Marketers today face the dual challenge of shrinking budgets and staffing shortages. Here we explain how the power of Artificial Intelligence and in particular GPT technology can boost your online marketing and customer experience.
Most people have heard of Chat GPT, the chatbot launched by artificial intelligence company OpenAI in late 2022. However many Australian marketers don’t realise that they can utilise the same underlying AI technology to help improve their marketing strategies and make the most of their customer interactions.
Conversational AI, also known as AI chatbots or digital employees, is a strategic tool for savvy marketers. Digital employees have the ability to respond within seconds to everyday customer inquiries and operate 24/7 to give advice and assistance. According to a HubSpot research study, a fast response is significant when they have a question according to 90 percent of customers. And recent findings from Twilio’s research suggest that 90 percent of customers want to interact with a business through messaging channels. That is why conversational AI is reshaping customer engagement and fostering brand loyalty through real-time, tailored conversations.
The Case For Conversational AI
Laybuy, a leading “buy now, pay later” provider, launched its first digital employee to improve customer experience ahead of the busy Christmas retail season.
They called their new employee Hugo, which is short for “Helping Users Get Organised”. Being an intelligent chatbot, Hugo is able to answer most of the everyday questions that customers have as they browse Laybuy’s website. Using GPT technology, Hugo is learning from the work all the time, just like a human employee would.
Available around the clock on Laybuy’s website, Hugo helps answer questions that used to be answered by a real person – like how to change a password, and how to go about refunds and payment. This frees up Laybuy’s customer service professionals to handle the more complex issues that truly require personal expertise.
Around one million consumers are actively using Laybuy in Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. Since implementing Hugo, they have reported a 30% increase in customer satisfaction and a 75-hour reduction in response time. Scaling up customer service without adding costs has been hugely supportive of their international growth journey.
How To Help Your Digital Employee Succeed
As with any new employee, training and integration is key. A well-trained and well-integrated chatbot provides instant assistance, creates a seamless customer experience and relieves pressure on human staff. A poorly trained or integrated chatbot is at best an annoying waste of time, or at worst a reputational risk.
Just like with a human employee, a digital employee needs to not only know your products, but also understand your brand’s tone, values, and customer needs. Have a dedicated human employee in place who is responsible for the ongoing training of the chatbot, making sure it’s being kept up to date with new information regularly.
For example at LayBuy, they created a dedicated role – a Customer Support Optimisation Specialist – to train Hugo on five to ten new conversations a week, working closely with the marketing team to make sure the tone is right. Because there are many ways to ask the same question, this ensures Hugo continually learns and responds to the questions their customers need answers too. When something comes up that LayBuy suspects could trigger an influx of customer enquiries, they can quickly arm Hugo with the answers needed to respond to these questions.
Nurturing Unique Customer Connections
Personalisation is the cornerstone of customer-centric marketing, and AI can help with that. Through machine learning algorithms, AI knows the customer’s behaviour and purchase history, enabling it to tailor the experience to individual preferences. Personalisation enhances customer satisfaction, fosters brand loyalty and encourages repeat business. Customers appreciate when brands understand and cater to their unique needs, and a digital employee can do just that.
Adding A Personal Touch
While digital employees excel in efficiency and personal insights, they can also add a touch of personalisation and humour to client interactions. These AI-powered assistants can be programmed to understand and respond to conversational cues, injecting a friendly and approachable tone into conversations. Strategic use of humour and conversational language can create a more enjoyable customer experience, building stronger connections and trust in the relationship.
Making Safety And Integrity A Priority
There should always be safety measures in place to make sure your GPT chatbot won’t go rogue – we’ve all heard of AI bots hallucinating made-up answers or expressing views that clash with a company’s ethos – which has the potential to cause damage to your business and your brand.
The safest way to start out on your AI journey is to reach out to a reputable partner company to implement your AI solution and help you along the way.
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