AI and machine learning will be some of the most important technologies of this decade due to the wide context of their use currently. AI has become an essential tool for sales and marketing due to the level of personalization they provide in customer engagement. According to Salesforce, 51% of brands rely on some form of AI to better tailor product offerings to their customers. Gartner estimates that the total global value of business intelligence drawn from AI will be about $4 trillion by 2022. AI and Machine Learning will be ubiquitous technologies for brands that want to remain relevant in this decade. For early adopters, here are X ways AI and Machine Learning Strategies are changing how customers engage with businesses.
Relying on AI for Accurate and Personalized Communication
78% of people that have shopped online agree that relevant content aids their purchasing decisions. If you run an internet-based business, this is great news. Being able to send relevant content to people will grow your sales revenue significantly. By collecting natural data, your business will understand the persona of every client. This unlocks the ability to send them personalized marketing messages, which are more likely to get a positive response. The business can nurture leads better with proper knowledge of where the customer is in the sales funnel. Your business will also get more cross-selling opportunities by observing existing customers’ past purchase patterns.
Using Chatbots for Fast and Round the Clock Service
Customers do not want to be on the helpline for half an hour trying to solve a problem. Not when they can find a solution in a few minutes without talking to anyone. Chatbots have become better and can now serve customers satisfactorily. These AI-powered chatbots reduce the labor needs for businesses because only unresolved issues get escalated. Chatbots ensure round-the-clock service and can be deployed both on websites and mobile apps.
An advantage of AI in customer service is that it eliminates human error that can lead to giving inaccurate information to customers. The chatbot can be configured to resolve issues that the ordinary call-center agent would find to be beyond their scope.
In other cases, natural language processing is being deployed so that bots act as call-center agents. AI assistants can also be used to help customers interact with a brand’s products. This is now a common feature in cars. It improves the overall customer experience by making it easier to query information, know the health of a device, and perform software updates.
AI Based Product Recommendation
Data on what customers search for, the pages they follow, and what they have purchased in the past is very precious to brands today. It helps companies improve their suggestions on what items the customer should purchase. This is especially the case on content search engines such as YouTube, where the goal is to keep the customer within the platform. By suggesting or displaying content the customer is likely to enjoy. Many users would agree that without AI-based recommendations, they would not spend as much time as they do on content platforms. Amazon sales would be as high without personalized recommendations because the user experience would be as good.
Real-time Decision Making
AI technology helps businesses make real-time use of the data being collected as people interact with the business’s communication tools. For instance, behavior analysis tools can help detect potentially fraudulent behavior on an e-commerce website. The company takes action to block such an attempt.
In another scenario, customers who use ad-blockers on their browsers can interact with a different User Interface from the one that other customers see normally. This helps reach a wider audience with the intended marketing message.
Real-time decision-making eliminates latency which leads to great accuracy, especially with the timing of messages to customers. Being able to get actionable insights during interactions with customers, the company can make predictive engagement.
Social Media Monitoring and Creation
Companies can employ social media monitoring and listening tools to give insights into conversations people are having that are relevant to their brand. These tools rely on AI because the data is available in bulk. The tools listen for certain keywords that can assess trends, mood, and attitude towards the brand. Social media monitoring is important for insights when a brand is launching a new product.
There are now emerging social media management tools that help with more than just scheduling. They can auto-generate content, include relevant hashtags, and schedule posts in bulk. This takes a good chunk of the social media management load away from humans. The AI technology automatically generates copy that will lead to the most engagement or conversion based on an analysis of past data.
There are AI tools that help find the right influencers for campaigns. This helps a brand make objective and correct choices about who to include in their marketing campaigns.
Challenges faced in AI & Machine Learning Based Customer Engagement Strategies
One of the major challenges is that AI software output relies heavily on the quality of data. Companies must find relevant data, clean it, before using it. The company must hire enough data scientists to assist in the data manipulation process. The team should be able to gather useful business intelligence beyond just statistics. The culture in a company must also be such that departments and branches share data that is useful. For instance, data from the sales department should inform marketing messaging as well as budget allocation for various forms of marketing.
AI implementation also requires investment to handle large quantities of data, which might be coming in at a high velocity and in different forms. The infrastructure requires frequent expansion and updates. This can be a hindrance for companies with small IT budgets. As regulations relating to data collection and use continue to become stricter, companies must comply with rules in different jurisdictions where they collect data to improve their AI and Machine Learning applications.
Getting the Best Out of AI
If your company needs help applying AI and Machine Learning to improve customer engagement, get in touch with Transcendent Software. We have over 20 years of experience in helping clients get the best out of new technologies. We will help you make the best use of the Big Data your business is generating.