The just ended year 2020 was a year full of disruptions for all segments of human life, especially businesses. The emergence of the novel coronavirus and the measures against it drastically reduced in person interactions. This affected businesses in many respects such as customer service interaction, advertising and general operations. The companies that were able to thrive in this environment were those with thriving digital platforms or those that could pivot to digital quickly. This is clearly shown in the rising number of digital transactions worldwide. With that in mind, it seems almost criminal entering into 2021 to not leverage on the new digital dynamic of the business ecosystem. More and more, it seems failure to digitize and digitize properly may be the death knell for some organizations.
In previous posts, we have outlined the pivotal role customer service plays in organisations and also the value of digitizing customer service. In this post, we will highlight the avenues available to companies that seek to further digitize their customer service department in 2021. This would enable them further benefit from the opportunities available due to the peculiar nature of interactions nowadays.
Artificial intelligence refers to the use of computer systems to undertake some customer service tasks such as virtual customer assistants, personalized messages, customer help chat boxes and many other ways. The use of artificial intelligence and machine learning has gradually been gaining traction for use in customer service management. The benefits such as reduced costs, hyper personalization and increased customer loyalty have made it a mainstay in customer service.
The emerging trends in the integration of artificial intelligence in customer service space will result in personalized effective communication through the increased use of AI chat bots and better improved customer service through using machine learning to analyse and understand preferences of consumers. Firms have gone further past personalised messages in just names but also include personalised offers based on machine learning analyses of their purchases and behaviour. This enables firms to better serve their customers.
AI can also be used to predict problems clients will run into and solve them before they run into them. This will help increase consumer loyalty, satisfaction and retention. There should be further investment in using AI tools to make real-time decisions, personalise offers, predictive analyses of consumer behaviour and improve AI chat bots to ensure 24/7 all round excellent service. This would ensure they leverage the benefits of AI in 2021. Firms have close to a year’s worth of data on consumer behaviour in a time such as this. Machine learning can then be used to analyse this data and then business strategy tailored to suit findings.
AI can help companies analyse and better understand consumer behaviour from a decidedly different year such as 2020. As we move forward, with the peculiarities of 2020 becoming the new normal it is critical that companies invest in AI and machine learning to gain a clearer understanding of consumers’ behaviour in the new normal and to tailor offers and services to their needs.
