AI-The Game Changer for CS!!

All of us are quite familiar with Siri and Alexa. They have become a part of our homes and our daily lives. I myself am a big fan of Alexa. It remembers all my regular tasks, helps me to save messages for my son to remind him of his medicine, study time and even conveys all my messages in my absence. She helps me to make hotel reservations, guides me while driving, prepares my shopping list and helps me in every possible manner.

The other day, I was looking for an yearly planner on various websites but could not finalise one. Next time onwards, I started getting advertisements related to year planners whenever I went online. I could finally order one the same day. This was possible because of the smooth experience and fascinating advertisements. This is all possible only because of Artificial Intelligence.

What Is Artificial Intelligence?

AI is a computer which has the intelligence of humans. It has all human characteristics like, remembering the interests, learning from experiences, recognising the voices, logical reasoning and many more. It also has machine characteristics like, never forgetting a task, error free work, not getting bored from monotonous and routine work, not getting tired and many more.

AI has the capacity to work like humans but this does not mean that humans will have no work and AI will do all the work. It only means that AI can help humans and enhance their performance and productivity. AI is actually used so as to make human life easier.

The secret ingredient for Artificial Intelligence to give desired results is clean data. AI works by?combining large amounts of data from all sources with intelligent algorithms. The AI software learns automatically from patterns in the data. AI and machine learning aim at carrying out tasks that include learning, adapting, performing, processing information, and speech recognition same as humans. AI can?identify data types, find possible connections among datasets, and recognize knowledge using natural language processing. It can be used to automate and accelerate data preparation tasks, including the generation of data models, and assist in data exploration.

What is Customer Experience?

Customers interact with the organization in various manners. The first interaction can be with the marketing campaign which was meant to attract customers, to the demo call with sales, to the purchase decision, to the onboarding, after sales interactions etc. These interactions vary according to the stage of customer lifecycle. Customer experience means how the customer feels while interacting with the organization.

In current times, every organization is working towards creating the best experiences for their customers. This is because, bad experience can lead to churn. No one wants to loose their existing customers as the cost of acquiring new customers is much higher than keeping the existing customers.

What Is AI in Customer Experience?

Customer experience can be enhanced with the use of technology to provide data driven and informed experience at every customer touchpoint. Some examples of enhancing the customer experience through AI are- automated communications, round the clock support, self sufficient support resources, remembering the preferences forever, saving time of the customers and so on.

AI makes use of the customer data to know about their preferences, interests and likes. This information guides the business to deliver personalised experiences which results in customer satisfaction. Such customers stick to the product and feel good getting the personalised experiences. AI helps the customers to get better search results based on their previous purchases and interests.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND CUSTOMER SUCCESS

Information Literacy

CSMs need the overall view of the customer health. They need to know about the purchase goal to customer onboarding to adoption to pain points. They also need to have the details of customer tickets and interactions with the organization. They need to know the usage trends to predict the churn and renewals. The insights provided by AI after the analysis of customer data, are very useful for customer success team.

Information literacy?is the ability to find, evaluate, organize, use, and communicate information in all its various formats. It is most useful in situations requiring decision making, problem solving, or personalising the products.

Personalizes Recommendations

Personalized product recommendations?are when a site shows a selection of product recommendations that are?unique?to the individual visitor, based on their?behaviours?and?profile. This is based on the machine learning algorithm used by the data analysing tool. The recommendations can be based on browsing history, purchase history, location, demographics, profile etc.

Accurate insights help to build recommendations for good relationships with customers and also help in increasing adoption rate. AI helps the CS team in improving personalisation, holding training for customers, upselling, renewals, reducing churn. AI insights about customer’s preferences help the organization to make decisions about future expansion.

AI-Powered Insights Improve Decision Making

AI guides potential purchases and prompts to intervene when required to help customer in making the purchase decision. It also helps marketing team to decide the campaigns required to be run for good positioning of product in the market.

Using AI Decision making algorithms, companies are well equipped to detect anomalies and predict future behaviors. The decisions taken on the basis of AI analyzed data helps to take decisions on the basis of facts. The intelligent information shared by augmented intelligence, proves to be useful to the customer success managers when it comes to taking decisions related to the existing customers.

Facilitates better understanding of the customer

CSM wants to understand the pain points of the customers, AI proves to be helpful by providing data about usage patterns. AI also analyses the customer feedback and helps to decide on upcoming product enhancements and releases.

Artificial Intelligence?helps to analyse customers' key metrics and recommend products or services to customers based on their browsing history and buying preferences. The CSM can get a better understanding of the needs and interests that drive customers to purchase and then create messages that's more likely to persuade and motivate them. It helps to produce better products and services which are liked by the customers.

Predicts Churn

Churn prediction means detecting which customers are likely to leave a service or to cancel their subscription. CSM can do this prediction based on the product usage data. Tickets data give the detailed information about customer experience. AI analyses the tickets data of the customers which help to identify the customers at risk of churn. The customers for whom the ticket resolution time is crossing the SLA?or for whom the tickets have to be reopened as the issue reoccurred are the ones at risk and need immediate attention.

AI helps in customer churn prediction?by collecting data over time and interactions between different customer behaviours that can be difficult for people to identify. Churn prediction is critical for many businesses because acquiring new customers cost more than retaining the existing customers.

Automates Customer Service

Automation of customer service means to allow the customers to solve their problems without any human interaction with other human. CSM spends most of the time in ticket resolution as tickets are the most painful area for any customer. AI helps to provide Chatbot support which reduces the resolution time and helps to provide support 24x7. This frees up the time of CSM which they can use in strategic work. This also helps in Cost reduction by speeding up ticket resolution time.

Automation also helps to integrate all domain and operational tools into automation layers in order to have unified interface for all the internal and external workflows. This results in higher output and increased productivity This also helps to eliminate errors and risks associated with the routine tasks.

Performs repeated tasks error free

CS profile includes many repeated tasks which do not require any brains. Repetitive tasks hamper the productivity of the CSM. AI helps to manage the routine and repeated tasks, freeing up the time of CSM to work on tasks which cannot be completed without their intervention. “Automate what you can” is the key to perform error free repeated tasks.

Things can get pretty messed up when we are performing repeated tasks on routine basis. Our neural pathways do not work on a process every time, but they consider the task as a routine and are likely to make mistakes. Such tasks kill the creativity and high-level productivity of the CSM. Sometimes the CSM leaves the job in case the work is too repetitive.

Improves Customer Retention

Retaining the existing customers is more profitable than acquiring the new customers. Every business is working towards retaining their customer. This is the major KRA of the CSM. AI improves the retention efforts by providing all the customer related data in the form of a dashboard. The CSM can use the insights from this data to deliver personalised experiences to the customer which keep them stick to the product.

Company’s ability to turn customers into repeat buyers and to prevent the existing customers from switching to a competitor, is called as Customer retention. Retention gives clarity on whether the existing products and services are liked by your customers or not. The understanding of analytics and the churn rate helps in retention efforts of the organization. AI helps in segmenting the customers and this is the key to retention. The more insights you have into customer behaviour, the more impact you are able to create through personalised approach. AI helps with these valuable data driven insights.

CSM needs to always look for upsell opportunities for the existing customers. AI analyses the customer data and builds customer persona. This helps the CS team to provide personalized information to the customer at the right time through right channels which in turn help in upselling. You can no longer follow the approach of “One size fits all”.

AI Helps Predict Customer Behaviour and Needs

AI analyses current and historical facts in order to predict customer's behaviour and actions even before they actually occur. For instance:?The other day my grocery app pinged me when I missed adding my favourite cookies to the shopping cart. Predicting customer behaviour helps to consistently keep customers engaged so that they not only provide repeat business but also become brand ambassadors for the company.

If CSM is able to recommend relevant product to the customer, they will be able to take the quicker purchase decision. AI helps in such cases with Predictive insights which make the customer feel that the products and services are personalised for them. They help to clear all the customer doubts and answer all their queries instantly. This makes the purchase experience smoother for them.

Improves Efficiency

When it comes to speed and accuracy, humans are no match to Artificial Intelligence. Computers and robots definitely have the ability to process to process far more information at a much higher pace than humans. AI improves the efficiency by minimising the number of errors, by automating several processes. These processes include, improving the speed of collecting and analysing data, 24/7 customer service, increased security, better customer experience.

CSM is always expected to handle many tasks at the same time. Humans have the limited capability to multi task and sometimes it becomes difficult to prioritise. And humans also make errors when they are handling too much work together. Here AI comes to use. AI has the capability of multi tasking. It can handle multiple tasks at the same time, without any errors.

Remembers the resolutions provided

Artificial intelligence is a computer program that is designed to solve complex problems and to provide decision-making ability like a human expert by extracting knowledge from its knowledge base using the reasoning and inference rules according to the user queries. AI uses the historical knowledge base without any emotions, with high efficiency, high security and considering all the facts. Moreover there is no memory limitation for such AI programs.

In case a ticket is resolved for a customer, the support agents try to provide the same resolutions for any other similar tickets. But in case the support agent is not the same, the new person may not know the resolution provided. AI can refer to the historical data and suggest the same solution in case of repeated queries. It also can forward the tickets to the relevant teams by analysing the details shared in the ticket.

Enhances Security

AI makes use of machine learning and deep learning techniques to analyse network behaviour and identify any deviations or security incidents. This triggers immediate response and strengthens future security by?blocking potential threats with similar traits. AI security solutions can identify, predict, respond to, and protect from potential cybersecurity threats, without depending on human input. AI security tools can learn and act based on previously detected behaviours.

Customers are very particular about their data. The data sharing laws are also very strict now a days. The data security agreements and compliances need to be strictly maintained by the organization. In case the customer finds that their employee data or transactions are not secure while using the product, they will definitely leave you. AI helps to make the data secure and protected. AI analyzes threats like malicious files, suspicious IP addresses or insiders in seconds or minutes and prevents the loss.

Customer Segmentation

Customer segmentation is?the process of dividing a customer base into distinct groups of individuals that have similar characteristics. This process makes it easier to target specific groups of customers with tailored products, services, and marketing strategies. AI helps to make customer segmentations based on the study of customer data.

AI uses data-driven algorithms to identify and create customer segments which are used to optimize and personalize customer targeting. Clustering techniques are used to group customers based on their similarities and differences. AI-driven segmentation is important for creating better customer experiences. With its ability to provide real-time insights into customer behaviour and tailor campaigns accordingly, AI-based segmentation helps businesses to stay ahead of the competition.

Marketing Becomes More Targeted and Effective

With the rise of digital marketing, marketing is becoming more customer centric. The marketing campaigns are launched, keeping in mind the target audience. AI helps to group the customers into various segments which then can be targeted by the marketing team. AI also helps to measure the impact of any marketing campaigns.

AI-driven segmentation allows marketing teams to create targeted campaigns and personalize customer experiences. By leveraging AI, businesses can increase customer engagement and drive sales by targeting the right customers at the right time with the right message. AI marketing tools allow marketing teams to make the most of the customer data using predictive analytics, which leverages a combination of machine learning, algorithms, models, and datasets to predict future behaviour. AI helps to analyze user information, such as age, gender, areas of interest, and location, and shows ads to people or audiences whom the business is relevant.

Artificial Intelligence Improves Customer Loyalty

Keeping the customer loyal to the product and organization are only possible when they get a good experience which cannot be beaten by the competitors. AI helps to achieve this by collectively offering Chatbot support, Predictive analysis, product innovation, personalised recommendations. When the customer gets all this, they will not go to any other brand.

AI helps to simplify the customer experience by anticipating their needs and providing the desired results. It helps to streamline processes which results in customer delight.?Integrating AI techniques to identify repeating customers and nurturing relationships with existing customers will eventually lead to rewarding loyal customers. Loyal customers will not only benefit the revenue growth but also benefit the businesses with referral marketing. AI can help in improving customer loyalty by using the chatbots, using data for product innovation, effective pricing based on data insights, and many more ways.

AI + CS = BUSINESS SUCCESS

When Customer success and AI work together, it results in modifying and tailoring product development and features for specific customers. AI helps to provide self-help solutions to give customers access to assistance when live support staff may not be available. AI enables predictive analytics that signal opportunities and risks. AI makes the customer feel valued by providing high quality personalisation.

Customer expectations are increasing daily and the biggest challenge is to fulfil these expectations. AI helps to deliver these expectations using automated data collection and data analysis. AI provides the CSM access to the 360 degree view of the customer and helps them deliver the enhanced customer experiences.

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