Mar/Apr 19 - ChannelVision Magazine

What’s more, with NLP, it’s not just a one-way conversation; your AI can book appointments, up-sell new products and make recommendations too. As might be expected, the benefits of conversational AI speak for themselves: Reliable 24/7 Support When your customers want assis- tance, they want it fast. One of the big- gest advantages of a conversational AI solution is its instantaneous response rate. According to a study from Harvard Business Review , answering customer queries within an hour or less can improve your chances of qualifying a lead by seven times. What’s more, the quicker your customers get results, the happier they’ll be with your service. Meet Customers Where They Are Your customers are already us- ing conversational AI platforms and mes- saging systems in their everyday lives. Younger generations are particularly fond of messaging compared to other communication methods. With conversa- tional solutions, you can connect to your clients where they most want to interact with you. Currently, 30 percent of cus- tomers, show Forrester figures, expect to be able to use a live chat option when they visit a business website. It’s Easy to Scale Conversational AI doesn’t just give you an excellent solution for customer engagement today; it also provides you with a future-proof strategy that can scale with your business. As your com- pany evolves, you can add new bots and solutions to your network thanks to the flexibility of the cloud contact center. You can even experiment with new and disruptive AI-based technology like sen- timent analysis and predictive analysis as they emerge. Using Conversational AI inYour Contact Center A survey conducted by Linc found that nearly nine in 10 retail executives believe that adding artificial intelligence to their customer service strategy will lead to higher satisfaction levels. About six in 10 also said that conversational AI would help them to save money, while nearly half believe the technology would increase customer lifetime value. Conversational AI and messaging systems have the power to transform every aspect of how companies con- nect with their customers. Currently, more than 2.5 billion people are using messaging services regularly, which just goes to show how popular this commu- nication strategy can be. What’s more, businesses are beginning to see the value of AI for themselves. A company called Dream 11, which runs online fan- tasy sports websites in India, managed to handle more than one million queries during the 2018 season of the Indian Premier League with only 30 people on its team. Indeed, according to Accen- ture, AI will double the annual economic growth rate in 12 developed economies (including the U.S.) and boost labor pro- ductivity by up to 40 percent by 2035.  With AI in your service strategy, you’ll always be prepared to deliver the service your customers need, at a time that suits them. Unlike humans, conversational appointments never get tired of answering messages or updating your CRM, and they work at 100 percent efficiency through all hours of the day. Adding AI toYour Contact Center Conversational AI systems are smart enough to minimize most of the friction commonly found in customer service experiences, and the technology is get- ting better all the time. Studies show that some customers even prefer AI-powered self-service when it’s available. What’s more, when used correctly, conversational AI doesn’t just lead to better experiences for customers; it can also mean that your employees spend less time dealing with tedious customer service tasks too. In the contact center, conversational AI can: • gather and qualify leads that come to your website by answering their ques- tions and directing them along the sales funnel; • collect useful data about your custom- ers from their conversations, which you can use to alter and improve your service and sales strategies; • keep customers engaged by providing them with plenty of reliable ways to contact your brand and answering any questions they might have about your product or service; and • free your employees up to complete more important tasks by taking over and automating repetitive and monoto- nous jobs in the contact center. The most important thing to remem- ber is that conversational AI is just one part of the customer engagement puzzle for contact centers. Forrester Research suggests that today’s con- sumers still need the option to interact with humans. A comprehensive cloud contact center strategy will combine automation solutions with conversa- tional AI, and an empowered human workforce, equipped with the tools they need for excellent productivity. o Daniel Yin heads up product management for RingCentral in EMEA. Why Retailers Use Conversational AI in Contact Centers Improve customer service 87% Lower costs 59.4% Improving net promoter score 47.8% Increasing customer lifetime value 47.8% Enabling personal customer-to-brand interactions 39.1% Increase revenue 36.2% Decrease return rates 23.2% Other 8.7% Source: Brandgarage; Linc Reasons Retailers Say Customer Service Costs Are Increasing Increased human error 54.7% More shipping/logistics/reverse logistics problems 37.4% Increased technology expense 24.5% Other 18.9% Higher returns 13.2% Source: Brandgarage; Linc 22 Channel Vision | March - April, 2019 EMERGENT