AI & New Tech: Transforming Customer Engagement

The Gist

• Use AI customer experience solutions wisely. There are many digital tools to leverage CX, but selecting the right one for your business is crucial. 

• Build on data analytics. Data can be empowering, but too much can overwhelm so it’s important to streamline data collation.

• Keep experiences personal. Automation everywhere all at once can put people off; pairing with human agents is key to customer service success. 

Trying to deliver excellent customer service without the support of AI tools and the enhanced analysis of data can be impractical — as well as a real challenge in today’s consumer landscape.

Now, many consumer-centered businesses are prioritizing the integration of AI and data analytics into their current operations. These tools improve data interpretation, customer segmentation and help create more personalized experiences along the customer journey. 

Such strategic processes are key to helping brands respond to the more intensive demands of customers in our present consumer climate. According to the 2022 Digital-First Customer Experience Report, 95% of consumers believe customer service impacts their brand loyalty, rating easy access, self-service and professional customer service agents as important factors. 

However, this is no surprise. Customer loyalty is intrinsically linked to a seamless customer experience, which can now be tailored and customized to suit the needs of individual shoppers by leveraging an AI customer experience solution strategy. 

But how?

AI Customer Experience Solutions Boost Transformation

The term “digital transformation” refers to the integration of digital technologies throughout a business — which ultimately helps forge new frontiers in customer service automation.

A recent Salesforce survey reports that 57% of customers like to engage with companies over digital channels. In addition, NICE 2022 research revealed that 52% of consumers prefer chat options, rendering this the most popular digital channel for customer communications. 

All in all, consumers are consistently sharing online reviews about brands that mention how they feel after poor customer service incidents. With this in mind, it makes total sense for brands to harness the power of AI and data collation to ensure that their customer service management is polished, proactive and personalized.

By deploying AI, CS teams can anticipate customer questions, reduce waiting times and construct targeted responses for customers that need help. Tracking online consumer reviews can help to determine the success of a team’s customer support strategy. 

Related Article: Digital Transformation in Customer Experience and the Butterfly Effect

Smart Marketing Technologies Can Transform Customer Experiences

New AI-fuelled marketing technologies help develop a greater connectivity between a brand and its customers, strengthening consumer loyalties and bonds between shopper and business. In fact, 88% of buyers say experience matters as much as a company’s products or services.

Let’s see how new marketing technology can leverage and transform future customer experiences.

Offer Omnichannel Services

Companies that explore the benefits of investing in CX are more likely to satisfy, engage and retain customers and turn them into brand champions. Offering omnichannel services is a great way to boost your CS department.

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A 2023 Zendesk research study notes that 73% of current consumers want to seamlessly move between channels, choosing the one that suits them best. This means AI-driven customer service is vital to round-the-clock customer care that covers all the bases. 

Choose Conversational AI Customer Experience Solutions

Customer service teams are also discovering the benefits of conversational AI. Using programmatic chatbot tools or AI assistants is changing the CS landscape because they can offer a more individualized communication that doesn’t appear overly automated. 

In some cases, conversational AI chatbots and natural language processing (NLP) powered virtual assistants are tapping into human behaviors, which enables them to take the place of agents in some aspects of customer experience management.

If teams are very busy, many calls can be channeled through these AI tools to quickly respond to simple or basic queries and catch more complex cases that require a human touch. 

Prioritize Personalization

At the end of the day, data is the golden ticket to helping customer service teams achieve greater levels of customer satisfaction. When it comes to serving up enhanced engagement, data is the ingredient that elevates the journey. 

These days, many brands are beginning to augment their personalized offerings with micro-personalization for certain customer tranches. Segmentation of consumers is nothing new, but with AI-driven data analytics, honing down information in granular detail is now a reality. 

This capability can also help companies specifically target groups with pertinent information and have it delivered in the right place at the right time. For example, a retailer might want to communicate directly with customers based on their interests or habits. 

By applying key insights from data collation and running the analytics, companies can tailor their offer to suit customers’ immediate interests and needs at any given time. 

Can Technology Transform Customer Experience?

Most CX leaders agree that AI and data analytics are already performing a digital transformation in customer experiences, but that doesn’t mean things have plateaued. There is still so much ground to cover and clarity to be sought.

AI and data are actively renovating the delivery of personalization for customers — and these advancements suggest companies that are not exploring the potential of AI customer experience solutions and data in CX management may miss out on improved customer loyalty over the long term. 

Additionally, such technologies can offer critical insight into customer behavior to help brands enhance the personalization of service and streamline business operations; machine learning helps business systems learn data and understand patterns, which can then form the basis of a uniquely personalized approach for customer service teams to offer consumers. 

Some companies are already making the most of blockchain technologies for more robust security and efficiency within financial transactions and data handling, but digital transformation is vital for brands to unlock all they can deliver for their customers. This way they can earn their loyalty and develop more productive customer relationships.

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