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Artificial intelligence (AI) has become, for many of us, an integral part of our daily lives, and over the years brought considerable change to the workplace. AI-powered software programs (also known as virtual assistants) that can understand and converse in a language similar to humans are becoming increasingly common, and for good reason.
Virtual Assistants (VAs) can take away the hassle of juggling between several enterprise applications, which can be otherwise frustrating and time consuming. When powered with machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP), Virtual Assistants (VA) serve as a single interface for your workforce to execute several tasks with minimal effort—a boon to any business looking to grow.
Imagine you’re in front of your desktop and thinking of applying for a leave. The thing is, you don’t know your current leave balance and you are unsure of how many leaves in a year you’re entitled to. You could contact your HR team or spend an hour navigating the organization’s FAQ pages. Or you could message your digital assistant, who will get back to you within seconds with all the information related to your leave balance, apply a leave and more.
According to Gartner, 25% of the digital workers will use virtual employee assistants daily, by 2021
AI-powered virtual assistants empower employees to simplify their workflow and enable them to work smartly and deliver the highest productivity. Additionally, these solutions are designed for personalized consumer marketing and have a unique value proposition in terms of business efficiency.
In this article we'll discuss the potential of AI as a technology for virtual assistants within businesses. We will also look at solutions for personalized marketing, omnichannel adaptation, interactive messaging services, automation, etc.
Also Read: How to Cook Up a ‘Smart’ Virtual Assistant - Learn the Secret Sauce to Success |
Omnichannel Adaptation using AI-powered Virtual Assistant Capabilities
The Internet is now an intrinsic part of our day-to-day lives. Shopping, classes, meetings, money transactions, and more take place online. Although these activities can be carried out traditionally, the convenience that comes with online processes is unmatched. However, with the multiple streams of digital channels, customers move from channel to channel while on a single purchase. A customer can start on your website, move to search from any mobile device, or even stop by your store and yet return online to make a purchase. This trend is what makes a consumer an omnichannel shopper, and it’s infiltrating every business and industry.
If your business relies solely on in-person sales, then there is a need to up your digital presence to hold onto the 57% of your potential customers you risk losing. The omnichannel approach gives your brand the room to make consumer shopping more personalized and allows them to choose the most convenient way to buy your product or service.
Thus, Conversational AI-powered virtual assistants could be integrated into customers' experience voice-assisted conversions or chatbots in online chats to make the process of purchasing seamless, faster, and hassle-free for the consumers. Also, secure payment channels are made possible for eCommerce transactions providing ease of payment and authenticity.
Without adapting to this type of digital transformation, you stand the risk of losing over half your customers. Although it is not an easy task to adopt the omnichannel setup, it is worth the effort and investment. Choosing this digital transformation opportunity entails building multiple sales channels while simultaneously creating a one-stop-shop platform that enables seamless customer service across all touchpoints.
Leveraging Conversational AI to Drive Customer Engagement
More businesses are adopting AI technology as an integral part of their customer experience activities. It is a result of the in-depth capacity of conversational AI technologies to engage actively with customers and optimize customer service. For example, brands such as Volvo plan on developing conversational assistance that will guide drivers in the use of various in-car apps to deliver a more effortless user experience.
Using AI Prediction for Personalized Consumer Marketing Strategy
The ability to predict data outcome is a vital aspect of data management for businesses. Most companies can gather a ton of useful data, but the challenge arises when the data sources get too big to track and disseminate adequately. Thus, this is where AI shows its value. The AI predictive modeling can create datasets that process large amounts of information in real-time, analyze historical data, and sort through customer behavior patterns.
The analysis helps you determine the best moment for better engagement, right on time, and with the proper subset of customers. Additionally, these predictions can be used to personalize your customer's experience. That way, you can market your brand to potential customers in a personalized manner and give them a seamless brand experience that makes them feel your product was created explicitly for them. Figures from the Accenture forecast shows that over 41% of customers in the US stopped using brands which they feel lack personalization.
A brand that has effectively used AI assistive solutions is Spotify. It has earned positive reviews for its AI-based solutions that track user patterns and makes accurate recommendations and predictions based on customer preferences of customers. This helps to elevate the overall user experience.
Also Read: What Goes into Making a Successful NLP Design for Chatbots |
Use AI-powered Chatbots for Real-time Customer Support
Another core part of optimizing customer experience using AI is by providing efficient customer support. AI can deliver responsive and consistent support to customers from resolving simple queries to complex customer issues. Assisting in real time adds value to the improved customer experiences that artificial intelligence customer services can provide, regardless of the complexities.
Thus, AI-powered conversational chatbots are now a must-have for many businesses who want to have real-time conversations to attend to their customers quickly. Chatbots are an excellent way for companies to take care of customer inquiries using human-type interactions without tying up human resources. Chatbot platforms can be used to analyze, manage, or build your brand's bot.
A setup such as this one allows your customers to get quick solutions to more straightforward issues through AI, so your customer support staff is free to help others with more complex concerns. For example, a writing review service such as Online Writers Rating that needs to go through thousands of papers daily can free up their writers to focus on the papers, while chatbots help out with consumer support.
Additionally, introducing AI-powered chatbot assistance to your workforce will not only impact your consumers' experiences but also improve your business's overall productivity level. Gartner's report states that by 2021, Artificial Intelligent assistant technology will generate $2.9 trillion in revenue and recover 6.2 billion staff working hours.
However, when using AI-powered chatbots, be sure to inform your customers, so they are aware they are interacting with technology and not a real person. Customers should get an upfront notice so they understand the benefit that this will speed up responses to their inquiries. Thus, they might be more likely to warm up to the idea.
Eradicates Language Barriers with AI Voice Assistant Technology
According to Juniper Research, about 3.25 billion voice assistants are in use currently and the numbers are poised to get to 8 billion by 2023. Now with breakthroughs in AI assistive technology, these voice assistants are increasingly useful in breaking language barriers in enterprise settings.
While travelling abroad or even while interacting with content online, most people have to deal with language barriers. So what is the solution? Including personal assistant technology integrated with automatic translation to help ease the language barrier for your foreign clients. For example, Kore.ai-powered virtual assistant is compatible with 19 different languages and is working on adding more languages. Thus, when consumers can communicate with you in their native language, it can unequivocally lead to better customer experience and more business for you.
Also Read: Earn Your Spurs as a Virtual Assistant Developer with Kore.ai Certification |
Conclusion
The momentum with which Artificial Intelligence has been implemented across multiple sectors is gradually changing traditional methods previously used by most companies. With AI, businesses now have the opportunity of attaining results with a higher degree of precision and speed under the umbrella of Enterprise Virtual Assistants (EVA). Such AI assistive solutions reduce the human error factor and increase the effectiveness of your business.
More enterprises are benefiting from how company information is handled. With the help of AI, you can make data-driven choices and strategize towards better campaign results. Moreover, AI prediction models can swiftly recognize potential consumers, acquire action on how to reach them to achieve a higher sale, all while providing them with a satisfactory overall brand experience.
