Are you ready to take your customer engagement to the next level? Then it’s time you start incorporating artificial intelligence into the way you do business.
Today, more than half of all companies utilize AI in some form or fashion, and of the ones that don’t employ these solutions in business, more than 25 percent intend to do so by the end of 2020 — and with good reason. AI-derived business value is expected to triple by 2022, reaching an impressive $3.9 trillion.
One of the biggest ways AI adds value to a business is through customer engagement. According to Forbes, a majority of the highest performing companies worldwide use AI to some degree through predictive analytics and automated systems that let customers feel like they are dealing with a real person. That data becomes part of the company’s continuous improvement efforts and overall business strategy.
Here are some of the ways you can use AI to improve your company’s customer engagement.
Finding Customers
One way your company can use artificial intelligence is to find customers. AI-powered algorithms that can predict customer needs and display ads promoting your company on social media have been around for years — and they’re only getting more sophisticated.
Not only are some AI tools so well-honed that customers may feel like the platform knows what they are thinking, but all of that information gives your salespeople a better idea of how to respond to them. They can figure out the right sequence of communication or the best email templates to get a response as well as the best rebuttals to a rejection. They also know when to offer a discount and when to wait a week. That’s powerful. But it’s also just the beginning.
Engaging Leads
Where AI really shines is in engaging leads. All the information AI can collect can be used to generate recommendations and improve the customer experience in different ways. For instance, customer service employs chatbots to make answering questions and accessing account information rather seamless.
No one has to wait on the phone to speak to an agent. Live chat and instant messaging help customers save time and still get the answers they need. In some cases, these chatbots are even integrated into at-home virtual assistants like Alexa so that people can wonder aloud whether a company received their payment or when an order is shipping and get an answer.
Predicting Preferences
AI also enables personalization. All of the information artificial intelligence collects can be distilled down to remember what a customer likes and tailor future offerings. You can see this in action with music services that recommend albums and playlists based on a user’s listening history, but some companies are going even further.
Target famously figured out that unscented lotion and certain vitamin supplements correlated with reaching the second trimester of pregnancy and used that information to send timely sales offerings to its customers. Your company could use AI to gain similar insights.
For instance, in a robust cloud call center, AI can predict a caller’s intent and provide greater context to agents so they can adapt to the situation at hand.
Conclusion
Artificial intelligence will not only help your company improve its customer engagement, but it can also make it easier to find prospects, engage leads, and predict customer preferences. Whether you use artificial intelligence to route a call more effectively or provide better customer service, this growing technology can help your business in many ways, large and small.
