How AI is Helping Companies Drive More Sales.
How building data driven customer journeys powered by AI’s propensity modelling are helping brands and enterprises sell more.
Customer Journey Mapping (visually tracking customer interactions) is nothing new, and as Lisa Ross from Invesp highlights, can deliver a number of key benefits for creating a better CX. However, the rise of communication channels have turned linear journeys into, as Forbes Contributor and Digital Transformation Consultant, Daniel Newman describes them, elaborate pinball games. Indeed, this new found complexity may seem perplexing, but thanks to the rise of AI, creating effective Customer Journey Maps is about to get easier.
One way that AI is helping businesses to optimize their Customer Journey Maps and drive more sales is by helping them to deliver better customer service. Information is key to knowing customers’ preferences, yet obtaining that information can pose a challenge to frontline staff. In order to overcome this challenge, many companies are turning to AI-driven Chat-Bots that can answer customer’s questions and determine their specific wants and needs of a product or service.
AI is also helping businesses to track touchpoints (interactions) with customers to make them as seamless as possible. According to Scott Kolam, Senior Vice-President of Marketing at Five9, a cloud-based call center solution provider, AI is already being used to create more interaction channels which allow customers to engage with brands more frequently. This is beneficial for two reasons — firstly, it allows for a seamless switch between the customers preferred channels, and secondly, allows brands to deliver services in a more predictive way.
AI propensity modelling.
AI propensity modelling is used by marketers as a ‘predictive tool’, and can be simplified as describing the process of using AI to predict the probability of a user completing an action. This is a powerful tool for marketers as it allows them to train future predictive models based on a customer’s historical data.
The use of AI propensity modelling has already been embraced by a number of CX experts, including Riaz Raihan, President of Alida, a market-leader in CXM platforms. In a recent article for Forbes, Raihan lays out how businesses can use AI predictive models to identify steps in the customer journey which contribute to churn and therefore increase customer retention. Indeed, those of us who work in sales know that keeping the customer we already have is just as important as getting new ones.
Companies are also using AI propensity modelling to help predict the probability of lead conversion. Perhaps the most notable of these is Microsoft, who use an AI assistant called BEAM (Bot Enabled Augmented Marketing) that emails customers and gauges their level of interest through Natural Language Processing (NLP). The use of this technology has increased selling time by 20–25% and more importantly, increased closing rates.
Although not yet a magic bullet to be used on exclusively on it’s own, AI propensity modelling is already helping companies to drive both customer retention and new sales, and will be unquestionably vital to any business’s sales model in the not-so-distant future.
Changing the Face of Business Models Forever.
Many still remain cynical about the benefits of AI, whilst many senior executives neglect it in their business models. However, the forces of change which shape industries move quickly, and are often unforgiving to those who choose to get left behind.
Barry D. Libert, a Board Advisor and Tech CEO, recently outlined in a piece; How to Win at the Platform Game, in the MIT Sloan Management Review, his vision for how SaaS companies can use AI and Data to drive exponential growth. His formula is simple — combine;
- Predictable subscription revenue models,
- Marketplace offerings and,
- AI driven machine learning models to generate network effects.
Libert is right in many ways, not just because it’s a deep insight into what to expect in the future, but because many companies are already using AI and Data to successfully drive their business models today. As he writes in his article;
“the biggest and most valuable companies in the world today have mastered this new multisided growth model, with the goal of giving customers valuable connections to a plethora of suppliers and feeding them more of what they want, thanks to machine learning and data-driven recommendations.”
One key way that many are embracing Libert’s model to drive sales is through the use of data-driven customer journeys and AI’s propensity modelling. By making use of AI in these areas, companies are improving Customer Experience (CX), effectively tracking consumer touchpoints and driving customer loyalty to increase revenue for their brands.
To keep up with the change, we need to remain agile and turn our noses up at the benefits any change may bring. By allowing AI to help us improve CX, increase retention and drive our sales, we will all be able to thrive in today’s new business environment.
