Very few people would have imagined a scenario in which practically half of the world is on lockdown (in some cases for weeks or months) and where the majority of people will be restricted in their ability to work. Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, however, that is what we’re currently dealing with.
For businesses, particularly when it comes to communication and customer support, a key lesson that can be taken from the COVID-19 pandemic is the increasingly important role artificial intelligence (AI) could play when it comes to business communication.
Of course, this is not to say that AI is perfect (Facebook was forced to delegate a significant portion of its activities to AI due to its staff having limited access to its platform and having to work from home because of COVID-19 -- and there have been quite some issues) but the data and results are increasingly pointing to artificial intelligence playing crucial roles in business communications.
Here are five use cases that show how AI is changing business communication:
1. Intelligent automated response: A trend we’re increasingly seeing and that we can expect to see more of when it comes to business communication is that of intelligent automated response. In other words, email responses powered by artificial intelligence.
While we’re already seeing a mix of both complete and partial AI-powered email responses, we can expect to see this trend grow in the near future -- and it’s highly likely to be responsible for most email communications.
In what seems to be the most high-profile example of intelligent automated response, Google’s Smart Reply uses machine learning to suggest replies to email messages you get; while this feature is still semi-automated, it has gone on to enjoy wide appeal and was quickly responsible for about 12 percent of mobile replies in Inbox at the time of its release a few years ago -- it’s likely to be responsible for a lot more replies now.
We’re likely to see more platforms designed to enable intelligent automated response in the near future, and they’re going to be responsible for a lot more email responses than humans are actually responsible for.
2. Chatbots for customer support and interaction: Customer support is one of the major factors people pay attention to when deciding on which product or service to use. Yet, customer support is not without its own limitations; during peak traffic and sales periods, or during a pandemic like the COVID-19 pandemic we’re currently dealing with, it can be difficult to ensure optimal response times for customers who’d like to get across to customer support.
For the majority of these customers, a good idea would be to connect them to chatbots and only allow cases that a chatbot is unable to handle to get to human reps.
The major question, however, is this: how reliable are chatbots in dealing with user queries, and how comfortable will users feel about interacting with chatbots rather than humans? If data by G2 Crowd is anything to go by, a whopping 63 percent of people prefer to message a chat bot than talk with a human when communicating with a business.
In other words, many people would rather communicate with chatbots than talk to an actual human for support; and the rise of chatbot platforms (many of which are free) will also contribute greatly to adoption of this AI technology, ensuring more widespread use in the near future.
3. AI-powered call centers: Of course, while we’re not yet quite at the stage where humans are having full interaction with robots when it comes to getting support, we’re very close to being there.
As it is, artificial intelligence is already being widely used to power call centers in a way that is significantly impacting business outcomes; for example, advances in AI enables automatic assessment of calls being made to a business line and offers suggestions on how best to respond even as an agent is responding to the customer.
This assessment takes into consideration factors such as customers raising their voice while on call due to frustration, long pauses indicative of rising anger, and other subtle non-verbal cues that indicate a particular mood.
More importantly, AI can be trained in multilingual and cultural contexts that allows for this assessment regardless of the culture involved or the country in which the call is being made.
Live suggestions are then offered to the agent addressing the customer with suggestions on how best to respond in order to avoid further escalation with the customer.
4. High-level data analysis of customer communication: One of the major advantages of artificial intelligence is its ability to analyze huge volumes of data and then extract key information that businesses can use to further enhance customer communication.
Artificial intelligence is now being used to process large amounts of communication data, such as recordings of call data for analysis; customer call data could be recorded, stored, and analyzed to extract key data, trends, and facts that can be addressed to lower customer complaints and improve customer satisfaction.
5. Hyper-personalization for customer recommendations: We’re in a world where changes occur so rapidly that a piece of data could become obsolete before you have enough time to study it. Not with artificial intelligence, however.
Hyper-personalization relies on machine learning to deliver more relevant information and recommendations to users; this is done by analyzing real-time data on each user and then making relevant decisions based on this information and immediately.
This is difficult to pull off without artificial intelligence, especially for very large businesses -- and it’s the secret to the success of several AI-reliant brands such as Netflix.
The Role of AI in Business Communication is Much More Bigger
Of course, the above list isn’t an exhaustive list of the use cases of artificial intelligence and machine learning when it comes to business communication, but it hopefully gives a basic idea of what is possible and what the future holds.
For a business that effectively employs just one or more of the above AI uses, there is certain to be an increase in ROI and customer satisfaction.
However, it is important for businesses to start paying more attention to employing these use cases of AI in their communications -- because if we start seeing more of worldwide events like the COVID-19 pandemic, we just might not have much of a choice.