Using AI to Improve Customer Communications

It’s fundamental to most businesses that one of their objectives is to grow their customer base. Although marketing can increase the visibility of most any business, it’s the business operations side of the business that increase the “stickiness” of your customer base. People do business with vendors that they like doing business with. Strategically speaking AI can be employed to take on a lot of tasks establishing multiple reliable communication pathways. The tricky part is that there are a wide range of customers that have varying degrees of acceptance for content delivered by AI. For some customers if they are interacting with a chat-bot for example, and they find they are getting into a circular conversation, they need to have a one click escape hatch so they don’t have to wrestle through the impenetrable forest of voice mail. Remember to keep it simple.

Your AI will need to handle three different types of communication:

• First is useful information that customers need to know, and which does not require a response. Examples include order confirmation, shipment status, account balance of backordered items, and promotional information like limited time sales. These can be delivered via email and usually do not require an actual person to convey that information.
• The second type of communication would be for the customer to give your company information such as an error in shipment, to place an order, or report a product was damaged in transit. These could be handled through email, which usually requires a minimum of back-and-forth. These, too could be handled by an AI interface, but they also have a higher likelihood that the customer may need to talk to someone directly (usually a member of the inside sales team).
• The third type of communication would require a direct exchange. This would be things like complex order changes, troubleshooting that may require an engineer, negotiating terms, or deciding to replace a lost order for example. These, almost certainly would be harder to automate through an AI and may be most efficiently handled directly by the appropriate person.

Up until now the focus of AI applications has been on assistants like Microsoft’s Co-Pilot, Open AI’s Chat GPT, Alexa, Siri and Google Assistant. These can execute straightforward simple tasks, through keyboard or voice commands. But to be really useful in a business sense an AI will need the ability to execute business operations. To do this,  companies are starting to use AI to build what are being called “Agents” which can string together a series of inter-related tasks. An agent for example, could take an order, check inventory, schedule a shipment, notify the salesperson responsible for that account, issue the invoice and track the shipment, sending a link to the customer. This use of AI agents is just beginning to be put in to use. There are still issues about permissions and security that are not fully covered, but the ability to generate existing business processes is just too compelling to ignore.

Here are some attribute areas where AI Assistants and, eventually Agents can be used to help improve your business outcomes: Relationship Building, Revenue Enhancement, Easy to do Business With, and Housekeeping Activities.

RELATIONSHIP BUILDING:

Hyper-personalization is sort of like having a friendly neighbor. Imagine that emails use your preferred name; Jan or Bill rather than Janet or William. You get an invitation to visit a special nearby seminar with a few select other customers to get a sneak peek at the latest products from your company. You might want to offer customized products, specialized connectors or colors for example based on their potential business. This level of personalization can help build business relationships.

Proactive engagement

This is a matter of reaching out rather than waiting for the prospect or customer to contact you. It can be a tricky play unless it feels genuine. But with the right timing it should feel pretty natural. Imagine you are trying to secure a new customer. You know when they need to make their next purchase and this customer, during your lunch conversation happened to mention that their next company softball match could put them in the finals. Your AI, has this information and sends out a quick reminder (when  it’s time to order the product) and finishes with “Good luck and hope you make the finals”.

Receive and Analyze Customer Feedback

This is pretty straightforward, and it is also a task that is usually reserved for the largest accounts, but making it automated can easily be done enterprise wide. This is great for analyzing things like on-time delivery, purchasing patterns, product mix, installation issues, customer satisfaction and other factors for success. Analysis can also serve as a proxy for satisfaction, by cross referencing multiple factors over time.

REVENUE ENHANCEMENT

Predictive analytics

Purchasing patterns, changes to “days sales outstanding” also known as late payments, changes of personnel, and changes of ownership can all help in understanding the ups and downs of your customers’ business. This is also helpful when making adjustments to delivery schedules, pricing or product mix as appropriate.

Personalized Incentives and Loyalty Programs

People like recognition so special milestones could be celebrated. Hotels are really good at this sort of thing by keeping track of overnight stays and dialing up the level of service the more times you visit. It would be simple to key off of dollars spent or number of units purchased.

Automated re-engagement

AI can be used to remind customers to restock products, renew subscriptions, sign up for weekly (or monthly) industry news or even explore complementary services that they may not be aware of. This helps them keep your company as part of their “top of mind”.

EASY TO DO BUSINESS WITH

Sentiment Tracking

Combining an enterprise wide ERP system with AI really helps keep a finger on the pulse of your customer base. If you follow the whole life of an order from initial need uncovered through order placement, shipping, invoicing, set-up, and usage, you can get a clear picture of how your customers business works. If you’re hitting all your marks for timely action you’re probably right where you need to be – a gold star supplier. But if you see something that’s off a bit, or some warranty issues are popping up you want to get ahead of this really quickly. You just may be about to lose some of the shine off of that gold star. Knowing that your customer has an issue, maybe even before they do, sends a signal that you really care.

Seamless Omnichannel Experience

By connecting your web site information to your social media and building the UX (User Interface) so that customers can seamlessly go from desktop to mobile your audience will thank you. Lots of companies try to execute that plan, but fail. This is where AI can really shine. Since the AI is accessing an infinite database it’s mostly a matter of organizing the information so that it can be presented in whatever level the user needs. Done this way, and allowing for access to current information, your customers can share company milestones or the latest product release while checking status of their current order and sending an email. That is true ease of use. To add an extra level of sophistication, the whole web site could be voice activated. That would be a truly unified customer experience.

Dynamic Pricing & Personalized Offers

Imagine that you just received a double shipment of product and so now you’ve got a lot of value tied up in inventory that you’d like to clear up. Rather than sending it back, you could offer up an exclusive deal for certain customers, or a steep discount to incentivize a larger quantity purchase. Maybe you develop a points system (like the way hotels create rewards) and have a two for one offer for those customers at a certain level. These kinds of personalized discounts can increase conversion and improve customer retention as well.

HOUSEKEEPING

Lastly, there are always loose ends that need tying up. These could be adjustments to the price of the last order, maybe a special discount reserved for first time customers or ones that have achieved a certain level of business, a status report on some warranty repairs or some follow-up date for a meeting and so on. The good thing about AI is when it has access to the company CRM and ERP they never lose that data. Which makes it a pleasure doing business with you.