How AI can improve the customer experience

How AI can improve the customer experience

In today’s rapidly evolving digital era, the customer journey has become the focal point for businesses seeking a competitive edge. The key to unlocking its full potential? Personalization. 

Brands need a cohesive customer engagement strategy that is consistent across channels and powered by real-time customer data. By personalizing customer experiences and communications across every possible touchpoint, brands can design customer engagement programs that offer contextually relevant content and offers. 

But there’s always room for improvement when it comes to personalization efforts from companies. Twilio’s 2023 State of Customer Engagement Report found that although 46% of brands believe they’re doing an excellent job of providing personalization, just 15% of consumers agree. That’s why nowadays, these efforts are increasingly being powered by artificial intelligence (AI).

For years, building great AI models was out of reach for all but the most resource-rich and technologically advanced organizations. It not only required an inordinate amount of time, but seemingly endless investment. Today, there’s been an unprecedented leap in efficiency and access to AI, and for the first time ever, powerful, self-building models are available to just about everyone. 

By harnessing the power of the AI customer experience, businesses can now comprehensively understand their customers, predict their preferences, and offer tailored solutions to meet their unique demands.

Quickly offer personalized customer experiences at scale

Today’s high-touch digital world means customers have a low tolerance for poor experiences. If they ask a simple question and are left hanging or have a poor check-out, it’s enough to abandon a brand completely. In fact, Twilio’s 2023 State of Customer Engagement Report unveiled that 66% of consumers say they will quit a brand if their experience isn’t personalized. An AI customer experience opens up opportunities to avoid this kind of experience altogether. 

Instead of constant haggling, promotions, and stiff interactions, brands can now leverage the power of AI to build tailored customer experiences, at their pace, along their journey to what we like to call digital greatness. A “digital great” taps into the power of technology to prioritize customer relationships and stay one step ahead of each interaction to deliver experiences that build trust and brand loyalty. Smart choices driven by the right intelligence and technology—like AI in customer experience—can quickly position an organization to stay a step ahead of the competition.

To help companies unlock this potential, Twilio’s CustomerAI technology pairs large language models (LLMs) with customer and communications data from our Customer Engagement Platform to infuse customization into every possible touchpoint across marketing, sales, and service. Organizations can capture, analyze and act on known, live customer signals across every channel, for authentic, personal understanding. 

By analyzing vast amounts of data, AI-powered technology can uncover valuable insights into market trends, consumer behavior, and emerging opportunities. This wealth of information empowers businesses to make data-driven decisions, refine their marketing strategies, and innovate in ways that were previously inconceivable. 

Plus, real-time personalization through something like an AI customer experience strategy improves customer lifetime value. 86% of consumers say that personalized experiences increase their loyalty to specific brands, according to Twilio’s 2023 State of Customer Engagement Report.

Quickly offer personalized customer experiences at scale

Provide faster customer resolutions

Customers engage with your business in real time. Let’s say they’re talking with your call center about a frustrating issue. If the marketing team doesn’t have an up-to-date profile of this customer and isn’t aware of this incident quickly, they might send communications at the wrong time that could lead to the customer walking away from your business altogether.

With CustomerAI, Twilio’s high-quality interaction data, and Twilio Segment profiles, businesses have the tools and intel to organize and pair customer insights with generative and predictive artificial intelligence capabilities, helping them better understand and provide deeper value to their customers across all channels. You can use AI to route incoming calls or messages to the right agents by assigning incoming customer tickets to agents based on the type of issue and an agent’s expertise. 

CustomerAI detects keywords in a customer’s message or call to determine the skills necessary to resolve a problem, and automatically notify the appropriate agent. By using AI in customer experience your customers will enjoy:

• Faster first-response times

• Decreased handle times

• Shorter wait times.

Real-time data and robust customer profiles become the pillars of your customer service strategy, with CustomerAI and Segment Unify. Imagine a scenario where the moment a customer interacts with your brand, all of their engagement data is instantly updated, creating a rich, live narrative of their journey. This allows your customer service representatives to understand the customer's history, preferences, and previous interactions in real-time.

Utilizing AI in customer experience, these enriched customer profiles even make it possible to anticipate a customer's needs, paving the way for more effective and personalized customer service. Instead of mere predictions, your team is equipped with factual, up-to-the-minute data to aid their interactions.

Transform your customer experience with the power of AI

Since your customer experience doesn’t start or stop with the contact center, you can also use AI customer experience to level up departments across your organization. For example, working in parallel with Twilio Segment customer profiles, generative and predictive AI will not only create highly creative and insightful experiences, but streamline the execution of marketing campaigns that engage customers on a level that generates genuine interest and delight.

With Twilio CustomerAI and a 360-view of audiences, brands can use AI in customer experience to transform their user relationships and gain a competitive edge. Businesses who aren’t tapping into this valuable resource are missing out on a crucial marketing lever that will keep them at the forefront of the customer experience revolution.