AI, robots, automation, big data – Do you know how they will impact on you, your business, your employees and your customers? Do you know how they ARE impacting on you, your business, your people and your customers because the odds are that they are, even if you don’t know it!
I was really lucky to hear Thimon De Jong speak at the Vistage Executive Summit in Harrogate and he gave us some amazing insights into what’s happening and how businesses are adopting a Dramatically and Demonstrably Different approach to get ahead of their competitors by utilising Artificial Intelligence, and in particular, Emotional Artificial Intelligence. It got me looking at what’s actually happening out there and how businesses are using it to create and enhance customer and employee experiences.
AI has dramatically increased the ability of automated systems to recognize and analyze human emotions, and that has produced a real market opportunity. According to a new report from research firm Tractica, the sentiment and emotion analytics market is set to explode, from $123 million currently to $3.8 billion by 2025, representing nearly 3,000 percent growth in just seven years!
Some of the businesses that are utilising it well include…
Hire View
HireVue helps businesses recruit modern talent with video interviewing software and assessments. Their Hiring Intelligence platform is transforming the way companies find, recruit and develop people. They do it by ‘combining video interviews with predictive, validated I-O science and artificial intelligence’
, which in my words means they help you interview people via a ‘robot’ who asks candidates questions on a smartphone and the robot evaluates people’s responses and recommends whether they go forward in the process or not!
What’s very interesting is that it doesn’t just evaluate the ‘correctness’ of the answer, but evaluates the ‘personality’ traits based on how people answer. In other words, the software can tell by their mannerisms and facial expressions whether people are being genuinely enthusiastic, whether they are confident, and whether they are lying!
HireVue is working with over 700 companies around the world including the likes of Vodafone, Intel, Honeywell and Deloitte. Unilever, for example have used it for ‘screening’ and ‘first interviews’, and have reported that they have been on average, 4 times faster in finding the right candidates, have had an increase in applications and, interestingly, have had their highest ever recorded levels of diversity in their recruits. You can read more about how Unilever use it here.
Shelf Point
is a digital display system that combines dynamic marketing content with artificial emotional intelligence. What that means is that they have digital displays on shelves and coolers that bring an entertaining and eye catching way of interacting with customers via personalised messages.
By using hidden cameras they scan customers via sensors that assess the age, gender, ethnicity, and emotional response of shoppers and then communicates targeted sales messages at them through an LCD. They say that by ‘personalising’ messages to specific shoppers as they walk past it can engage and convert them into customers and they claim audited pilot results show double digit sales uplift across product categories.
They also provide their clients with detailed customer insights, shopper data and analytics in real time. The hidden cameras allow them to observe customers reactions and the actions they take and produce data analysis that can be used to adjust and maximise the effectiveness of ongoing marketing and messages. Shoppers’ expressions can be characterized into such categories as “joy,” “sadness,” “anger,” “fear” or “surprise.” It’s a great way of collecting customer data without them ‘filling in forms’ or answering customer surveys. Check out how they do it via a short video here.
Netflix
Feeling a bit fed up and want to watch something to cheer you up? Well, Netflix has introduced Recomoji which will provide a recommendation for a film or programme to watch based on your mood! All you have to do is send them 
an emoji that reflects your mood!
Apparently, the ’emojineers’ at Netflix have mapped emojis to different emotional states, and then matched them to show and movie collections. By combining your ‘real – time’ mood with your viewing history they can ‘personalise’ the response to make a suggestion specifically to you!
You can find out more and watch a video all about it here.
Crystal
This one is my absolute favourite! Imagine you are going to visit a potential customer for the first time, and you don’t know much about them. Well, all you need to do is to use the Crystal app on your laptop, visit the prospect’s page on Linked In and it analyses their digital footprint!
It then tells you about their personality, and amazingly, the best way to engage and communicate with them – even, how to start the email off! For example, when I did it on myself ‘as a test’, it told me that…. I like to work in a high energy work environment (tick!), I consider social events a high priority (tick!), I quickly commit to things (tick!), try to reduce or avoid structure and bureaucracy (double tick!) . It then recommends how to best communicate with me…‘Emphasise the future’, ‘Bring lots of energy to the conversation’, ‘Don’t take yourself too seriously’, ‘Tell a few jokes’ and ‘Interrupt me if the conversation is going on too long’!
There are also recommendations on…
- What ‘motivates’ me (Fun and Excitement, feeling accepted)
- What drains me (Nitpicking!)
- How to deal with me in a meeting (Start by casting an exciting vision, show excitement for new ideas, send a reminder the day before!)
- How to convince me (Share stories, maintain excitement and high energy) and…
- What to do to build a great working relationship with me (Spend time exploring new ideas, implement good ideas quickly, show enthusiasm and passion for your work!)
The recommendations are spookily accurate and so easy to access – click on the image for a copy of the report about me if you want to engage with me better and click here to find out about Crystal!
So, what does it all mean? Well, potentially, these ‘developments’ could be seen as a bit scary. Alternatively, in a fast moving world of increasing customer expectations, increasing employee expectations and a need to build trust, personalise your approach and focus your efforts, they could be just the thing you need!
You can use them to….
- ‘Delight’ your customers with personalised experiences
- Spot when customers aren’t happy and ‘Deal with Disappointment’
- Maximise customer relationships and opportunities
- Increase customer loyalty
- Sell more
- Find the right people
- Ensure they ‘fit’ with your culture
- Speed up and improve your recruitment processes
- Improve relationships within your business by ‘personalising’ your communication efforts
I’m sure you can think of lots more – remember I like exploring new ideas, people bringing energy and excitement to the conversation, plus a bit of fun and excitement!
