If you’ve ever purchased a razor before you no doubt purchased one from Gillette.
How do I know?
Because s recently as 2010, Gillette owned 70 percent of the US market for razors and blades.
That was until a scrappy startup named Dollar Shave Club came out of nowhere and went from zero to a multi-billion-dollar company that was ultimately purchased.
Since then, Gillette’s market share has continued to decline.
How did they tap into a market that was dominated by a single company for so long?
Dollar Shave club didn’t have the distribution channels Gillette did nor the relationships with stores like Costco and CVS.
Instead, they built their business on top of platforms like Google, Facebook, and Instagram to capture demand for their product.
They got close to their customer and won the battle. Actually, multiple battles with Gillette.
It also highlighted how poor companies like Gillette were doing in understanding their customer and (wrongly) thinking they had all the supply and therefore, incorrectly thought they could also control the demand of their product.
The moral of the story?
The company that is closest to the customer will win.
But don’t just take our word for it.
Check out what Dustin Robertson, Chief Marketing Office of Drip, had to say about e-commerce and the need to build relationships with your customers:
“By 2020, global ecommerce sales are expected to double to $4 trillion, as millions of customers and businesses get better at buying and selling online. That’s not just $4 trillion in books, bleach, and baby clothes. It’s also subscriptions, expertise, and analysis… All types of ecommerce. What all of our businesses have in common with each other is the need to build long-lasting and mutually-beneficial relationships with customers.”
But how do you go about building long-lasting relationships and get closer to your customer when you’re tied up doing the hundreds of things you need to do to run your business?
You employ the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
In this article, we’re going to highlight three ways AI can help you build relationships with your customers and show you how other companies are already using AI to grow their business.
In fact, a Forbes Insight study found 56% of top-performing companies currently invest in AI.
But fret not, it’s not too late for you to join in on the fray.
Three Ways AI Can Help Build Relationships With Your Customer
AI can help your business in many ways.
From booking a cab to scheduling a laundry pickup, the possibilities for AI are expanding every day. For example, it can target consumers, deliver individualized content, and answer basic questions to free up your customer service department.
Used properly, AI can save your business time, money, and resources while creating relationships with your customers and ultimately, getting you more market share.
Below are three more ways AI can build relationships with your prospective (and current) customers.
Chatbots
Chatbots are computer programs capable of conversing with customers.
Powered by a combination of rules and artificial intelligence, chatbots are versatile.
They catch your visitor’s eye and offer assistance, even when your business is closed.
Take, for example, the bot on our homepage (and on this page):
Not to mention the evolution of Facebook’s Messenger app. You can now program it to answer lead and customer questions, getting you even closer to your customer.
Among other possibilities, a chatbot can help if you find yourself:
- Stretched for time responding to inquiries
- Frequently answering the same questions via email
- Tied up in live-chat with low ROI tasks
- Communicating with potential clients via messenger apps
When powered with AI, bots understand language. They get smarter with each interaction they have, thus learning more about your customer.
Chatbots can interact with prospects and customers, helping to answer questions that might be missing from your website.
If it knows the answer, the chatbot can provide the visitor with help docs or links to other articles on your website.
It can also ping a human to jump in and help with the conversation.
Generating Leads
Your prospecting data is a goldmine of people waiting to become paying customers if you know how to use it.
But, most companies don’t have hours to spend sifting through data, looking for potential patterns and connections.
AI quickly scans your data to look for those connections, and recommend potential leads. The longer it works, the smarter it gets and the better its results.
Lead Qualification
Have you ever spent a bunch of time following up with a lead only to find they’re not in your target market?
AI can help companies qualify leads. They can analyze many data points to learn more about each lead.
With automated emails, AI can send initial contacts to potential leads and follow up on responses. Like chatbots, these programs can interact with customers, holding email based two-way conversations.
If you have a chatbot on your website like we do, you can qualify them with a few simple multiple choice questions (just be careful not to overwhelm them).
Select the Right Content to Convert Leads to Sales
Wouldn’t it be amazing if you could instantly deliver the perfect article to a customer exactly when it’s needed?
With AI you can!
Intelligent algorithms use tons of data about each user to deliver the best content. They can personalize each user’s experience on your website to ensure they get exactly what they’re looking for. When customers get what they want, you’ll see your sales increase.
Even better, as customers interact with the content, the AI gets smarter. It’s always learning and getting better at its recommendations. You’ll notice the results in your bottom line.
Personalized Marketing Matters
Each of these examples helps personalize the experience for your users. Personalization matters. In fact, 96% of companies believe personalization helps improve the relationship with customers.
If you aren’t offering your customers a personalized experience, they’ll go looking for one of your competitors.
How Real Companies Are Using AI Personalization in Marketing
Personalization through AI is the future of marketing. It levels the playing field for businesses of all sizes. With AI, any business can provide excellent customer service, and increase revenue.
Here are some examples for you to consider.
Charter Communications implemented chatbots on their website. The bot cut the time taken to reset a customer username and password by almost 50%. It also lowered their live-chat volume significantly, by 83%.
With help generating leads from AI, a Harley-Davidson dealer in New York City increased leads by 2930%. After two days with the AI service, the dealership sold 15 motorcycles. It was a massive improvement from the one or two they typically sold in a seven-day period.
The Los Angeles Film School utilizes AI to help qualify leads. They saw a 33% increase in engagement after implementing this system.
The faucet company Delta saw major results after integrating content personalization. In fact, besides getting more eyes on their content, they quadrupled the number of times users clicked a call-to-action button.
Clicks aren’t the only results AI can deliver. After integrating two AI based multi-platform targeted communication campaigns, Alex Alexa Medispa saw an extra $12,539 in revenue.
No matter the industry, AI helped each of these companies personalize user experience and get impressive results.
Conclusion
Conversational marketing works. It gives the customers the personalized experience they want and helps companies improve their bottom line.
If you’re ready to use conversational marketing to personalize your customer’s experiences, we can help! Contact us by speaking with the bot at the bottom right of this page.
We’ll show you what we can do to help you get results with AI.