AI is changing the customer experience

There is no question about it, artificial intelligence is changing how customers interact with brands and develop through the buyer journey. For many customers interacting with AI has become the norm, whether they realise it or not.

As artificial intelligence continues to develop, businesses are implementing it more across their digital marketing platforms.

Chatbots

Chatbots are massively changing the way the consumer communicates with a business. Chatbots are becoming the norm on social media for many businesses and can help with a major part of the customer journey. From giving recommendations, purchase options and customer service these bots are redefining the way we shop. Some of the very basic answer and question bots use a simple version of AI but once they start getting more technical artificial intelligence and machine learning can really come into play. As each consumer interacts with the bot the more it learns about that user, enabling it to give not just accurate recommendations but also answers, almost removing the human element of the journey.

Many consumers are still sceptical about shopping through bots and would much rather have human interaction however a 2017 report showed that 27% of consumers said they ‘weren’t sure if their last customer service interaction was a human or a chatbot’ and as the technology continues to develop and the AI continues to learn I can see this number rising.

Automation

As artificial intelligence continues to learn about the customer the marketing function can become more automated. By understanding what the customer typically purchases and how often campaigns can be automated for this particular person at a specific time, allowing businesses to uniquely target their audience.

This automation through AI can also help the marketing function to become more personal, similar to chatbots it can recommend certain products and offer deals based on previous purchases. In America Starbucks are already using AI to automate how they connect with their customers. They are using this technology to offer consumers extra points based on their purchases and suggesting personalised drinks and food that the customer may have ordered in the past.

Businesses are starting to use AI to connect with the customers and to improve the customer journey. As the development of artificial intelligence and machine learning continues surely we will see a rise in the number of use cases, I’m interested to see if one day all our communications with companies will become automated.

Do you think the customer journey will become fully automated through AI? Can you tell when you are communicating with AI rather than a human? Let me know your thoughts below.

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