Artificial Intelligence or AI is one of the most disrupting technologies of the 2000s. Machines are getting smarter each day. While AI can create tremendous time and cost savings, it promises even bigger, more meaningful returns in another area: customer experience.
Businesses across the world are discovering new ways to leverage AI and their enhance customer experience and engagement.
In recent research, Gartner indicated that “in a few years from now, 89% of businesses will compete mostly on customer experience”.
In this post we will discuss some ways AI is already disrupting customer experience across the industries.
Making self-service more efficient
Everyone knows how excruciating it can be to just stay on hold for several minutes when we call a customer care number for a simple issue.
One of the most favourable aspects of AI is that it eliminates the need to put the customer “on hold” for the next available agent to help them with a simple problem like billing, booking or any trivial question.
AI allows companies to use chatbots to answer common customer service questions, and let customers resolve their trivial issues in a jiffy.
Back in 2011, Gartner predicted that by 2020, 85% of customer relationships will be managed without human interaction.
Besides this, most customers don’t mind chatting with customer care chatbot. As long as they answer their question quickly, they leave as a happy customer.
Improving Personalisation for online services
Another important way AI is transforming the customer experience is by providing personalised content. Now a days we rarely have to search for the products that would fit our preferences. It’s so easy now to get a recommendation based on your past history.
For example: Audio & videos streaming services like YouTube, Netflix or Spotify or concerts and performances on Bands in Town. And anyone who has shopped on Amazon has seen products recommendations.
It is now possible for products and services providers to use technology to make intelligent and accurate recommendations to their customers based on their past purchase or browsing history.
Round-the-Clock Availability
AI never needs to sleep. Similar to empowering customers via self-service, AI also offers customers 24/7 support — something most companies would not be able to afford or staff just a couple of decades ago.
What’s more, 24/7 support isn’t just “good CX”— the stakes are high in today’s market. Most customers are not willing to wait until you open your doors to get answers to their issues. AI makes that possible.
Automated day to day assistance
Many households now a days use Alexa to turn on music or dim the lights. But more and more, companies are using Alexa, Google Home and other robotic AI to make their customers’ lives easier.
E-commerce stores have started to link Alexa and Google Home to allow customers to order products using voice commands. People can also purchase movie tickets and pre-order snacks before they even leave the house. These are just a few ways the AI is transforming the customer experience.
It can save significant costs
Our partner, Ubility AI recently supported two companies in France — DataSolutions & Retail Explorer in optimising their services using AI.
In the past DataSolutions and Retail explorer used to take all information in newspapers and magazines, scan them and identify prices and promotions from major retailers, enter it in their systems and then using the insights generated support their customers on how should they adjust their prices and offerings.
Until now this was a manual process. They used to scan all the pages and have people handling data entry manually loaded them into their system. This used to take on average 2-3 weeks costing EUR 50,000.
Using Ubility's image and text recognition they were able to automate 90% of the data entry tasks, which reduced the time required to do the job from weeks to days translating into EUR 40,000.00 savings per month.
Ubility AI is a leading provider of AI Solutions helping organisations optimise their work processes using technology.
Related: Meet the Experts: Khaled Dassouki, CEO, Ubility
As we can see, the entire goal of using AI to improve customer experience is to help your customers feel known and valued. Business should test the processes, re-test, and test again— from the customers’ viewpoint. The only thing worse than not using AI for CX today is using it inefficiently.