Artificial Intelligence (AI) is becoming of significant benefit to small business owners. It can help you learn from your customer interactions and data, by not only helping you with what you ask, but also anticipating your needs.
Even if you only have a few employees, AI can help you offer better customer experiences and increase small business profits. Here’s how:
Make smarter decisions
AI uncovers insights that help you make smarter decisions. Today many businesses make decisions -- such as which customers to focus on, and what offers to send them -- based on incomplete information. Worse, they have to “pull” these insights out of their data, which can be a complicated, time-consuming process. If your CRM includes AI, not only will you have complete customer data in one system, insights will be “pushed” out to you, so you can make timely, intelligent decisions about your business. With AI you’ll know which leads and opportunities have the most potential.
Optimally focus your efforts
When you can anticipate outcomes, you’ll know where to focus your energies. AI can capture signals you and your team might miss, looking for correlations and sentiment in your customer data. For example, if your customer support tool can predict how customers are feeling based on recent interactions they’ve had with you, you can use that information to build stronger relationships and reduce customer turnover. So if it seems like a customer may not be satisfied with your company, you can take proactive steps to turn the relationship around -- instead of waiting for them to tell you they’re unhappy.
More effective actions
AI will suggest best next actions to take so everyone on your team can be more effective in their jobs. Sales will understand what steps they need to take to close the deal with each customer. Service agents will automatically receive suggested solutions and actions to satisfy customers encountering a specific issue, or anticipate issues before they become big problems. Marketers will be able to segment and build audiences based on likely future actions and then automatically adapt an approach for individual customers so they receive the right offer at the right time.
Increase team efficiencies
AI can take care of routine, repetitive tasks so everyone at your company can be more efficient, which is a game changer for small- and medium-sized businesses with limited resources. Tasks like logging notes in your CRM and deciding how to route new inquiries can now be automated, so your team can put its energy toward activities that will move the needle for your business. Just think: if you could increase the productivity of your sales reps, service agents, and marketers, you could build your business that much faster. When every employee is more productive, your small team is doing the equivalent work of a much larger one.
It turns out AI is not the job-killer many small businesses fear. In fact, it can help you be more efficient, work smarter, offer better customer experiences and ultimately drive profits. You'll find that AI will be your most trusted business companion. It’s here, and it’s available for companies of every size.
Related Reading: Important 2017 Tech Trends Small Business Owners Need to Know
