The outsize popularity of dystopian TV shows aside, there’s no firm consensus on what AI technology will mean for our future on the planet. What is certain is that the triumph of machine learning is a boon for forward-thinking companies.
At the most fundamental level, AI solutions free up employees to focus on tasks that need a human touch. And we’re talking roomfuls. From there, it’s a hop, skip, and a jump (performed best by people for now!) to harnessing awesome algorithmic power to work wonders for customers. Namely, to increase their customer satisfaction and drive loyalty.
Why AI Is Important to Customer Service
Originally growing out of military research, the rapid increase of computing power has major implications for businesses today. In fact, AI is already ubiquitous in improving customer relationship management. It’s no secret that customers are willing to pay a premium for service. So it’s no surprise more and more companies plan on investing in AI. Computerization will have an immeasurable impact on how they nurture these relationships.
As was once pithily observed, AI finds the things we find difficult easy and vice versa. So, it can automate repetitive manual labor and any precise, mechanical, or formulaic tasks. For example, you can leave routine calls to robots and quickly transfer callers to customer care for human support. After all, we’re still a ways from robots adept at taking customers through sales, let alone authentically handling sales objections.
Seven Ways AI Drives Customer Loyalty
Now we’ve discussed the above, onto the meat of this post! Here are seven ways AI helps companies to put their best foot forward and make durable connections with their customers.
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1. Economizing Labour
AI tools can help your company meet its long-term goals, such as increasing sales, reducing costs, and optimizing resources. They enable you to forge valuable, long-term, and mutually satisfying relationships with your customers. AI-augmented customer services also release your staff to do more important work.
By automating simple mechanical tasks, AI improves efficiency, so you can attend to and resolve queries instantly. And by allocating labor more intelligently, you get closer to delivering on the promise of providing ‘the right offer to the right person at the right time’. When it comes to beating your competitors, this really is the name of the game.
2. Availability
One of the most tangible ways of improving the customer experience is being at their beck and call. Automating your customer service with AI delivers 24/7 service to your buyers and helps you to maximize opportunities throughout the year.
Such an online presence increases customer satisfaction and leaves an impression of competence which redounds to the benefit of your brand. Indeed, customers vastly prefer to resolve their own customer service issues where possible.
3. Streamlining
By improving company productivity and reducing how long it takes to resolve inquiries, AI chatbots represent a significant leap in interacting efficiently with customers. Besides troubleshooting, they lend themselves to further innovative uses that can dramatically streamline how you handle front-line customer care.
Use AI chatbots to notify customers about the status of orders and inform them of timely discounts, complimentary products, and upcoming events. One of the main drivers of customer loyalty is the quality of the customer experience, so soup up your all-important customer interface using AI.
4. Showing You’re Listening
Today, leading brands are experts at collecting digital footprints to predict customers’ next moves. AI tools allow companies to establish one-to-one relationships with purchasers to build this loyalty. Personalization is fast becoming a prerequisite in developing lasting customer relationships.
Industry giants like Netflix and Spotify use AI to customize the user experience with customer-centric recommendations, suggestions, and tips. You can likewise automate not only your monotonous tasks but harness the staggering resourcefulness of AI and data-driven insights to analyze customer behavior. You can connect them to the specially tailored content and products they crave too.
Fun fact: the personalized approach convinces customers you care and helps reduce churn.
5. AI-Based Customer Loyalty Programs
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Putting your customers on a steady diet of winning recommendations is the definition of a mutually beneficial relationship and an example of data-driven loyalty at its best. With the power of AI, capitalize even further by delivering personalized incentives through your bot-based loyalty program that allows members to renew benefits and explore FAQs, for example.
Self-learning algorithms can record every engagement at each touchpoint and, by segmenting data and creating customer personas, provide loyalty rewards in real-time and at the point of purchase. Way to resonate personally with your customer!
6. Competing On Price
The decisive factor in any sale – and also any repeat sale – is price. Fortunately, with the introduction of AI, pricing managers can now synthesize the information contained in price fluctuations to get a better handle on customer supply and demand.
Deep-learning algorithms and software solutions can perform enormous calculations that take into account a dizzying array of variables, including competitor prices, past sales, and contextual factors.
Let literally awesome machine power ground your pricing decisions in rigorous analysis to stay on top of pricing trends in the industry that will give you an edge in supplier negotiations.
7. Smooth Operating
Another way AI can drive brand loyalty is by proactively eliminating pain points in the user journey. We’ve already plugged how you can use predictive marketing analytics to process and analyze datasets and use past buying to personalize services. You can also tap into big data to predict future customer needs and take action ahead of time to remove obstacles in their path.
It’s all about integrating the technology to understand what customers want and then seeding those insights at every stage of the customer experience. For example, say you know how to record phone call conversations. You can audit these and find ways to improve your customer service on the phone. At the same time, you can use AI research tools to alight on trends and pinpoint information that feeds back into the design of your products and services.
The Takeaway
From a seamless omnichannel experience to increased customization, AI drives customer loyalty because when you add value, you make them happy. Machine learning and big data not only minimize company costs but improve the user experience beyond recognition.
If loyalty leaders grow faster than industry peers, then from the point of view of AI, these possibilities have only just begun.