Is AI the New Customer Whisperer?

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The Gist

AI revolution. AI in decision-making revitalizes Voice of the Customer (VoC) by offering real-time, actionable insights.
Efficiency boost. Automation through AI frees up VoC teams to focus on strategic tasks, enhancing customer experience.
Ethical caveats. While AI can empower VoC processes, it raises ethical concerns that demand transparency and accountability.

Even though VoC seems to have taken a backseat in recent years, AI is bringing the concept back to life. Let’s take a look at AI in decision-making.

With insight-gathering capabilities now well beyond the scope of what we could ever do before, the Voice of the Customer (VoC) is once again playing a crucial role in driving customer experience, loyalty and revenue growth.

Put simply, CX and marketing teams around the world are seeing the potential AI has to revolutionize VoC by providing actionable insights that proactively meet customer demands.

What AI in Decision-Making Can Improve

Traditional VoC strategies relied on manual data collection and analysis, which can be time-consuming and often riddled with human error. AI, on the other hand, can now streamline data collection and analysis processes through automation. This, of course, frees up VoC personnel to be able to gather, understand and act on customer feedback in real-time. If your customer-facing teams haven’t incorporated AI tools and tech yet, here are three reasons you may want to consider doing so:

The Benefits

When developed and “trained” properly, AI can provide valuable insights across various dimensions in lightning speed using the following methods.

Related Article: NLP and Text Analytics Enhance VoC Programs, Boost CX Engagement

Natural Language Processing

Natural language processing (NLP) enables AI to understand human language and interpret customer feedback from various support interactions (social media, chat, email, etc.).

Unlike traditional methods that rely on human analysis, AI can process vast amounts of data quickly and accurately, identifying patterns, sentiment and key themes almost immediately. This enables customer teams to extract valuable insights from unstructured data and use AI in decision-making.

For instance, companies like Starbucks have used NLP to analyze social media conversations and extract insights about customer sentiment, which has helped them make informed decisions on marketing campaigns and product offerings.

By gaining deeper insights into consumer preferences and sentiment, companies can make data-driven decisions to optimize product or service development. This provides the potential to improve customer retention, increase sales and reduce costs associated with manual analysis.

AI in Decision-Making & Speech Analytics

Speech analytics software has emerged as a game-changer in the world of call centers, transforming the way these operations function by integrating AI. By leveraging advanced NLP algorithms and machine learning to analyze and interpret spoken language, call centers are able to extract valuable insights from customer phone interactions.

But even beyond merely extracting customer insights, AI algorithms enable speech analytics software to detect specific keywords or phrases in real-time, triggering immediate actions such as escalating calls, providing personalized recommendations or automating responses. This proactive approach has the power to improve time-to-issue-resolution.

Related Article: AI & Next Best Action: Transforming Decision-Making

AI in Decision-Making & Predictive Analytics

AI is also having a significant impact on predictive analytics, revolutionizing the way major companies forecast trends by combining statistical algorithms with internal and external data.

By using AI algorithms to evaluate and interpret customer behavior patterns, VoC teams can proactively predict needs and preferences among various segments. This allows for the subtle personalization of favorite products, services and promotions without crossing into “creepy” data buying territory, leading to an actual increase in customer loyalty.

And with AI, predictive analytics software can handle massive volumes of data without compromising performance, giving businesses everywhere a way to scale their VoC capabilities to accommodate growing data volumes and complexity. This alone goes a long way in ensuring accurate predictions even as the datasets expand.

AI in Decision-Making & The Risks

Of course, the increasing use of AI in VoC also raises ethical concerns. AI-based decisions may be susceptible to discriminatory outcomes or embedded bias. For these reasons, commitment to transparency, fairness, and accountability when utilizing AI in VoC processes is critical. Certainly, we want to avoid negative impacts on customers and potential harm to certain groups.

Moreover, the implementation of AI in VoC may have unintended consequences for the internal workforce. While AI can automate certain tasks, it may also lead to job displacement. While we aren’t quite there yet, it’s a possibility that’s still looming on the horizon. The role of AI in vocational education and training is a topic that still needs further exploration and consideration.

All of this simply means the implications for VoC in the era of AI are both promising and challenging.

While AI has the potential to revolutionize how companies gather and analyze customer feedback, organizations that harness these tools must simultaneously address concerns and ensure fair and responsible use of them to avoid negative consequences of AI in decision-making for customers and workers alike.

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