaders believe failure to leverage tools like live streaming that provide real-time support will lead to lost opportunities.
Amid escalating privacy concerns and rising demands for AI-enhanced personalised experiences, data privacy is becoming a central responsibility for CX leaders. Four in five (82%) Apac CX leaders say data protection and cybersecurity are top priorities in their customer service strategy.
“[As economic challenges persist across the region,] businesses must go beyond adapting to ongoing consumer needs. They need to embrace transformative technologies like generative AI as a catalyst for a resilient and forward-looking customer experience strategy and commit to ensuring its ethical use,” says Maureen Chong, Zendesk’s regional vice president for Asia.
See also: Nearly four in five Apac retailers will increase their tech investment in 2025
APJ firms not confident of dealing with ransomware threats
Dell Technologies’s recent study reveals that 76% of organisations in the Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ) are worried that their existing data protection measures cannot cope with ransomware threats. Two-thirds are also not very confident that they could reliably recover in the event of a destructive cyberattack.
Moreover, 76% of IT decision-makers are not confident that their organisation can protect all the data across their public clouds. Nearly four in ten (39%) also cite challenges over data security in public multi-cloud.
New insights were also uncovered regarding the use and effectiveness of insurance policies to help mitigate an organisation’s financial exposure. The majority (95%) of APJ organisations claim they have ransomware insurance policies.
However, they noted that several conditions could limit coverage. For example, some policies require proof of best practices for cyber threat prevention, and payments to some entities may be restricted by law.
Organisations are proactively fortifying their cyber resiliency in response to growing cyber threats. They are bringing in professional services to bolster resources, conducting regular cyber recovery testing, and deploying a cyber vault with physical and logical separation from production data, among others.
“With massive data growth, unique data mobility needs, and increased experimentations with generative AI, organisations in APJ must juggle multiple fronts to protect their data effectively. In times where cyber attacks grow in frequency and sophistication, customers need a holistic data protection strategy with an integrated portfolio of solutions to improve their cyber resilience,” says Lucas Salter, Dell Technologies’s general manager of Data Protection Solutions for APJ and greater China.
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IN PICTURE
Photo: Stellar Lifestyle
Office workers at South Beach Tower can now order items from the 7-Eleven at Esplanade MRT Station and get them delivered via robots.
Without human intervention, the QuikBot robots will consolidate multiple orders on larger units before transferring the items to a fleet of smaller delivery robots (also by QuikBot). The delivery robots will navigate autonomously across building infrastructures — including managing lifts and security gantries – to deliver the orders to the precise location.
This robo-delivery service is among the innovations currently being showcased and tested at Hive 2.0, the retail innovation hub of SMRT’s Stellar Lifestyle.
DIGITAL LIFE
British rock band Coldplay has taken up the challenge of making its Music of Spheres World Tour more environmentally friendly.
It joined forces with SAP to develop an app that allows fans to calculate the carbon footprint of their travel to and from shows based on their chosen transport mode. The app will provide rewards through merchandise discount codes to be used at Coldplay’s online shop for fans who commit to low-carbon transportation options.
The band also uses the SAP Analytics Cloud solution to gain insights into the environmental impact of each concert, country, and continent to understand better how it will offset emissions throughout the tour.
