4 Ways AI Can Improve Your Customer Experience
We’re facing a recession. Companies all over the world are struggling with financial challenges. Expenses get reevaluated. New projects are put on hold. Everyone has to tighten the belt. But when times are tough, it’s more important than ever to not lose focus on customer experience. Why that is and how you can improve your customer experience by using AI technology is what you’ll learn if you keep reading this article.
When in a recession, the majority of businesses have to cut costs (i.e. get rid of unnecessary expenses). Subscriptions of services and tools that once were seen as “need-to-have” are suddenly downgraded to “nice-to-have”. At the same time, many businesses have to redirect their business strategy from growth and development to retention and profitability.
That’s understandable. Probably even essential in many cases.
But be careful. It’s easy to get lost when the focus lies solely on profit. This is because shifting focus from growth to profitability can result in losing focus on the customer. And the customers’ wants and needs should always be centric - recession or not.
This is called having a customer-centric approach. And to succeed with a customer-centric approach you have to regularly evaluate and improve the customer experience.
What is customer experience?
Customer experience (or CX if you want to use the industry lingo) is the overall impression your customers have of your brand. It applies to all aspects of the customer journey and at every touchpoint of your business.
Providing a good customer experience will impact several factors related to your business goals. Because when a customer has a positive experience, the likelihood of the customer coming back – i.e. becoming loyal – is so much higher. In the same way, a customer is more likely to make a purchase with a higher order value if the experience and support exceeded their expectations.
In other words: Good customer experience = better retention and increased revenue.
Bonus benefit:
Delivering a good customer experience can also become a great marketing source. Because if your customers love interacting with you, they’ll probably recommend you to others and stay with you longer. And having your customers turn into brand advocates can be rather profitable. In fact, the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) found that word of mouth drives an estimated $6 trillion in annual consumer spending.
How AI can improve your customer experience
Artificial intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (a subset of AI) are technologies that have many areas of use. In short, AI and machine learning provide machines the ability to learn from data and past experiences to identify patterns and make predictions with minimal human intervention. This technology is used in everything from preventing unauthorized financial activity to creating unbeatable chess opponents.
Another area where AI can be used (that lies somewhere between fraud detection and game development) is the field of customer experience.
Let’s have a look at four practical examples of ways that AI can help your company shape and improve your eCommerce customer experience.
#1 Give tailored recommendations
As the eCommerce industry has grown, so has the competition. And the rules of the game have also changed. It’s no longer enough to have the best product or the lowest price. To stand out from competitors you have to bring something else to the table. That something is an impeccable customer experience. 😎
One way to enhance the customer experience is by providing a personalized experience through the usage of a product finder. A product finder is an AI-driven process that allows eCommerce businesses to advise and guide their customers to choose the right product for their needs—without the need for extensive search or reading a lot of product pages.
How product finders work
Imagine that you’re running an eCommerce retailer that sells sports equipment. Some products speak for themselves, but complex products like running shoes can be difficult to buy online. Features like “heel drop” or “flyknit-technology” can be difficult for an average jogger to translate into actual practical value.
With an AI-driven product finder, you let the customer answer questions like:
- How do you like to land when you run?
- Where/How long/In what weather will you be running?
- Will you be running on asphalt or in the woods?
Based on what the customer answers, the product finder will give a tailored product recommendation. The product selection that at first consisted of hundreds of products is now reduced to just a handful—all of which fit their own specific criteria.
In short: product finders translate the hard robotic filters most eCommerce stores use to sort their products into soft human filters that customers can relate to.
Bonus benefit:
Besides the positive impact product finders have on the customer experience and buying process—they also increase conversion rates and lower the number of returns for the retailer.
#2 Provide support proactively
When it comes to eCommerce, one of the cornerstones in delivering a good customer experience is to remove any possible friction from the buying journey. Besides offering product finders when buying complex products, an AI-driven Chatbot is a good tool to offer a smooth shopping experience.
Like a shop assistant who proactively helps customers with their purchases in a physical store, a chatbot can do the same in an online store. Based on the customer’s website behavior, the chatbot can “pop” and provide help before the customer even knew they needed it. For example, you can program the chatbot to trigger a message with information about your return policy if the customer types in “return” in the search bar.
Combine this with a product finder and we’ll officially crown you the king of eCommerce CX 👑
#3 Help customers solve problems faster
Besides enabling proactive help, chatbots are great when it comes to enhancing and streamlining your customer support. Today’s customers have high expectations for support. They want to know when something will be delivered or installed—and if something doesn’t go as planned, they expect a solution fast.
And they’re not patient. A survey by HubSpot found that 90% of consumers rate an “immediate” response as important or very important when they have a customer service question.
Providing lightning-fast support is one of the best use cases for a chatbot. They can answer FAQs, point customers to helpful articles, or initiate returns. This reduces labor costs and helps customers get help faster. Best of all, a chatbot makes it possible for you to be available 24/7.
“But customers want to talk to humans – not bots,” you may say.
Well, yes and no.
Yes, people prefer talking to humans when it’s available—but more than anything, they want their problems solved quickly. And modern chatbots are surprisingly human-like. In fact, a HubSpot survey found that 63% of people who used AI-driven services like chatbots didn’t realize they were using AI.
How about that. 🤷♀️
#4 Use sentiment analysis to analyze customer feedback
Sentiment analysis—also known as opinion mining or emotion AI—is a technique that uses AI to process text data and classify the emotions (positive, neutral, or negative) it reflects. This can be integrated with a chatbot, for example.
As an eCommerce business, sentiment analysis gives you a great opportunity to learn what makes your customers happy or frustrated—so you can adapt your products and services accordingly.
Wrapping up
Even though AI probably never will completely replace human interaction, it absolutely has the potential to enhance efficiency and relieve your customer support team from repetitive tasks.
So don’t forget about this important part of your business as we’re facing this recession. It’s time to double down on CX instead of cutting it out of your plans.
P.S. Check out our industry-specific pages for more tips on how to create a better customer experience depending on your industry:
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