According to a study conducted by the consultancy DOXA on the application of Artificial Intelligence in customer experience, currently only 12% of marketing leaders believe that AI is already improving the customer experience. But everything changes when we look to the future, as this percentage rises to 53% when thinking two years from now and to 83% when thinking five years from now.
Data like this reveal that we are still not harnessing the full potential of AI and that this technology still has much to develop. But they also indicate that it is crucial to begin using Artificial Intelligence in companies to be competitive in the future.
In this article, we want to help you achieve this, specifically in the area of customer experience, by sharing a wide variety of ways to introduce AI to address different aspects and needs. And to show you how possible it is, at the end, we share some real-life cases of companies that are already using Artificial Intelligence in their customer experience strategies with great success.
Benefits of AI in customer experience
- Large-scale personalization: With AI tools, you can personalize the experience for all your customers without wasting significant amounts of time in the process. This technology is capable of detecting customer preferences by analyzing their searches and offering them what they’re most interested in to increase their purchase prospects.
- Faster and more comprehensive support: Thanks to tools like chatbots and virtual assistants (which we’ll discuss later), customer service professionals are freer and can focus on more complex issues. Furthermore, because they’re more affordable, they can be available 24/7, so consumers always have a support tool to turn to.
- Increased efficiency: Artificial intelligence tools can handle a large number of repetitive customer experience tasks that would normally take up a lot of team time.
- Decision support: Predictive AI allows companies to better understand future consumer behavior, allowing them to anticipate their needs and create more effective experiences.
Personalization of the customer experience through AI
Let’s get started! First, we want to talk to you about some ways you can use AI tools to make each customer’s experience with your company more tailored to their needs.
Product recommendation engines
Product recommendation engines powered by Artificial Intelligence analyze customer data and history to create accurate profiles and then suggest products that best fit their needs, as well as personalized offers and discounts.
These product recommendation engines can work on your own website or e-commerce site, as well as within your email marketing environment to send more personalized emails. They can help you increase your click-through rate, average order value, and ultimately, your conversion rate. For customers, these AI-powered engines help them find what they’re looking for more quickly, giving them the feeling of moving in an environment tailored to them (and not the other way around).
There are different types of AI recommendation engines depending on how they work, but the goal is the same. Brands like Algonomy and Dynamic Yield offer this type of technology to businesses.
Content optimization and web navigation
There are Artificial Intelligence tools that can also help you create content more tailored to your audience more quickly, as well as improve navigation on your website or e-commerce site.
Let’s start with the first thing: content. There are a wide variety of generative AI tools that can inspire writing teams to create more creative and original texts, even optimizing them for SEO, such as those developed by HubSpot and SEMrush, or the well-known ChatGPT.
Regarding navigation, companies responsible for developing tools such as heat maps and design programs have also implemented AI-powered features to make them easier to use and offer improved results. Brands such as Hotjar and Crazy Egg are some of the options on the market.
Heat maps allow you to see which parts of your website customers focus on the most, which is very useful for understanding which aspects of your business you should pay more attention to. And design software, like Canva, which also has AI capabilities, allows you to streamline everything related to your brand’s aesthetic, which is also very important for offering a good customer experience.
Optimizing customer service with AI
A good customer experience cannot be achieved without outstanding customer service. And there are AI tools that can help you improve that experience.
Customer support automation
The most widely used tool for automating customer service is chatbots, also known as virtual assistants. They are used in written form, embedded in the website as a pop-up window, which users can access when they have any questions.
Its use is highly recommended for answering simple, frequently asked questions that don’t require a deep understanding of the customer’s specific case. However, it’s also advisable to incorporate chatbots that redirect to a customer service representative when they can’t answer the question themselves.
Some of the best-known brands of web-based customer service chatbots are Salesforce, LivePerson, and Aunoa.
Intelligent ticketing systems
This solution will be very useful if you sell services or experiences. Smart ticketing systems are technologies designed to manage ticket sales and access control to the experience. In other words, everything related to ticket sales, online check-in, change management, ticket validation, and finalization of use is automated.
Several companies have developed this type of technology, which also has the advantage of being able to integrate with other systems such as CRM and payment platforms.
From a public perspective, smart ticketing systems are attractive because they help streamline the customer experience and reduce errors in the process. And from a business perspective, they are a great support in eliminating repetitive work for teams. Zoho and Freshworks are some of the companies that offer this type of service to businesses.
Sentiment analysis and real-time feedback
Sentiment analysis tools use natural language processing (NLP) algorithms to identify the positive, negative, or neutral nature of a text. This type of technology is very interesting for businesses, as it allows them to understand their customers’ opinions and emotions toward their products or services.
These types of tools collect conversations or texts from social media, product reviews, surveys, or comments on websites and process them, extracting relevant keywords in the process. They then analyze the sentiment behind these texts and clearly present to the company what is being said about it in the digital world.
This type of technology is especially useful for identifying the weakest points of the customer experience and creating more effective strategies to improve it. It’s also very useful for avoiding reputational crises. Companies like Brand24 and SentiOne offer tools of this type.
Predictive analytics to anticipate customer needs
We want to dedicate a special space to predictive analytics AI tools because they’re one of the most useful tools for improving customer experience. Now you’ll find out why.
Predicting customer behavior
First of all, we find tools capable of predicting customer behavior because they can process a large amount of data. These Artificial Intelligence tools work with advanced algorithms that can analyze historical customer data and predict behavior patterns that will repeat themselves in the future.
Churn prediction
The churn rate measures the percentage of customers who have lost confidence in our products or services, as well as those who have unsubscribed. It’s also known as the customer cancellation rate, and if it’s too high, it means something is wrong with your business.
Using churn rate prediction tools in a customer experience strategy is very useful for anticipating potential customer churn by implementing actions to prevent them from leaving for competitors. Tools like Outreach and Cleeng offer this service.
Examples of companies using AI to improve customer experience
Amazon
The world’s most visited marketplace is one of the leaders in using recommendation systems powered by Artificial Intelligence. Its algorithm works as follows: it analyzes the product a user has purchased and added to their cart, as well as their browsing history on the platform, products viewed, products added to their wish list, and location, among other factors, and uses that information to offer them a list of relevant, related products. Not only that, but in this process, it also takes into account the ratings and purchases of similar users.
Sephora
Beauty retailer Sephora has implemented AI-powered chatbots on its website and app. It’s called Sephora Virtual Artist, and its mission is to help customers locate the products they’re looking for. It’s also designed to offer recommendations and allow users to try products before purchasing.
Spotify
On Spotify, users can create both private and public playlists and share them with other users. But the company has also developed what are known as AI-created personalized playlists, in which algorithms create music playlists tailored to each user. To do this, they analyze what each listener listens to, the songs they add to their playlist, and the musical habits of people with similar tastes.
Bank of America
This bank launched Erica, a virtual assistant powered by Artificial Intelligence that helps customers resolve issues related to making payments and checking balances. It even provides personalized financial recommendations. All of this has helped users better manage their personal finances.
Domino’s Pizza
For its part, this famous pizzeria has also used Artificial Intelligence in its ordering platform to allow customers to place orders using the Alexa or Google Assistant voice assistants. But they haven’t just used this technology; internally, they also use AI tools to predict delivery times and thus better organize their work.
