Innovation hinges on advanced technology. Artificial intelligence, machine learning, and blockchain have become ubiquitous terms. But what effect will these new technologies have on your small business? They will, no doubt, impact your business. If you invest the time to understand and incorporate these changes, you will benefit. If you don’t, you’ll be left in the dust. This has always been true for adapting to innovation.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning are tools that will profoundly impact customer experience and substantially improve every customer interaction. According to the global survey of experts in machine learning compiled by the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford, it will be 120 years before all human jobs are automated and 45 years before AI systems take over half of the jobs currently filled by humans. Sounds scary? We—and our offspring—still have time to make sense of it and adapt.
One key feature every future-oriented small business should integrate now is an intelligent customer helpdesk. The efficacy of the helpdesk can impact customer experience tremendously. No matter the area of your business, you have to attract customers, maintain them, and grow your customer base. To be able to do so, you have to analyze customer interactions to understand customers’ needs and desires in the past, the present, and the future. A customer-focused smart helpdesk will always be a competitive advantage.
Let's look at the example of a small business owner who runs an e-commerce business. Small businesses face many challenges, and finding new customers is just one of them.
Customers may need assistance at multiple steps during their experience with a business, including:
Customer problems could revolve around understanding how to access sections, apply filters, etc. When a website visitor contacts customer service, an AI-based helpdesk program can predict such issues and assist the agent in guiding the customer through the process. AI-based help desks and predictive analysis through AI are advancing almost all industry realms today. For instance, search industry giants like Google constantly improve results based on artificial intelligence.
Many delivery issues are predictable and can be solved through FAQs or bots that have been fed standard customer questions regarding the delivery of their order. This frees up agents to handle only exceptions that require their interference. The system also provides the agent with the history of the problem and possible solutions.
Cogito, a company specializing in machine learning and behavioral science, helps support executives in improving their emotional intelligence. This helps them solve critical problems such as delivery and payment problems.
Payment glitches can seriously irritate customers, and they want to speak to an agent immediately. AI-based helpdesk software assists agents in understanding the kinds of problems customers have faced in the past, including adequate solutions. It also alerts the department in charge, just in case an expert needs to get involved. Helping the customer becomes more efficient, quicker, and meaningful for everyone involved.
Technical errors can seriously alter customer experience on an e-commerce website. An AI-based help desk diagnoses any technical problems and alerts you so you can fix the issue immediately. Resolving technical glitches timely helps improve the customer experience on the website, and AI makes it easy for many enterprises. Great brands like Amazon significantly use artificial intelligence to improve the site's customer experience and predict buying behavior.
A scenario in which a customer is seeking a refund because a transaction did not go through successfully, but the amount got debited from his account. The system would analyze past cases of such instances and the agent's behavior and suggest a solution to the agent that he could recommend to the customer. Here, the agent takes the support of the system to resolve the customer request because he may know how to handle the request, but with suggestions from the past, he can deliver better. The AI-based system learns from your customers and employees and boosts productivity.
The technology is based on two sets of intelligence — the agents’ and that of the machine. Human-machine collaboration has success stories and is the future of the workplace, too. The software crunches data in order to recommend a solution to the customer. This way, technology becomes a resolution to the customer's problem and the agent’s trusted advisor.
Small businesses are typically short on time. Therefore, to meet customers’ demands, they need to operate efficiently, accurately, and smartly. Traditional helpdesk solutions use conventional programs, which don’t allow the agent to look at the customer problem holistically.
That’s where artificial intelligence and machine learning can help. AI-based helpdesk software and other AI-based technologies make handling customer problems holistic and faster and take customer experience beyond expectations. Many small businesses are implementing intelligent technology to realize innovation and move forward into the future.
Systems based on machine learning—the understanding machines derive from data and knowledge they’re fed by human intelligence—help make each interaction better for the customer: The system can predict what the customer wants and analyze existing agent behavior to suggest the best solution to the given customer problem. What’s more, the self-service feature can help the customer resolve many simple issues themselves.
New technology offers many more ways for small businesses to innovate their business processes. The technology market offers a myriad of tools for innovation. Small businesses need to understand their functionality to choose the right solutions and apply them to their individual business scenarios and industries.
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