How AI and Digital Assistants Will Revolutionize Customer Experience and Marketing
While the digital marketing landscape is constantly evolving, the rise of AI technology is ushering in a wave of unprecedented change. Businesses that fail to adapt risk missing out on a tremendous opportunity.
Today, we’re going to take a look at how AI and digital assistants (AI concierges) are set to transform the customer experience and marketing strategies. There are huge changes already happening, but there’s also plenty more to come.
From a marketer’s perspective, we need to understand how this is going to change the customer experience because it will change how we connect with the customer, and how we develop our strategies in order to best connect with our customers.
Key Macro Trends Shaping the Future of Marketing
In my book, Future Proof Your Marketing, I wanted to make it clear that businesses need to have a strategy in place that includes a customer-centric approach to marketing that focuses on long-term success in the age of AI.
As I see it, there are four important macro trends that are changing the world of marketing. They are the four “Ps”: Personalized, Predictive, Proactive, and Privacy. These are the high-level trends that are driving all the change. If you have a strong understanding of these trends, it makes predicting outcomes that much easier.
Now, let’s take a look at the four macro themes:
The Future of Marketing Will Become More Personalized
In a world where consumers are bombarded with constant content and communications, personalization is essential. There’s already a good amount of personalization in how businesses market to their customers. But it’s going to get much more sophisticated in the near future.
Imagine for a moment that you had the best executive assistant ever. This person was on top of their game. They knew everything. You could count on them. Maybe they even had a whole team of experts that they could utilize at any time.
Would you want your assistant to actually get to know your needs and personalize how they interact with you, or would you want to just have them spit out things that aren’t even relevant to you?
Obviously, if you were paying a personal assistant, you’d want them to personalize things to your needs. You’d want them to get to know your routines and essentially be an extension of you to some extent and really understand you and be able to support you in the best way possible.
Using data from user interactions, purchase history, and browsing behavior, AI-driven assistants will make much more precise recommendations than traditional methods because AI can consider a wider array of factors and update its recommendations in real-time based on ongoing interactions.
AI Unlocks Predictive Capabilities to Better Meet Users Needs
Artificial intelligence helps to craft highly personalized customer experiences by analyzing vast amounts of data to predict user preferences and behaviors. This enables brands to tailor their communications, recommendations, and offers at the individual level, significantly enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Our marketing tactics are going to become more and more personalized. So much so that we’re going to be able to predict users’ needs at a much higher rate of success. There will be a much better connection with customers when you are truly aligned with their needs.
Predictive analytics powered by AI is revolutionizing how businesses anticipate customer needs and market shifts. By leveraging data from various touchpoints, companies can forecast future buying behaviors and trends, allowing them to always be a step ahead. This proactive approach not only boosts efficiency but also provides a competitive edge in rapidly changing markets.
Businesses and Marketers Need to Be Proactive in Adoption of AI Technology
In addition to the prediction side of things, there’s a proactive side. This will be the biggest fundamental shift we’ll see in marketing from a macro trend standpoint in our lifetime. Digital assistants, powered by AI, will play a crucial role by initiating communication based on customer behavior and historical data, thus enhancing the customer experience and building trust.
When we’re talking about an executive assistant, would you want to always have to tell them what to do, or would you want them to be proactive? It would be pretty useless if they only did what you told them to do when you told them to do it.
You want them to know you… be proactive. You might even want them to be able to go out and do things on your behalf, because you’ve given them the agency to do so. You want them to be able to do those things within a certain context, so you have to set limits and parameters.
But when it comes to marketing or tracking us and things like that, being proactive is very scary for a lot of people. Which brings us to the final “P”…
Balancing AI Innovation with Privacy
With great power comes great responsibility. As AI enhances capabilities in personalization and prediction, it also raises significant privacy concerns.
While I didn’t touch on this in my book, I knew there was going to be a lot of push back because as we get more personalized, predictive, and proactive in marketing, there’s going to be the consumer push back regarding privacy.
It’s essential for businesses to be transparent about data usage and to build robust systems that protect customer information. Balancing personalization with privacy is critical and will define the trust customers place in a brand.
Enhancing Customer Experience with AI Technology
Digital assistants, powered by artificial intelligence, are at the forefront of transforming customer interaction into a more dynamic and responsive experience. These intelligent systems are capable of understanding natural language and learning from interactions to improve their responses.
For instance, chatbots on retail sites can provide real-time, 24/7 customer service, answer FAQs, and even handle complex queries with ease, which enhances the overall customer experience and frees up human resources for more strategic tasks.
Using AI Assistants to Gain a Competitive Edge
Forbes Advisor surveyed business owners to find out how they currently use or plan to use AI within their business. Customer service led the way at 56%. Personal assistants were also near the top at 47%.
Businesses can leverage AI-powered digital assistants in a number of impactful ways. For example, a fashion retailer can use an AI assistant to offer style advice based on customer preferences and past purchases, effectively acting as a personal stylist. This not only increases customer engagement but also drives sales.
Another example could be a utility company employing digital assistants to predict when a customer might need a service call, even before the customer realizes it themselves, thereby improving service reliability and customer satisfaction.
One of my biggest frustrations from a customer service perspective has been phone trees. I know this is a pretty common complaint. You call a company, a voice comes on to help you, but they don’t quite understand. So you say “representative” into the phone, then nothing. You yell “representative!” and nothing again.
Thankfully, the technology is improving. For instance, I actually had an experience recently that blew my mind, and it was one of the first times I’ve seen AI and customer service succeed on a high level.
My wife and I bought a Sleep Number bed a few years back, and they were doing a 0% interest promotion. So we signed up for it and set up an automatic payment.
We paid it off early and I was looking at my credit report, and I saw it was still on there. It was about a year since we paid it off, so I called the number.
Within about two minutes they confirmed all my information, did some validation with text, all through AI. Pulled up my account, showed I had a zero balance, they asked what I wanted to do. I told them I wanted to close the account. They asked a couple more questions. They closed the account, all through AI, all automated.
So I think when AI gets it wrong, it’s pretty bad. But when they get it right, it’s a seamless experience. And that’s more of what I expect to see in the future.
“AI is not going to replace humans, but humans with AI are going to replace humans without AI.” – Karim R. Lakhani Harvard Business School.
So naturally, there will be a massive acceleration in the next few years. The assistants we’ll have at that time will be more like the executive assistants that I was talking about earlier. They’ll be connected with a lot of different tools, platforms, and channels.
Digital assistants will be able to interact with those different channels. It’ll be your bot talking to my bot. Your digital assistant talking to my business website content or digital assistant, and determining if there’s a good fit there for you, to explore more information and what to surface to the executive.
How can you take advantage of these advances in artificial intelligence and position yourself for success in the future? Whether you’re optimizing for visibility in digital assistants or you want to create an AI assistants that represents your brand it requires a thoughtful strategy that aligns with business goals and customer expectations. It’s important for businesses to continuously test and learn from their AI applications, to make sure they remain relevant and effective in meeting their customers’ needs.
Check out the complete webinar below or reach out to us for more information on how we can help you position yourself and your brand for success.
Future Proof Your Business and Skills
As AI technology continues to evolve, its impact on customer experience and digital marketing will only grow stronger. Businesses that leverage AI concierges to personalize interactions, predict customer needs, and proactively engage users will gain a significant competitive edge. Embrace the future of marketing with AI-driven strategies and stay ahead of the curve.
Ready to transform your digital marketing with AI? Contact Webfor today to learn how our expert team can help you harness the power of AI concierges and enhance your customer experience.
