As a modern business, you have new tools and platforms available that allow you to transform how you manage your customer service and experience. The biggest challenges are often narrowing it down and finding the best software and tools for your particular business and also your employees.

For example, you can choose a service intelligence platform that’s powered by AI and will learn the service language of your business to build a decision-making framework.

It is amazing what you can do if you know how to do it and the following are some things to keep in mind when it comes to using technology and AI to improve your customer service and experience.

Differentiate Between Customer Service and Experience

If you haven’t already done so, before you can start selecting particular tools and software that will help your business, you need to be clear on the distinction between customer service and customer experience.

The key thing that separates the two concepts is that customer service is actually part of customer experience.

Customer experience is a much broader concept that’s about every step of the customer journey.

Customer service involves product or service knowledge on the part of your employees as well as good people skills. Customer experience is also referred to as CX, and in addition to customer service, it includes technology and your brand design.

So, what this means is that you could choose a customer service tool that would improve your customer experience as well, or there could be other tools outside of customer service that fall into the confines of the customer experience.

AI Customer Service

When it comes to artificial intelligence and customer service, as part of the customer experience, one of the biggest areas of focus right now for even very small businesses is the implementation of AI-based chatbots.

These are, as was touched on above, intelligent self-service tools that replace the need to answer manual questions.

Self-service tools can readily adapt to the constantly shifting needs of your business, and meet needs that your employees can’t fulfill.

What’s interesting about AI as far as customer service and the customer experience is that these tools don’t just provide outward-facing service—they’re also a critical way to gain the data and insights you need to make informed, empowered and numbers-driven business decisions.

Often businesses think they can’t implement AI in this context because it’s too expensive or complicated, and neither is true at this point.

Machine Learning and the Whole Customer Experience

Machine learning is a specific way that data can be analyzed for the automation of analytic models. Basically, with machine learning, it’s possible to identify important trends and facts, and this can power intelligent customer service chatbots, but it can do more than that for the customer experience in its entirety.

Machine learning can improve product searches and improve on-site merchandising. It can help with fraud detection and automated pricing to reflect changes in the market.

With AI in all its different forms, it ensures that customers don’t have to wait to speak to a representative. Way back in 2011, Gartner predicted by 2020 85% of customer relationships would be managed without human interaction, and by the end of the year, that number may be higher.

Personalization

It’s not just immediate service that reflects the benefits of AI and technology for the customer experience.

There’s a lot to be said for the delivery of personalization as well.

With AI, businesses can offer personalized product and service recommendations to customers who might have no idea those are just what they needed.

The creation of personalized content can stem from AI too. Customers want to feel like the businesses they work with are exclusively marketing and speaking to them along every step of their journey.

Privacy Concerns

One of the possible issues businesses will have to balance against the benefits of AI for customer experience is privacy concerns. Even small businesses will face big challenges and questions when it comes to how they collect and use data for machine learning and their AI initiatives.

Yes, there are outstanding opportunities for better experiences, but consumers are also at a point where they want full transparency and disclosure as to how their data is being collected and stored.

Before you implement any AI-based initiatives, make sure that you’re clear on privacy and security and that this is something your employees are well-trained on.