Artificial intelligence (AI) has significantly expanded opportunities for businesses of all sizes and types. Many have explored how the technology could assist those interacting with the organization. Developing an AI customer experience takes time, but it could bring meaningful advantages that strengthen a company and expand its marketplace prominence.
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How Can AI Improve the Customer Experience?
Customer experiences people remember for all the right reasons can bring measurable benefits to the associated businesses. Knowing about the most common perks can increase company owners’ willingness to explore what artificial intelligence offers. Let’s look at a few of the top things AI can help with when it comes to your customer service offerings.
Raising Recommendation Relevancy
Some e-commerce sites use AI recommendation engines that suggest products based on shoppers’ previous purchases or things already in their carts. Getting people interested in additional items can make them buy more during each website visit.
Similarly, it can cause customers to believe the associated brands genuinely understand their needs and preferences. Such sentiments increase loyalty and make people recommend products or stores to friends.
Enhancing Interactivity
Today’s successful brands must connect with customers wherever they are. A solid in-store strategy that caters to people will help, but it’s even better if brands use AI and other advanced technologies to elevate how shoppers can try products. They will have fewer doubts and feel more excited about purchasing items, possibly leading to buying more than intended.
Some makeup brands have tools combining artificial intelligence and augmented reality (AR) to allow people to test different shades at home without physical products. Elsewhere, clothing brands have experimented with smart mirrors in fitting rooms that use AI and other technologies to provide shopping suggestions and styling advice.
Enabling New Services
Some companies explore how AI could launch new services that address customers’ changing desires. Such was the case with the furniture brand IKEA. Customer service representatives were retrained as interior design advisers, while an AI chatbot called Billie answered nearly half of their formerly handled queries.
This strategy resulted in the equivalent of $1.40 billion in remote sales by phone or video from the interior design team. That amount was 3.3% of the total revenue in the 2022 financial year for IKEA’s holding company, Ingka Group. However, the goal is to increase it to 10% by 2028, partially by appealing to future Gen-Z customers.
Offering Voice-Enabled Tools
Some brands have AI-powered tools that let people interact with their voices instead of tapping screens or typing on keyboards. That’s convenient if users have their hands full with other things or are far from their computers or phones. The idea is to reach customers while reducing or eliminating friction. Marketing managers and other professionals can also ensure the tool’s responses match the company’s brand voice, strengthening its image.
Whether engaging with a favorite radio station, a local restaurant or a parcel-tracking service, people can utter specific commands to get the required information in seconds. Such options let company leaders focus on AI customer experience possibilities that fit into users’ days and feel natural.
Creating an Inviting Atmosphere
Showing people they’re welcome is a huge part of maintaining an excellent customer experience. Starbucks uses an AI platform called Deep Brew to address many vital elements. They range from how many employees are in a store at any given time to the soundtrack heard playing over the speakers as you sip your beverage.
Decision-makers can also use AI in more targeted ways, such as to study which areas of a store people visit most often or for the longest. That makes it easier to determine the contributors to positive experiences, whether the layout, lighting, staff numbers or in-store displays.
Understanding Customers’ Feelings
Social media channels, product reviews, blog posts, and other content give company representatives valuable insight into what customers like best and how businesses could improve. The most common way to apply AI and get these details is to use a sentiment analysis platform. Such an approach can increase a company’s competitiveness and market share. When used strategically, it shows customers that businesses care about what they think and that people working at them will adjust operations or offerings accordingly.
Some tools allow users to search for specific keywords and topics, indicating how often people mention them within defined time frames. Others measure the strength of particular emotions. Call center products may also have sentiment analysis features. They can warn representatives that customers are becoming upset, coaching them to smooth things over and reach mutually beneficial outcomes.
Delivering Personalized Content
AI can also improve the customer experience by giving someone customized landing page content based on specific characteristics. The marketing team at digital bank Chime tried that approach to increase the number of people signing up for new accounts. The first step was to test numerous homepage headlines and account advantages, learning which resonated most with visitors.
However, AI allowed the company to drill down further and determine the most effective options for people in specific states or those accessing the site in the evening. The AI then displayed the content most likely to result in conversions based on an individual website visitor’s known details. Executives said audience insights gleaned this way were better than what traditional A/B tests provided.
Giving Targeted Advice
One way to create an excellent AI customer experience is to provide people with useful suggestions that could help them avoid problems. BMW does that with its Proactive Care initiative. That solution relies on AI to process vehicle-related data and warn car owners of circumstances that may require servicing to address. However, this program supports individuals in other ways, including offering self-help resources or locating the nearest dealerships and service centers.
Many modern cars collect tremendous amounts of data during operations. Putting it to practical use can improve outcomes by giving people suggestions they genuinely want and will find helpful. Most drivers would love to avoid breakdowns or abnormal vehicle performance, so they’ll often consent to data collection processes making that possible.
How Can Companies Succeed With AI Customer Experience Plans?
Developing effective ways to apply AI to the customer experience isn’t always easy. However, it becomes much more manageable when you follow some best practices.
Determine Your Goals and Resources
Integrating AI into business practices is an emerging customer experience trend that will likely remain relevant for the foreseeable future. Around 62% of developers already use it to improve their efficiency, and that number is likely to increase. However, there’s no single way to experiment with AI. Will you use it to support administrative processes customers never notice, though they reap the benefits? Alternatively, you may develop an AI chatbot that familiarizes customers with your company and its services.
Begin by setting goals associated with using AI to improve people’s experiences. Then, assess how many employees will work on achieving those aims, what percentage of your company’s total budget you’ll allocate to the aspirations and the anticipated time frames required to realize your vision. Those specifics will make finding AI solutions that match your needs and expectations easier.
Provide Data Usage Details
Many AI products supporting customer experiences collect people’s information. If yours does, be upfront about which details it gathers, for what reasons and if individuals can opt out of a service. Even if someone is generally excited about what artificial intelligence can do, they may worry about inappropriate information handling or data breaches.
When people have all the required specifics about the data they must provide to use an AI-driven product, they can confidently assess whether proceeding is worthwhile. Otherwise, if individuals feel misled, they may form negative opinions about artificial intelligence and the companies using it.
Track AI-Related Results
Proceeding with new technologies requires openness to change and an understanding companies may need to overcome obstacles before seeing positive outcomes. However, people usually notice it’s easier to stay motivated when tracking metrics linked to their AI plans. Then, even if things don’t initially go as expected, they’ll have statistics to pinpoint what’s going wrong and how to improve the situation.
Metrics can also convince decision-makers to continue investing in AI. In one example, Verizon deployed an artificial intelligence-powered decision-support tool to help call center representatives engage with business customers asking to discontinue services. It raised retention by causing a 33% acceptance rate among callers in the first nine months. Additionally, the return on investment was three times the amount spent within the first year.
Start Small and Scale When Justified
The examples of how large, well-established brands develop AI customer experience plans may convince you the technology is outside your price range and inappropriate for smaller organizations. However, many vendors tailor solutions to fit various business requirements.
When talking to sales representatives, be honest about resource constraints preventing immediate large investments. You may also want to ask about software-based solutions on monthly billing cycles. Then, it’s easier to purchase new features or more advanced tools without long-term financial commitments. It’s better to implement AI thoughtfully than rush and become overwhelmed.
Listen to Feedback
Keeping people at the heart of all tech upgrades is a wise way to determine if the investments have paid off as expected while identifying shortcomings. Always show you welcome input, whether negative or positive. People who believe you care about their thoughts are more willing to be honest and trust your intentions.
Besides hearing about what customers, employees or other stakeholders like or dislike about an AI product, ask them to get specific about their typical experiences. How has AI improved specific interactions or shortened the time required to get information? Consider everything said and use it to enhance future versions of your AI tool or prospective use cases.
Avoid Buying Into Hype
Artificial intelligence can do incredible things, but it still has many limitations. As you research potential tools to improve customer experiences, look beyond surface-level claims and ask for case studies or academic papers supporting such assertions.
Impressive statistics could attract your initial interest, but you should follow up and ask for more details from a sales representative. It’s also smart to thoroughly discuss how your company would use a tool and see if a vendor has current clients that similarly depend on the product and get good results.
Plan for Employee Training
Many AI products will alter workers’ processes and interactions with customers. Set aside plenty of time to explain the likely impacts of new tools and let employees get acquainted with screen layouts, menu options and other specifics. All users also must learn what to do if they cannot resolve issues independently. Should they escalate the case to a manager, contact a vendor’s technical support number or take another action?
Think about establishing an open-door policy about your company’s AI usage. That way, if people have questions, concerns, uncertainties or need other support, they’ll know where to turn. Workers will also appreciate details about AI tool usage timelines. How long after a product is installed on their computers will they use it for most customers?
Understand Your AI Usage May Evolve
Applying artificial intelligence to improve customer experiences is a rapidly growing — but still relatively new — possibility. You may have a clear picture of how to use AI now, and if so, that’s great. However, tech vendors frequently release additional products that may change how your company depends on AI.
The ideal approach is to stay open-minded about artificial intelligence’s capabilities and limitations. Just because a product can’t tackle a specific need now doesn’t mean things won’t change. Commit to staying informed about the various AI products relevant to your chosen use cases and market. Then, recognize the need to periodically reassess if your company still relies on AI in the most valuable, effective and appropriate ways.
How Will You Utilize an AI Customer Experience Solution?
Now that you know some advantages and best practices associated with AI products supporting customer experience, start considering how your company will move forward with its artificial intelligence plans.
Ask for feedback from workers at all levels of your organization, even if they won’t use AI for most daily tasks. Their insights may reveal previously unaddressed issues the technology could solve or improve.
Finally, remember you may adjust how the company uses AI as circumstances change. Releasing new products, hiring more team members or expanding into new markets could alter how and why your organization can benefit from integrating technology into processes and engagement efforts.
Eleanor Hecks is the managing editor at Designerly. She’s also a user interface designer with a focus on mobile apps. Connect with her about graphic design, and UX. Connect on LinkedIn.