How Data and AI can Help Understand Customers and Enhance their Experience?
It’s no surprise that companies are turning to data and AI for improved customer experience
In order to succeed, organizations need to understand what their customers are feeling and thinking. However, traditionally, gaining these insights is labor-intensive and lengthy for analysts. So, it’s no surprise that companies are turning to technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and customer analytics for help.
Industries are using AI and data analytics to deliver truly contextual experiences that ultimately build stronger brand loyalty and drive growth. Further, AI and data analytics solutions also help them track customer interactions through browsing history, open email history, click-through rates, and other actions.
Without AI, companies have to guess which marketing technique is most effective. However, through Big Data and AI-enabled analytics, companies can now develop more comprehensive customer profiles by knowing exactly what the customer wants. These technologies further help determine which marketing strategies work best for each customer through algorithms that are tracking their interactions and behavior.
How AI and data analytics enhance customer experience?
A recent report by Forbes suggests 75 percent of enterprises using AI and machine learning can enhance customer satisfaction by more than 10% by knowing about their wants and needs.
So with that in mind, let’s take a look at a few biggest ways AI and data are helping companies understand their customers better and enhance their experience.
1. Discover what you’re missing: Companies often misjudge what their customers actually want. The AI-driven qualitative approach can show you what you’re missing and what your customers really care about. And therefore, help you fix it.
For instance, it’s possible that your company is focusing on sales and workshop touchpoints, but for customers, credit financing and invoicing touchpoints are critical in their interaction with your firm. AI-based tools can help discover such insights and redirect resources to where they are needed.
2. Capture customers’ responses in real-time: AI and data analytics approaches serve you with ample real-time user data. This helps you to remain familiar with the change in their behavior and expectations and improve the customer journey by offering highly relevant content.
3. Offer hyper-personalization: Hyper-personalization has become the most advanced way brands tailor their marketing to individual customers. It uses data, analytics, AI, and automation to create targeted experiences.
Companies can send highly contextualized communications to specific customers at the right place and right time, and through the right channels through hyper-personalization.
Implementing such strategies not only increase customer satisfaction but also drives brand loyalty, willingness to spend, and overall marketing effectiveness.
4. Use sentiment analysis to analyze customer feedback: When customer support staff is dealing with hundreds of customer messages every day, it becomes difficult to know which ones to prioritize. But sentiment analysis can help customer representatives gauge the urgency of a customer inquiry by tagging messages as excited, frustrated, or angry.
As reported by freshworks.com, two-thirds of companies say sentiment analysis helps reduce the cost of customer service, and 72% say it improves customer experience. You can incorporate sentiment analysis at any step of the customer journey and use those insights to improve the customer experience.
5. Resolve customer queries faster: Customers don’t just expect instant gratification when making a purchase, they also expect lightning-fast customer support. In a recent survey, 90% of consumers said getting an immediate response to a customer-service question is “important” or “very important.”
Therefore, implementing AI chatbots has been very beneficial in addressing customers’ problems at a faster pace. Moreover, they are available to assist customers 24*7. They can help answer frequently asked questions, point customers to relevant articles, or initiate a return.
This helps your customers resolve issues faster and enhance their overall experience. For instance, State Farm is utilizing AI to help policyholders process claims more quickly. This helps to receive claims on time without any hassle.
6. Eliminate the hassle of returns: There’s no doubt that customers want a seamless return experience. While retailers have made efforts to make the return process as convenient as possible, returning an item can still be frustrating. AI and customer analytics improve the customer experience by anticipating a return based on user behavior or items in the shopping cart.
For instance, if a person has added multiple sizes of a particular item or has checked the size guide along with the return policy in the same session, it could indicate that a person is not sure what size to buy.
The challenges of AI and data analytics solutions
Currently, one of the greatest challenges for brands using AI in business is that customer data is spread out among disparate systems and different channels, and much of it is siloed. So, all the data needs to be unified before AI can analyze it.
Another challenge is that many brands do not have the required funds to invest in AI technologies, or they assume that AI is overly expensive. Similarly, many brands still feel that they will not get a valid ROI from AI. However, the truth is when AI and data are used effectively for customer experience, brands can surely earn high returns through growing customers.
The above challenges can be easily overcome by hiring a trusted artificial intelligence development company. The experts can help you implement AI and ML-based models that enhance customer experience, increase revenue and help you understand your customers better.
Final thoughts!
With the use of AI and other technologies, firms can increasingly gather more real-time data about customers’ journeys instead of relying on single-metric ways of measuring customer experience and satisfaction. These insights combined with customer past transactions and behavior can provide companies with a bespoke 360-degree view of the customer experience.
AI-driven models, therefore, play a crucial role in providing seamless customer experience in a timely manner, retaining customers, and achieving customer loyalty and long-term growth.
So, if you also plan to invest in AI and data-driven solutions, it’s advisable to contact a trusted software development company. The experts will guide you through the process and help scale your business.
