“By 2020, 85% of customer interactions will be managed without a human” – Gartner
With such impressive numbers and the changing trends in technology, AI (artificial intelligence) is surely the future of the next gen of customer experiences.
AI has simmense potential because it has the power to analyse and process huge amounts of data from different sources, including human behaviour and emotions, thereby helping create more meaningful customer experiences.
The world is already witnessing the inroads of AI in various industries and fields. Tesla’s autonomous cars, Google’s personal assistant, Apple’s “Siri” and Amazon Alexa/Echo are examples showing how AI can disrupt every aspect of the modern lifestyle.
While it’s no secret that the way companies and customers interact has changed, with the consumer demanding more personalised conversation. AI technology has been able to break through this clutter and offered a platform for more meaningful interactions.
And in the world of marketing, this has enabled a smoother, more relevant customer experiences without losing the “human touch” aspect, that helps connects brands and their customers.
With its immense potential here is how AI can transform customer experience for better.
Improved customer experience with chatbots and AI-powered virtual assistants
The biggest benefit that AI can have on customer experience is by making it automated, fast and hassle-free. These chatbots are specifically programmed to simulate human interactions and provide immediate, personalized responses. This eliminates unnecessary delays and errors in customer service, especially while handling customer complaints.
Also, with the help of AI-powered virtual assistants, businesses are able to distribute content more effectively across various channels in order to cater to the right target audience.
An example of this is Facebook’s Messenger Bot which helps shoppers find what they are looking for by engaging them in simple conversations. Along with machine learning, AI can also help incorporate lead generation, leading to more profits for brands.
It can point out positive leads to sales by making sure that potential customers are targeted for the correct platforms.
Predictive personalisation
The effort and ability to predict the actions of users, based on their previous behaviours is predictive personalisation. But how is AI and predictive personalisation co-related?
In today’s day and age, AI is effectively using predictive personalisation to improve customer experience by integrating it with consumers’ everyday lives. This AI-powered personalization makes the customers feel as if every product or brand experience was tailor made just for them.
And when it comes to online shopping, this information becomes very crucial. This is because, data collected from consumer behaviour exhibited in online sessions is analysed.
By observing and processing this data, brands are able to deliver the right suggestion to their customers. This makes consumer experience smoother and streamlined across various channels.
AI-enabled analytics is crucial for customer insights
AI plays a crucial role in providing companies with actionable insights about customer engagement and empower employees by helping them in making informed decisions.
There are tools such as facial recognition software, text analytics, and machine learning which can be used by companies to know what their customers are seeing, identifying the right messaging to convey it in real time.
AI-enabled customer journey analytics is able to sift through large and complex data space, thereby uncovering many more business opportunities.
Dramatic shift in decision making
The success of AI will be measured more or less like return on investment, new market opportunities etc. These all achievements will be made through a huge shift in terms of decision making.
Over the years with a shift towards digitalisation, quicker decisions are the need of the hour. To be able to take such decisions at break neck speed, the importance of AI in decision making is gaining grounds.
This in turn has resulted in business realising that decision cannot be made entirely on guts and intuition. Rather, decisions need to be backed by data. So, whether it is a product review or customer service processes, AI enables businesses to make informed decisions.
Health, financial services and automotive sectors are witnessing a huge changes in their decision-making strategies.
A very fine example of this is the recent case of PwC, a renowned audit and tax consulting company. They put together massive amounts of data from the US Census Bureau, US financial data, and other public licensed sources to create a large-scale model for financial decision making of up to 320 million US consumers.
On the other hand, the automotive industry has developed several AI applications, which includes vehicle design to marketing and sales decision-making support.
In simple words AI modelling and simulation provides a good grasp of changing consumer behaviour, which is crucial to making the best marketing decisions, in the short and long run.
What we must understand is that Artificial Intelligence is here to stay and its future possibilities are insurmountable. Also, businesses have understood that AI-driven customer focused journey analytics will be their most fundamental requirement to deliver high-impact customer experience rapidly and effectively.
