Artificial Intelligence (AI) has recently been a hot topic on social media platforms. The enthusiasm of some is shielding it from the criticism of others. Some fear that robots will take over our world and dominate us in all aspects of our lives. Others claim that this is the first step to a future with endless possibilities. Either way, it will change the way business is done. More importantly to us, it has the capability to change CX forever.
What is AI?
AI stands for Artificial Intelligence. In TechTarget’s definition, it is “the simulation of human intelligence processes by machines, especially computer systems. Specific applications of AI include expert systems, natural language processing, speech recognition and machine vision.”
These systems use machine learning to automate tasks. Machine learning is a technology where the system acknowledges its mistakes and learns from them to recognise patterns and make decisions. This powerful tool allows AI to learn and carry out tasks such as answering questions, analysing and grouping data according to similarities or testing different combinations to achieve the best results possible.
How could AI affect your CX?
AI definitely has the power to enhance your Customer Experience strategy, simply by being able to go through real-time data and analyse it quickly and precisely it can already put you a step ahead of your competitors. But there is a lot more that AI can help with.
Personalisation
The most impactful driver in our CX Academy Framework is ‘You Know Me’. This driver is all about getting to know your customers and delivering an experience designed for all of them as individuals. It’s all about personalisation.
In a world filled with huge companies with thousands of customers, customers may easily be treated like just a number in your system. This is the last thing you want.
AI can help with personalising each touch-point experience for each customer individually. A great example of this is the company Brinks. They started just with simple A/B tests of messages of different channels.
As they were getting more data they shifted towards a CX-focused approach and as Harvard Business Review says, “began using AI to optimize service-call scheduling, help cross-sell recommendations from call center reps, and conduct customer outreach for wireless system upgrades. In less than two years Brinks increased A/B testing from two or three tests a day to roughly 50,000 (with the capability to add more as needed). This process has dramatically reduced the need to wait for test results and has allowed Brinks to personalize every customer touchpoint.”
This example shows that through the simple ability of extreme data gathering and analysing but also through machine learning, AI can help your business provide the ultimate personalisation level for every customer.
Omnichannel Experience
One of the most important aspects of creating a strong bond with your customers is their ability to do business with you. The ease of getting in touch with you, whether it is to get help with a purchase, an answer to a question or to make a complaint, is of the utmost importance. If your customers find it even remotely difficult to get in touch, they will only power through to get in touch and tell you they want to cancel their subscription. (Or if your business is e-commerce, then they will just walk away).
When this happens you’re losing out big time! Creating an omnichannel experience, in which a customer can start a conversation with your business through web chat, and continue on social media just to finish off with a call, should be your goal.
“Omnichannel leaders including Amazon use AI and machine learning to anticipate which customer personas prefer to speak with a live agent versus using self-service for example.” You can use AI in your business to create very accurate Customer Personas and Customer journeys and update them as your customers change too. With systems that manage omnichannel pricing, AI can also help in price optimisation by persona.
It can also help to create a flexible strategy to adapt to your customer’s ever-changing buying journey. Real-time insights make it possible to update the website and apps with real availability in the stores and warehouses. According to Forbes, “56% of brands and retailers say that order track-and-traceability strengthened with AI and machine learning is essential to delivering excellent customer experiences.”
On top of this, using those insights can help you make instant decisions and changes that could increase your profits.
Increased Productivity
Every day your employees are spending countless hours on repetitive and time-consuming tasks such as data entry or generating reports. But these tasks can be automated with AI. This way your employees can focus on more creative or strategic tasks. They can also collaborate and communicate easier with tools like language translation and management platforms.
On top of this AI through virtual assistants and chatbots can provide access to information immediately reducing the time customer service agent need to spend looking in their knowledge base.
Similarly, as your customer experience will improve through utilising AI solutions, the number of complaints will reduce and your CS agents will be able to focus on helping and strengthening bonds with your customers on a deeper level. They will no longer be overworked and pressured to achieve extreme targets.
All of these actions that AI can carry out for your employees will ultimately lead to increased productivity levels and overall happiness of your employees. However, on a higher level as an employer, you can utilise AI to understand issues with staff morale and provide managers with nudge suggestions to improve staff satisfaction.
User Experience
The goal of UX design is to create as intuitive an application or product as possible. It should be easy to use but still, provide the user with all the necessary tools and information to complete their goals.
For this to happen UX Designers spend weeks or sometimes months researching, testing and re-iterating their design solutions to optimise the user experience. This process is time-consuming and AI can do the heavy lifting while the designers can focus on other parts of the design process.
According to uxplanet.org, “AI can be used to analyse user data and identify patterns or trends that might not be immediately apparent to a human designer. This can help designers identify areas of a product or service that might need improvement, allowing them to make more informed design decisions. Additionally, AI can be used to generate design ideas or prototypes, saving designers time and effort during the design process.”
However, AI can be easily misused and cause ethical issues which means that one of the greatest jobs for UX Designers will be to ensure that AI is used ethically and responsibly.
The Issues with AI and CX : Coming Soon
Drive Loyalty
Ultimately as your CX improves with the help of AI your customers will become more loyal and eventually advocates of your brand.
Remember: AI can’t do everything for you. It’s still a long way for it to take over the world, and still, a very long way for it to be the machine that could do all your tasks for you.
To grow your business and create a strong loyal advocate base you need to create a successful and strong CX strategy that will allow you to build strong relationships with your customers.
If you would like to learn how to create a CX Strategy that will increase the profitability of your business, enrol in our Professional Diploma in CX today.
