We are social beings and, as such, our connections are important to us. Moreover, our connections to other people get stronger when they show up in the moments that matter to us.

The same is true for brands. When they show up in the moments that matter to us, they can make us feel understood, heard, and respected. Getting that right can, in turn, drive increased loyalty.

That was one of the big themes of Qualtrics CEO Zig Serafin’s opening keynote address at the company’s X4 event in Salt Lake City recently.

However, Serafin also believes that many brands have a problem. He believes that brands often spend too much time managing and optimizing transactions, and that by not immediately acting on insights and the feedback that customers share with them, particularly in crucial moments, they are holding back their efforts to deliver great customer experiences. Moreover, in doing so they also risk missing the big picture: the opportunity “to create real human connection.”

Qualtrics’ announcement of their new Experience Agents™, a series of highly specialized AI agents that utilize agentic AI, aims to remedy that.

After his keynote, Serafin explained to me that, up until now, the Qualtrics platform has been used to create powerful insights and diagnose problems, helping companies listen to their customers, understand what actions to take, and know which direction to go in the market.

However, with the launch of their Experience Agents, brands will be able to go further and autonomously take action on those insights in real time.

To bring this to life, Serafin likened their Experience Agents to having the best company representative you can think of show up on demand, in the moments that matter, to both customers and employees, and be able to take action and resolve the issue.

One of the most interesting ways that they are applying their new agentic capabilities, particularly when it comes to building connections with customers and acting in the moments that matter, is what they have done within their core surveying product.

Their new conversational feedback capability allows them to adapt survey questions in real time based on customer responses, particularly if the responses are incomplete or partial, and then, based on that insight, take action to help resolve the customer’s problem.

For example, imagine you are a sports fan and during a recent game, the food service was particularly slow. You share your frustration in a feedback survey. But, rather than waiting to have someone follow up later, an Experience Agent responds in real time and within the survey to learn more about the problem. It then acts to resolve the issue by providing a personalized offer of two complimentary passes to the Club Lounge at the next home game for the inconvenience.

According to Brad Anderson, President of Products, UX, and Engineering at Qualtrics, this allows their customers to not only add seven percentage points to their survey completion rate but also enrich the quality of data that they collect by around 40% as a result of their adaptive approach.

That is not insignificant, especially when you consider that the average response rate to a customer feedback request is sub 10%, with some organisations operating with a completion rate in the 3-4% range.

Think about that for a minute.

Think about how much more data and actionable feedback you would get with a 7% uplift in your survey response rates, and what if that data also improved in quality and actionable insight by 40%.

The problem with all of this, however, is that people are sharing less and less direct feedback with companies. In fact, Qualtrics’ own research suggests that customers are increasingly sharing less direct feedback via surveys, social media, or reviews on third-party ratings sites after good or bad experiences.

So, why put in the effort into surveys?

Well, for two reasons.

Firstly, most companies still use surveys. According to Forrester’s data, 96% of all CX programs still use surveys.

Secondly, and most importantly, customers often only complete surveys if they have had either a really great or a really bad experience. So, it matters that they are still willing to share their perspective and can do so directly, particularly when something goes wrong.

Moreover, the ability to act on that feedback empathetically and in real time is a capability that will help brands build better connections with their customers.

That, as Serafin points out, is where the big opportunity lies for those wanting to deliver great customer experiences.

This post was originally published on Forbes.com.
Credit: Photo by Aisiri Iyengar on Unsplash