From security to supply chain, AI is helping deliver new value for businesses and customers…
This week I got a call from my bank alerting me to a possible fraud. Their AI had picked up an unusual transaction. That bit of machine learning saved me (and the bank) potentially thousands of pounds, and it got me thinking about just how AI is seamlessly improving customer experience and the ways in which it will be delivering value for your customers and business.
First a bit of background. AI owes a great deal to a guy by the name of Arthur Samuel who had a computer playing checkers at IBM back in the 1950s. He developed the program to allow it to “remember” previous states, therefore increasing the likelihood of it “choosing” a successful move in the game. But the real explosion has happened since the turn of the Millennium as computing power and the cloud has driven speech and image recognition - with each new generation 100 times more accurate than the previous.
With the news this week that the very first viable quantum computer has been built we can anticipate that multiple to be at least quadrupled. Quantum may seem like a pipe dream but it's real and with its increased ability to process data we can expect big changes.
Already there’s a wide array of AI products in the market for a range of enhancements delivering in key areas of customer experience.
1. Security at speed
Real time payment fraud blocking is something we are now all taking for granted as banks and payment services integrate intelligence into their systems. And the technology itself is becoming hugely more intelligent and faster. Precognitive’s Decision-AI, has a sub-200 millisecond response time to assess any event using machine learning and a high performance rules engine. It can be integrated on any website using an API.
And the potential cost savings for banks from AI applications is immense, estimated at $447 billion by 2023.
2. Better customer understanding
To genuinely improve customer experience sales, customer service and marketing must all work together and modern CRM platforms have this nailed, with machine learning driving increasing efficiencies and clearer understandings. Hubspot, for example has a range of products which enable real time customer learnings to link sales conversions through the funnel – tracking leads, segmenting audiences and their behaviours, driving marketing and sales efficiencies.
Right now AI tools are already bringing real value to businesses, with research suggesting marketing automation drives a 14.5% increase in sales productivity and a 12.2% reduction in marketing overhead. (Invespcro)
3. Intelligent customer service
Sales insights from your CRM will enable better customer service, with real-time decisioning driving near immediate response times at scale. IBM’s Watson product for health services provider Humana can answer 7,000 complex customer requests a day.
And increasingly your customers are not just happy with chatbots, they are trusting. And isn’t trust the cornerstone of great customer experience? Capgemini’s report AI and the Ethical Conundrum indicates that 54% of customers have daily AI-enabled interactions with businesses, including chatbots, digital assistants, facial recognition and biometric scanners, and 49% of those customers found AI interactions to be trustworthy, up from only 30% in 2018.
4. Personalisation through predictive analytics
The same intelligence which empowers chatbots can be used to deliver enhanced and personalised experiences for your customers and allowing them to get to the answers they need but also richer experiences through relevant content.
And that relevant content might well extend your business offering by using cloud technology and machine learning to bring extra value to your customers and enabling you to better understand them. We’ve recently been exploring this with Mars Petcare – enabling pet parents (dog owners) to monitor their pet’s gut health with AI tools, and helping Mars to better understand their customers’ needs.
5. What I want, where I want it NOW
Supply chain enhancements through AI will enable businesses to deliver more personalised products but also ensure that they are in the right place at the right time. You will have noticed through lockdown that your purchases are arriving sooner. That's because predictive analytics driven by machine learning have ensured the products you need are warehoused closer to you and delivered faster.
It all adds up to a simple message – if your business is not integrating AI across all areas of its activity it will be falling behind. If you understand your customers better, if you take advantage of real-time decisioning and predictive analysis, if you deliver a hyper-personalised experience, and use AI chatbots to engage the customer, your customer journey will be improved through all touchpoints and across all channels.
And that will deliver the sweetspot - where your customers’ needs meet your business demands.
And if there are any typos here please blame the AI in Google Docs!
