During the pandemic, companies of all sizes embraced digital transformation rapidly and readily. As a result, artificial intelligence (AI) skyrocketed as one of the most viable business tools embraced by leadership. In fact, a full 86% of participants in a 2021 PricewaterhouseCoopers study called AI a “mainstream” tech stack asset. So…is it time to include AI in your business yet?
At this point, there’s little argument about AI’s relevance in the corporate world. And that’s great news if you’ve set ambitious revenue objectives or intend to scale within the next 12-18 months.
Yet with so many AI-fueled options on the market, you may be unsure which ones to try. Below are some suggestions to help you fold AI into your workflows, adding more value and efficiency to your overall operations.
1. Upgrade your customer support with a chatbot.
One of the most common applications of AI in B2C businesses—and some B2B ones—has been through chatbots.
A chatbot can be programmed to assist your customers with basic questions, concerns, and needs. For instance, AI-powered chatbots can fetch customer information such as a previous invoice or the last purchase made. Similarly, chatbots can send customers to web pages to complete forms, find information, or watch FAQs videos.
Before choosing a chatbot, talk to your customer support representatives. Get their input on chatbots their previous employers may have used, if applicable.
Find out which questions they get asked routinely by customers. Then, figure out whether or not a chatbot could provide the first line of defense for those questions.
With a robust chatbot in place, your representatives’ call volume typically will go down without affecting customer satisfaction rates. At the same time, your employees can spend more time on more complex support calls.
2. Let AI guide your webpage content strategy.
Before the advent of AI, marketers were forced to conduct keyword analyses by hand. This was both time-consuming and ripe for mistakes and misinterpretations.
Today, AI software can parse countless data points to recommend precisely what types of content you should create. For example, MarketMuse explains how AI can be used to determine topic authority for your specific content.
Because it’s based on a number of factors, topic authority would be difficult to establish by hand. You’d have to spend days sifting through data and running the data through predictive calculations.
With a world-class AI product, you could determine your topic authority and predictive content impact in real-time. That way, you can make future content decisions confidently and quickly. Best of all, your marketing team could have a better chance of bringing in leads and outranking even large competitors when you include AI in your business model.
3. Automate your employees’ repetitive processes.
Every business suffers from the problem of repeated processes that eat up time. From processing payroll manually every two weeks to inputting invoice data by hand, employees waste a lot of time on repetition. You can give them their time back by putting the right AI systems in place.
How do you know where redundancy is happening in your organization? Go right to the source rather than making a guess. Ask department heads for their thoughts or send out a worker poll. Afterward, take action.
Let’s say you discover your sales team members regularly cut and paste customer information between two platforms. This activity may seem normal and natural but it opens the door to human error. It also eats into the time they could be spending with leads and clients. An AI integration between the two platforms could take away this arduous task.
4. Make better use of your data.
Most companies are sitting on more data than their team members use. Case in point, a NewVantage Partners survey shows fewer than half of businesses leverage their data to innovate.
Sound familiar? If your data is collecting dust, AI can help you make sense of what all that data means.
Of course, you’ll need to scrub your data first. Plenty of AI-driven programs can help you remove corrupt or duplicate data. Once your data is clean, consider what you want to know.
Are you interested in qualifying your leads more accurately through the use of historic data points? Do you want to evaluate vendor invoices in anticipation of upcoming supplier negotiations?
When you have your goals, start looking for AI solutions that can make them a reality.
5. Familiarize yourself with the latest AI advancements.
The more you know about AI, the more you can understand how and where to bring it into your business. Whether you’re a CEO or a line supervisor, you can’t go wrong by self-educating on the latest AI tools and gadgets.
How can you increase your understanding of how AI is influencing companies around the globe? To begin, attend conferences devoted to AI or watch videos from past conferences on the topic of AI. Next, read the newest books on AI written by top subject experts. Finally, ask your peers about their experiences with AI-driven software and products.
Even if you aren’t ready to implement an AI solution, you’ll benefit by knowing more about it.
When AI was first introduced to businesses, it seemed out-of-reach for startups and small companies. Not anymore. Today, any organization — including yours — can gain an advantage when you decide to include AI in your business.
