How AI and Chatbots Are Transforming Customer Experience

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning are playing a vital role in transforming customer experience. In May 2018, when Google demonstrated Google Duplex, the AI based virtual assistant that closely mirrors actual human interactions on the phone, it’s lifelike quality and ability to independently complete tasks gave everyone a glimpse of the future of virtual interactions in the real world.

Chatbots are about to become ubiquitous

AI is revolutionizing the way we work in all kinds of industries, from product development in manufacturing to online shopping in retail. Recently, there has been widespread adoption of AI/Machine Learning in smart devices, apps, self-service kiosks, and chatbots.

Chatbots fueled by AI are becoming a critical omnichannel customer service method, as well as a way to understand more about customers, and to enhance personalization. More and more enterprises are choosing chatbots powered by AI/Machine Learning for customer service, increasing conversion rate, reduce customer churn and improve customer satisfaction.

WinWire Technologies, a Microsoft Managed Partner and a member of Microsoft’s AI Inner Circle Partner Program have been working with several large enterprises across industries to implement AI and cognitive technologies to automate voice and chat interactions behind the scenes. These systems speed up internal business communication, while significantly improving employee and customer experience.

The most recent work is for one of the largest electric car manufacturers in California, where we are helping the company with a chatbot to reshape the finance function and help increase the revenue. WinWire developed a bot user interface and intelligent bot service to handle queries related to payments & purchase orders (PO). The bot uses email and Skype to respond to over 10,000+ supplier queries. The bot hands-off the conversation to a human agent and ensure that the end user experiences a smooth transition.

Bots are “the new app” says Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, all set to become omnipresent in our lives.

• In 2017, Chatbots cut business costs by $20 million
• Gartner predicts that by 2020, customers will manage 85% of their relationship with the enterprise without interacting with a human
• By 2022, Chatbots are expected to grow to an $8 billion market

How Chatbots enhance customer experience across industries

• Retail: Create personalized shopping experience, provide consistent customer service (either online or in-store), lower costs (cut down the shopping time).
• E-Commerce: Product discover, reviews, payments, in-chat purchases, and personalised recommendations.
• Banking and Finance: Fraud detection, customer KYC, resolving queries, financial advice, 24x7 digital support, cross-sell financial products, credit applications, money transfer.
• Manufacturing: Better engagement with vendors, automate mundane manufacturing tasks.
• Travel: Vacation Planning, reservations, queries and complaints.
• Legal: Matter Management, automate filings and notifications, 24x7 support, automating legal advice.
• Media and Content Delivery: Rich content delivery, personalised stream, real-time stream, on-demand content, news delivery, run survey.

Below report from “Drift’s 2018 state of chatbot” gives you additional insights into chatbot applications/use cases.

Business Benefits of Chatbots

Growth of chatbots is rapidly accelerating across businesses, given its range of benefits across functions:

• Improved customer/employee experience
• Increase business productivity
• Provide personalized service
• Service integration opportunity
• Customer care improvement
• Resource saving due to little human involvement

Overall, we have seen chatbots creating a massive impact among our customers by automating repetitive tasks, streamline processes, reduce handling time, deploy intelligent search function and more. It’s time for enterprises to identify potential opportunity of such modern technologies to turn ideas into solutions and stay ahead of the competition.

Read a blog from WinWire to learn “How to Build Chatbot Using Azure Bot Service.”