Part I: The Challenges of Customer Service in 2023: Higher Expectations, Fewer Opportunities to Stand Out
This blog post will be the first in a series of seven blog posts discussing the impact of AI (artificial intelligence) on customer service. There’s quite a bit of ground to cover with this topic, but my overarching goal is to bring AI down to earth and demonstrate to business owners how AI applications can add value to customer-facing enterprises by improving efficiency, automating routine tasks, and personalizing the customer experience.
When I sat down to write this, I wanted to write something that would appeal to online business owners of all stripes. If you’ve read this far, you’re probably a business owner with a certain amount of technical expertise, and you’re looking for a resource that will give you some much-needed clarity on what all these new AI-powered applications can do for your day-to-day operations.
Maybe you’re an online business owner trying to decide if it would be worth it to deploy an AI-powered chatbot on your landing page. Maybe you’ve been reading about AI on LinkedIn and need some clarity about what this new AI jargon means. Wherever you are in the process of integrating AI into your business operations, there’s something in this blog series that will help you move forward and bring AI into your organization the right way.
But before I throw AI into the mix, we need to discuss customer service independently. Specifically, what does good customer service mean in 2023? And what unique challenges are companies facing independent of the need to understand and integrate AI applications across their day-to-day operations as they work to hold on to the customers they already have and bring new customers into the fold?
Customer Expectations Have Evolved as the Digital Marketplace Has Gotten More Crowded
AI isn’t going to be completely absent from this blog post, but for now, I’m going to keep all the technical jargon in the background. It would be helpful at this early stage to deal with specific issues related to customer service in isolation because today’s digital marketplace is witnessing the convergence of three separate trends that business owners need to be aware of before they can understand what AI applications mean for their bottom line.
In this blog post, I’m going to talk about how customer attitudes have changed post-COVID. I’m going to discuss how this shift in customer attitudes is playing out against the backdrop of a saturated marketplace where companies are finding it increasingly difficult to differentiate their products and services from their competitors, and I’m going to discuss how a positive social media imprint is crucial for companies striving to provide exceptional customer service.
Today’s Customers Expect Personalized Content and Will Ditch Brands Who Fail to Deliver It
Let’s start with the fact that today’s customers are demanding. They want tailored and seamless experiences across multiple digital channels. For companies serious about achieving long-term success in today’s uncertain economic climate, providing excellent customer service plays a make-or-break role in fostering customer loyalty, eliminating churn, and maintaining a competitive edge in customer-facing industries.
There’s already a wealth of recent data that bears this out. A 2022 report by Zendesk found that post-COVID, digital consumers are less forgiving and more pessimistic regarding customer service. 60% of customers expressed a willingness to jump ship after a single negative customer service experience, and 54% felt that companies today view good customer service as an afterthought.
A similar report from the business intelligence firm Statista found that 60% of consumers surveyed indicated that brands that failed to deliver personalized content would lose their business. Conversely, a slightly older report released by Epsilon Research in 2018 found that 80% of online consumers were more likely to purchase from brands that offered personalized experiences to their customers.
Meaningful Product Differentiation Continues to be a Struggle for Many Digital Enterprises
Another challenge for customer-centered businesses today is that many of the goods and services available online are clones of one and other. In such a saturated marketplace, there aren’t as many opportunities for companies to differentiate their products and services as there used to be. Product differentiation is an expensive, research-intensive process, especially if additional investments in marketing or innovation are necessary.
Businesses that overcome the odds and successfully carve out a niche for themselves among numerous competitors often find that while differentiating their products from day one is difficult enough, maintaining that hard-won differentiation over the long term comes with its own challenges. Customer preferences change rapidly, and competitors can always find a way to imitate your product’s unique features.
Inevitably, competing brands in crowded industries tend to homogenize, to the point that after a short window of time, the differences between competing brands are nonexistent. The line between too much differentiation and not enough is also extremely thin, to the point that even the most respected brands find themselves losing appeal with their customers once they can no longer find a way to stand apart from their competition.
Social Media Platforms Allow Customers to Talk About Your Company in Real-Time
For enterprises trying to build sustainable long-term growth amidst a climate of persistent economic uncertainty and shifting customer attitudes, no discussion of customer service would be complete without mentioning the outsized role of social media in the online marketplace. Social media has changed customer service forever, and the days of two or three lines of text next to a starred review are long gone.
Platforms like TikTok and Facebook allow consumers to share personal accounts of positive or negative customer service instantaneously with thousands or even millions of followers. Companies with a reputation for outstanding customer service will benefit from having a positive social media imprint, while those with a mediocre reputation will face customer backlash and declining sales.
And again, there’s a wealth of data that bears this out. A Sproutsocial survey dated March of this year found that 74% of consumers rely on social media posts to decide which products and services to buy. A separate survey conducted by Sproutsocial in 2021 found that 78% of consumers are more willing to buy from a company after they’ve had a positive experience with them on social media.
Exceptional customer service coupled with a positive social media imprint builds loyalty and ensures that the customers you already have will stay with your brand over the long term, even if your company is operating in a crowded industry where there’s an overabundance of choice. Happy customers are more likely to become brand advocates who will talk your brand up to their friends while continuing to purchase your products or services.
AI Can Help Customer-Facing Businesses Stand Out in a Challenging Digital Landscape
Customer-facing businesses have a laundry list of challenges here—demanding customers, an overcrowded marketplace, and social media platforms standing by to spread accounts of positive or negative customer service to thousands of potential customers at the press of a button. Now that I’ve highlighted some potential hurdles customer-centered businesses face in 2023, let’s talk about where we go from here.
I’ve devoted the remainder of this section to brief summaries of the six remaining blog posts in this series. Whether you’re concerned with how AI applications could help your enterprise automate routine tasks or you would like a clearer illustration of the potential drawbacks of AI integration for online businesses, the information in these blog posts will help you make the right choices as your enterprise navigates an economic climate of pronounced uncertainty.
Part 2: Artificial Intelligence 101: A Comprehensive Glossary for Beginners
In the next installment of this series, I will provide a concrete explanation of what artificial intelligence is. Then I will provide clear definitions for all the different AI-related terms you’ve seen floating around online and in the media. If you’re still trying to figure out the difference between “Machine Learning” and “Deep Learning,” or you don’t understand what “Generative AI” means, this blog post is for you.
Part 3: “To Speak to a Booking Agent, Press One”: The Secret History of AI in Customer Service
In this blog post, I will demonstrate that AI didn’t just magically appear sometime around 2021. AI has been a presence in mainstream customer applications for much longer than most people realize. Business owners should treat AI applications like ChatGPT-4 less as “black swan” style disruptions and more as the gradual culmination of technological advances that have taken place largely out of public view over the last fifty years.
Part 4: Rise of the Chatbots: Automate Your Way to Customer Service Excellence with AI
For the fourth installment in this series, I will talk about how AI applications can help customer support teams by automating routine tasks like order tracking and refund requests. By deploying AI applications such as chatbots and automated ticket routing, customer support teams can provide excellent customer service while saving time and energy to focus on more urgent problems that require sustained human attention.
Part 5: Tailored Experiences: Personalizing the Customer Journey with Artificial Intelligence
In this blog post, I will demonstrate how digital enterprises can deploy AI applications to deliver personalized content. By leveraging machine learning algorithms and vast amounts of customer data, online businesses can tailor every touchpoint to their customers’ unique preferences and behaviors. AI-enhanced customer personalization is changing the nature of the customer experience and providing new opportunities for customer engagement.
Part 6: Leveraging the Power of Artificial Intelligence for Efficiency in Customer Service
This installment will explore how AI enables digital enterprises to deliver efficient and seamless customer support. By deploying machine learning algorithms and advanced NLP (natural language processing) technology, AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants can respond instantly to increasingly complex customer inquiries. AI applications can reduce customer wait times and improve the overall efficiency of day-to-day operations.
Part 7: Lost in Translation: Understanding the Drawbacks of AI in Customer Service
Finally, I will discuss the drawbacks of deploying AI for customer-facing enterprises. I’ve talked about all the ways that AI applications can foster customer engagement. Now I will talk about the pitfalls—limited empathy, potential biases, and the need for human intervention in complex scenarios. With an awareness of these issues, businesses can strike a meaningful balance between effective AI integration and the ongoing need for a human touch.
Leverage AI to Drive Customer Engagement and Position Your Business for Growth
I hope you’ve enjoyed our discussion so far. If you’re the owner of a digital enterprise struggling to deal with demanding customers and an overcrowded marketplace, come back next month for part two of this series. I’ll give you the insight you need to integrate AI into your business effectively as you work to navigate these challenges and succeed against a backdrop of profound technological disruption.
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