6 ways AI will transform your customer experience

Intelligent customer engagement

Customer Engagement has evolved rapidly with the advent of digital technology. New mobile communication channels, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML) and an abundance of tools and platforms bringing them all together.

When used properly, AI and ML technologies can be used by businesses to deepen customer engagement, build lasting relationships, and deliver hyper-personalised experiences at scale across various digital channels such as SMS, WhatsApp and email without huge amounts of manual effort. 

The productivity benefits are one thing, but why is having this kind of approach so critical? Today's customers expect more than just transactions from the companies they choose to purchase products or services from.  They yearn for a seamless, engaging, consistent yet individualised customer experience. 

The power of AI and ML in customer engagement can no longer be undermined as businesses strive to offer unparalleled customer experiences. AI and ML are undeniably transforming how companies engage with their customers, elevating one-sided interactions into meaningful, two-way connections that create joyful moments and memorable journeys that keep them sticky. Here’s some of the ways that AI will change the game for customer experiences. 

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1. Enhancing personalisation 

AI's biggest potential lies in its ability to deliver automated optimised experiences at scale. Using AI and ML, firms can transform a plethora of data into valuable predictive insights about customers' preferences, behaviour, and decision triggers. Leveraging these insights, businesses can offer personalised communications, product recommendations, and unique experiences that are more likely to resonate with individual customers.

For instance, AI and ML algorithms can analyse a customer's interactions with a brand across various channels and predict the products/services they might be interested in, when they are most likely to buy, and what channels they prefer to be contacted on. Layered on top of zero and first party data, plus relevant 3rd-party data like weather or location details, this prediction power enables businesses to communicate with greater relevance than ever before, delivering helpful recommendations, and timely alerts via the right channel - boosting their cross sell and upsell opportunities and creating longer lasting customer relationships in the process. 

2. Improving responsiveness

Today's consumer wants instant responses – be it a query, complaint, or a purchase request. Automated customer support systems can engage customers in real time without any time or geographical barriers. Taking that one step further - AI-powered automated customer support can free up human customer service representatives to deal with more complex customer queries by using historical data to better understand how to manage common customer inquiries.

Unlike humans, AI-powered interactions can manage multiple customers simultaneously and provide instant responses, improving customer satisfaction and engagement. However - businesses must approach with caution! The risks of misuse can be catastrophic. We’ve all had bad experiences with Chatbots that are just not quite getting it, making us feel even more frustrated and disregarded. 

Leveraging a Customer Engagement Platform that can take advantage of AI effectively to help power up the customer service management will transform the experience completely. With access to all your existing and historical customer data - a Chatbot will be able to refine and optimise contextual responses automatically. Being able to better match keywords to understand misspelled words, and access and assimilate large quantities of data means that businesses can use ML algorithms to learn from every single customer interaction and improve their overall performance over time.

3. Boosting customer engagement with proactive communication 

AI and ML enable businesses to be proactive rather than reactive in their customer communication. They can analyse customer data to identify potential issues, predict customer needs, and address them even before the customer realises.

For example, AI can predict when a customer is likely to run out of a product they regularly purchase, triggering proactive SMS, WhatsApp and email reminders to repurchase and therefore promoting engagement and driving sales.

4. Exploring new ways of customer interaction 

Additionally, Natural Language Processing (NLP) to understand customer sentiment, allows businesses to experiment with innovative ways to interact with customers. For example, an AI-powered system can interpret a customer's messages on WhatsApp or SMS and understand whether the customer is happy, unhappy, or neutral towards a product or brand.

5. Shortening sales cycles 

From lead generation to conversions, AI and ML can automate numerous tasks that otherwise consume a lot of time and resources. For example, platforms leveraging AI correctly can analyse and prioritise queries likely to convert based on their interactions with a brand, focusing their efforts, resulting in accelerated sales cycles.

6. Scalability 

AI and ML provide significant advantages for scalability. As your business grows, AI systems can manage a more extensive customer base, ensuring that the quality of the customer experience is not compromised. AI can handle massive volumes of customer data, run 24/7, and provide essential insights to refine and optimise engagement strategies in seconds.

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The final warning

Despite their immense potential, AI and ML should be seen as something other than a replacement for human interaction. Instead, they should serve as powerful tools that empower their human counterparts to provide superior customer engagement. 

The bottom line is - AI and ML hold colossal potential for automated Customer Engagement across mobile digital channels such as SMS and WhatsApp. They enable businesses to personalise communication at scale, provide round-the-clock customer service, proactively address customer needs, automate sales cycles, and explore innovative ways of interacting with their customers. But they must be approached with expertise and rigorous monitoring. 

The next generation of Customer Engagement Platforms can help businesses harness the potential, safely. Pulling all of the capabilities offered by AI, together with granular insights gathered by integrating with the tools and platforms already being used frequently - from billing systems, to customer data platforms, or CRMs means they can get closer than ever to customers. And they can do all of this seamlessly and automatically without needing to spend weeks or months of engineering resources on integrations. 

Companies leveraging AI and ML for customer engagement are set to  foster deeper customer relationships, build brand loyalty, and ultimately, drive business growth ahead of their competitors now and into the future.

Start a conversation with Pendula

When you’re ready to step up your customer engagement strategies, we’re here with the solution. Talk to an expert about how Pendula can make a difference to your customer retention and loyalty.