Latin America. Globally, most people are familiar with artificial intelligence thanks to the new devices and technological developments that have been introduced in recent years. Over time, this technology has evolved.
In 2016 alone, a total of $300 million was invested globally in new artificial intelligence (AI) companies, according to a Bloomberg study[1]. Artificial intelligence has been providing business benefits for companies around the world with the goal of making them have happier customers.
In fact, AI is becoming so big that, according to Gartner[2], 85% of total customer interactions will not be managed by humans as of 2020. Forrester even makes a prediction that AI will absorb 16% of the jobs done by people by the end of the decade.
But how does this relate to cloud communications?
Today, companies are beginning to move their communications to the cloud to streamline their operations and optimize business communications to achieve maximum impact on their revenue. Combining AI with cloud communications becomes the perfect strategy to achieve greater efficiency, automation, innovation and a better customer experience.
One of the advantages of this technological fusion is the ability to store tons of information in memory banks that can be used at any time. This type of feature is extremely useful for many companies in improving the customer experience, as it gives them exactly what they require, which improves their overall satisfaction.
Many companies have made large investments in AI and have obtained interesting results. Siri, for example, happens to be one of the most famous AI applications that helps in customer satisfaction for iPhone users. Another clear example is Watson, created by IBM, a much smarter application, known for being able to understand and respond to customers through cognition and not just the memory banks of a database. Simply put, Watson is a problem-solving robot that has been around since 2004.
Increase customer loyalty through personalized experiences
We can basically define how companies are deploying cloud communications and artificial intelligence to improve their customers' experiences in four simple applications:
Chatbots: Focused specifically on customer service, chatbots operate today on the websites of many businesses and are particularly useful for answering frequently asked customer questions.
Data collection: Artificial intelligence used specifically for the creation of databases, technical manuals, information maps, recognition of buying, selling, use and behavior patterns; available for use at any time.
Process automation: Features such as search, intelligent product recommendation, voice recognition and interaction, visual video analysis, 3D modeling of articles, image matching to search for similar elements; they offer a purchase search and attention tailored by and for users.
Unstructured information relationship: Customer service centers, for example, may collect data about customer and employee personalities with the ultimate goal of matching customers with employees who fit their own personalities; this will result in better and specialized care for users whose experience will be best based on previous interactions with the company, its products and services.
In conclusion, one of the most wonderful things about combining AI with cloud communications is knowing how they can make the customer experience more personalized through data collection and the execution of "human" actions. Artificial intelligence first collects data from its customers and stores it in its memory banks. It then uses the information to interact with them. The more data you store, the smarter you can interact. In a way, it's almost like communicating with a person. This kind of intelligence learns, remembers, and then executes. The application options can be endless, just ask yourself how prepared is your company to adopt this type of technology?
Text written by Héctor Sánchez, Vice President of Sales for BroadSoft in Latin America.
