AI is transforming how businesses operate and how they meet customer needs. A decade ago, exceptional customer service looked like answering customers’ emails within 24 hours. In the early 2000s, having a standby customer representative to take someone’s order over the phone was deemed highly sophisticated. But today, customers expect brands to go above and beyond with personalized offers, tailored communications, and relevant advertising and marketing campaigns.
Personalized Offers
Every customer likes to feel like the brand is meeting — and exceeding — their needs. Because of this, customers today demand a lot from brands; they expect them to provide personalized offers that solve their current problems or make them aware of a solution for a dilemma they didn’t even know they had. For e-commerce businesses, it’s difficult to know what a customer wants without truly getting to know them. That’s where AI tools come into play.
With the help of AI, businesses can provide relevant product or service suggestions based on consumer preferences, shopping behaviors, and buying history. AI can sort through vast amounts of data in no time, providing companies with up-to-date information about consumers through every part of their shopping journeys. This allows for dynamic content customization, providing shoppers with recommendations that align with their behaviors.
Amazon is a perfect case study for this. While shoppers browse through products, read reviews, and compare with other offerings, Amazon is taking note. The next time the user goes to the Amazon site or app on their phone, they’ll be given a list of suggested relevant products based on their prior searches. Similar product recommendations will also be suggested, for instance, a knife block to match the set of knives they recently purchased.
Going beyond the traditional shopping experience, AI can also be leveraged to show personalized offers in chatbots. With machine learning and data processing, chatbots can offer a tailored, effective shopping experience. If a user asks a question about a product, the chatbot may suggest another product based on their specific needs. This allows for cross-selling and sometimes upselling as well, when the user buys higher-priced goods based on a personalized recommendation.
Chatbots are also highly used in service-based industries. AI in automotive focused industries enhances car dealerships, for example, by providing 24/7 support and service. When a potential lead makes an inquiry about a specific make or model, the chatbot may suggest other similar car models. This type of service is also used in the healthcare sector, providing potential causes to a patient’s list of symptoms and guiding them toward the appropriate care. In addition to a higher number of sales and conversions, this level of personalization can lead to increased brand loyalty, improved customer satisfaction.
Tailored Communications
“Hi, how can I help you?” is only a friendly greeting if, in fact, the customer service chatbot prompting the question can actually help the consumer. Thankfully, AI-driven tools are becoming more sophisticated. While chatbots used to be able to only provide scripted, pre-recorded responses, they’re becoming much more dynamic and convincingly human-like. This is due to significant advances in machine learning and natural language processing. As a result, chatbots can provide tailored communications to users, eliminating the need to have customer service staff on hand at all times.
Chatbots rely on powerful AI and machine learning algorithms to learn and develop responses over time. The more that a question is asked, the better the chatbot will be able to respond.
This level of improvement comes with repetition as well as access to new data. Chatbots learn from each customer interaction, generating a feedback loop of the types of responses that best meet consumers’ needs.
Chatbots learn quickly because of the instant feedback. They can pick up on language cues based on natural language processing and understanding customer sentiments and reactions. As an example, if a customer becomes disgruntled and uses language such as “annoying,” “irritated,” or “frustrated,” the chatbot will know that their responses need to be empathetic and caring. By detecting emotion, chatbots can respond appropriately to keep the conversation positive. If necessary, the chatbot can direct the consumer to a live help agent to rectify the situation and elevate the customer’s experience.
Knowing that a brand is speaking directly to them, customers will feel more valued as paying customers. Having real-time support through a tool such as an AI-driven chatbot means that their questions can be answered at a rapid speed, without the hassle of contacting customer service via email or telephone. This level of care and attention can make all the difference when a user is comparing products between brands.
Relevant Content and Marketing Campaigns
Just like your favorite social media app knows what type of content you like to engage with, so do AI-powered tools. By analyzing vast datasets and grouping similar patterns and behaviors, AI can identify the trends and habits for individual audience interests. AI tools will group consumers based on common behaviors and similarities. For instance, it may group consumers who are of a higher likelihood to be “new moms” based on recent purchases and search queries. With these insights, it can deliver relevant content — such as “Advice for New Moms,” “Postpartum Guidelines,” or “Practical Tips for the Newborn Phase.”
The type of recommended content is up to the brand. A website may have several streams of marketing tactics, from email newsletters to SMS messages to sponsored social posts. AI can draft article titles and themes, newsletter subject lines, social media captions, and more to fine-tune a brand’s marketing efforts, ensuring they’re reaching the designated audience at scale.
Another way that AI can help in terms of content generation and recommendation is by suggesting relevant content. If, for instance, there is a higher increase in questions surrounding a particular aspect of a product, AI may recommend an article focused specifically on this. A highly sophisticated software tool for HR teams may need a relevant FAQ document based on what corporate clients are asking the chatbot.
Having relevant content and marketing campaigns served to the right person at the right time can make all the difference in a saturated marketplace. The more often that an individual sees a brand’s content, recognizing it as valuable, the more likely they’ll be to purchase from them. This is only the case, however, if the content and messaging are deemed helpful and worthy. Sending irrelevant information to customers will become a nuisance, which is why being super diligent with your targeting methodologies is critical for success.
Takeaways
AI is just in its elementary stages. While we can only guess what the next decade of customer service will look like in the world of AI, we can assume that it will only strengthen the relationship businesses have with their consumers.
