Linking AI And Customer Experience For Brand Loyalty

Artificial intelligence is experiencing incredible levels of popularity across a range of industries. According to the CompTIA IT Industry Outlook 2024, approximately 55% of businesses have now implemented AI to some extent in their operations. Due to the flurry of developments and improvements the technology has seen in the years following the COVID-19 pandemic, AI’s value in the business world has increased significantly. 

One of the key combinations we can see today is the seamless fusion of AI and customer experience. Using AI-powered tools, businesses can now make their customer journeys seamless, vastly improving the customer experience. A better customer experience inspires return visits to your business and positive word-of-mouth — which are the foundations of brand loyalty.

In this article, we’ll more clearly explain the link between brand loyalty, AI and customer experience. We’ll explain the specific ways AI can be implemented into your customer experiences and how this benefits you — read on to learn more.   

Using AI to Personalise the Customer Experience

Personalising the customer experience often takes a significant amount of time: your team needs to gather and analyse a huge amount of customer data, and then develop a scheme for personalisation. Even after this time investment, the personalisation may not be entirely accurate, as your team’s assessment of each individual customer’s behaviour may not be accurate. 

By leveraging AI, businesses can harvest and analyse data much faster — data on purchasing history, browsing habits, and demographic information can be accessed almost instantaneously. Using this data, AI tools can then begin adjusting your app or website. For instance, products more likely to appeal to the customer can be displayed more often, making it easier and faster to make purchase decisions. 

So, what’s the real business impact of this type of AI use? A case study by Harvard Business Review looked at how security tech firm Brinks Home (in conjunction with AI startup OtterFit), used AI to complete A/B marketing tests at an astonishing rate (roughly 50,000 per day). As a result, Brinks was able to identify the best way to personalise each customer touchpoint much faster, increasing overall revenue by 9.5% from 2020 to 2021.

Using AI to Anticipate Customer Needs

Being able to predict your customer’s needs is an essential part of doing business efficiently. It allows you to plan better, and get ahead of your competition. Using AI-powered algorithms, you can accurately predict consumer behaviour ahead of time, helping you understand their wants and needs in the future. 

Businesses that sell single-use or disposable products — particularly those using a subscription model — can benefit immensely by implementing AI in this way. The customer experience for those businesses hinges on the fast and convenient provision of goods: when they run out, they want more as soon as possible. Using predictive AI to analyse a particular customer’s behaviour, a subscription system can understand how often that customer typically needs a new order of the product, and suggest the correct delivery timescale to them.

Since it shows that the business is conscious of the customer’s needs, and values their business, this strategy is perfect for building brand loyalty. Additionally, it makes the purchasing process much more convenient, which is a huge factor when it comes to online shopping: a staggering 97% of shoppers say it’s something they consider when deciding where to make a purchase. By using AI to make your business an easy, convenient place to shop, you can significantly improve brand loyalty and encourage frequent repeat purchases. 

Using AI as a Virtual Assistant

Providing excellent customer service is essential if you want to create an optimal experience for customers. After all, customer service most often gets involved when things go wrong, which means it’s a very delicate part of the customer journey. Good customer service in a crisis can be the difference between gaining or losing loyal customers.

While AI currently lacks the grasp of social nuance and decision-making skills a human customer service agent can bring to the table, it can offer a very efficient solution to the most simple problems. Implementing AI into automated customer service tools like chatbots allows those bots to quickly understand customer issues and offer the solution that best fits the situation. These responses are very quick, something that consumers enjoy: 68% of chatbot users appreciate how quickly chatbots respond. 

Additionally, AI can be programmed with similar Natural Language Processing functionality to popular digital assistants like Siri or Alexa. By offering a voice chat option in your AI chatbots, you open a new (and more importantly) highly accessible customer service channel for your audience. Accessibility is key to generating brand loyalty, as it shows that you care about your customers’ needs and want to make it easy for them to be heard.

While a chatbot may not be able to fully replace your human customer service team, it can certainly present an excellent self-service option. The right combination of tools can help you build an AI-powered chatbot that allows voice communication and can suggest relevant solutions, products, or blog articles in response to customer queries.

Integrating Digital Tools Into Your Customer Experience With Digital Platforms

At Future Platforms, we understand how automation and digital products can form a crucial part of the customer experience. We’re experts in helping brands create engaging digital assets, such as mobile apps and websites. These tools can be the key to forming new relationships with customers or reinforcing existing brand loyalty. 

For example, we’ve built an incredible digital experience for Domino’s Pizza customers throughout the UK. Our mobile app is fast, easy to use, and integrates with other platforms such as the Apple Watch and Xbox One, to create a seamless multi-channel experience. As a result, our app is the source of 46% of all Domino’s orders.

So, if you’re looking for effective, innovative digital products that set you apart from the competition, get in touch today.