Written by: Claire Silverberg
Let’s face it — artificial intelligence (AI) is here to stay. Not only does it have the potential to increase corporate profitability, but AI can improve the customer experience as well. How will these changes take place in 2022 and the years to come?
First, we’ll explain how AI affects the customer experience, then we’ll cover nine specific examples of how to utilize AI today. Continue reading to see how AI can help companies connect with their customers, retain their users, and increase engagement.
How Does AI Affect the Customer Experience?
When AI is thoughtfully integrated into the customer experience (CX), it can use machine learning to provide an informed and enhanced user experience at nearly every touchpoint and improve customer lifetime value with a company. AI can not only provide businesses with advanced technology but also provide insights in order to customize their customers’ experiences.
9 Ways AI Can Improve the Customer Experience
Just because technology powers AI and machine learning doesn’t mean that they won’t be able to give your customers a user-friendly experience. Human interaction isn’t the end-all-be-all of the customer experience, and can actually be improved upon with AI. Keep reading to learn more about how AI can help your business create a meaningful customer experience through technology and machine learning.
1. Predicts Customer Needs
Predictive personalization can craft a customer experience and make a customer feel taken care of. AI can assess past purchases and behaviors to let customers know when it’s time to reorder a product, and streaming services can recommend music, TV shows, and movies based on previous viewing habits.
2. Improves Decision Making
The days of manual data collection are nearly over. No longer will businesses have to do guesswork to make important decisions thanks to AI and machine learning. AI is essential for uncovering patterns, quickly identifying problems, and revealing insights so you can make improvements.
3. Boosts Engagement
Customers will typically engage with a brand in more than one place, which is why omnichannel messaging via AI can help your customers connect with you across your website, social media platforms, an app, and various other channels.
4. Can Help Targeted Marketing
AI can help businesses predict their customers’ responses to marketing messaging. When it comes to machine learning and the customer experience, AI can identify and segment existing customers based on their behavior and psychological profiles.
5. Improves Customer Retention Efforts
Algorithms put in place by AI can now help businesses identify problems and pain points that could lead to customer churn. Instead of guessing which potential pain points you have like the old days, AI can help you analyze customer retention data like uninstall rates. Like any business, you need to prevent your customers from leaving you by any means possible.
6. Boosts Conversion
Give your business a competitive edge by making purchasing decisions a smooth, stress-free experience for your customers. But what do AI and machine learning have anything to do with it? Integrating AI into customer service chats can qualify leads and push them to a sales team. This vetting process can help boost your salespeople’s results.
7. Deeply-Customized Content
Personalization is a big factor in the customer experience, and AI can help your business succeed. AI analyzes the customer behavior and then delivers personalized content to them through product recommendations, targeted marketing emails, retargeting ads, and location-based marketing.
8. Better Customer Engagement
Have you ever wondered how you can boost your customer engagement across all your channels? AI can nurture your users through almost every stage of the customer experience by customizing email drip campaigns, personalized insights, or targeted premium upgrades for certain products or subscriptions.
9. Streamlined Workflows
AI chatbots don’t only pre-qualify leads while they’re in your sales funnel — they can also help mediate customer service issues. AI chatbots can guide customers through your website to help them solve easy problems on their own.
AI Continues to Evolve
AI and machine learning are an essential part of the customer experience, and they are only becoming more prevalent as the years go on. It’s best to integrate AI into your customer experience so you can be on the cutting edge — the last thing you want is your customers being converted by a competitor because they offer better solutions. This infographic recaps the incredible ways AI will improve the customer experience in 2022 and beyond.
Related: Are You Choosing the Wrong Tech?