5 Ways AI Is Changing The Customer Experience Landscape

The modern-day customers operate under high expectation and low patience mode. They expect a lot out of businesses - quality, promptness, trust, immersive experience, etc. but the patience they are willing to put behind it if something gets wrong even for a microsecond, is paper thin.

As bad as it sounds, the customers are also generous givers. Once committed to a brand, they become brand evangelists and promote it within their networks without the brand asking it for the recognition.

Businesses, having understood the pattern of millennial shoppers have started incorporating the power of AI in their business offerings to up the customer experience game.

Let us look at some of the ways businesses are connecting with their brands through the use of AI-powered CX strategies. The end goal of which is to establish a difference in User Experience vs. Customer Experience.

Inculcating the habits of self-service

Millennial despise waiting for a customer service agent to show up and answer their query. What they love though is being empowered to perform their own tasks. AI, on this front, helps in multiple ways:

• It helps in giving website/ app visitors suggestions on what they should read next - by understanding their patterns.
• Platforms like XPR POS helps diners or people who order a takeout pass their orders to an AI driven machine or kiosk placed at the restaurant.

Bettering personalization

Whenever we mention AI, it is difficult to not talk about personalization. The era that we live in is one where you don’t have to think a lot about what you want. Through the power of recommendation engines making their way across media streaming, ecommerce, and even dating apps, the process of choosing and establishing a new want has become extremely easy.

But where does personalization come in? The recommendation engine in themselves works on the grounds of understanding users’ insights and search patterns - which in turn helps with giving them curated content and matches.

Additionally, as a customer we are a lot more inclined to buy from a company which has put in the algorithm to understand our preferences, remember our name and predict what we want.

Voice-based customer service

Smart voice assistants like Amazon Echo and Alexa have started transforming how the customers shop online, offer them self-serve experience, and empower them to find the answers they need at the speed of their voice.

Through the voice-based interaction, the customers can find about your offerings, make purchases, and perform transactions by simply making a query to their smart speakers.

24*7 availability

The next great thing about Artificial Intelligence which betters the business’s customer experience efforts is 24*7 availability. Unlike humans who work in shifts, an AI driven chatbot or support system is available round the clock.

But does this reinstate that AI is out to take human customer service agents jobs? No. If anything, it up their skills by only involving them in conversations that matter or are extremely ROI inclined. While on the other hand, customers or perspectives are able to connect with the brand anytime they want.

Think of customers future needs

An effective customer experience strategy is one that looks into both the present and future of customers needs and expectations.

Using data-driven insights and predictive analytics capabilities of AI, businesses can estimate the customers' present needs and their future patterns. The information, in turn, can help future-proof the entire valuable customer experience.

Here were the five ways AI can prove to be highly beneficial for the customer experience sector. With this acknowledged, it's time to get on with relooking at your business data and integrating AI algorithms to convert them into actionable insights.