For years now Artificial Intelligence, like IBM Watson, has impacted countless aspects our daily work and personal lives and over the next few years, analysts believe that will grow exponentially. The analytic firm Tractica is predicting that the annual global AI software revenue will skyrocket from $644 million in 2016 to $39 billion by 2025. With financial growth, comes innovation of new and improved technologies. The surge in AI use is predicted to be focused in some key  areas that include:

These key areas span many different industries and can create massive benefits for individuals as well as businesses. With all the potential growth, we decided to look at 10 areas that could gain big innovation from the continued growth of the AI technology and its products. In part two of this blog post (Review Part 1 here), we look at the impact AI can have on your customer service:

Automated Customer Service

Automated customer service is not constrained by time zones, weekends, or holidays. This gives your organization an 'always-on' service to resolve any customer service that arises. This means customers can get resolutions for their issues 24 hours a day without having to staff employees around-the-clock, and your customers don't have to wait hours or days to get a response. Many companies are now turning to Chatbots for automating many of their Frequently Asked Questions to help with customer issues. Chatbots can be intricate in design and create a workflow that serves customers at a high-level using keyword recognition software to automate any type of question you could imagine your customer might ask.

This attention to detail can greatly influence customer satisfaction and referrals. It will also give your customer base a clear sign that you are committed to supporting them through any issues that might arise - which is valuable to your brand trust and reputation.

Cost Savings Innovation

New innovative technologies, like Chatbots, deliver a high-level of customer service with a fraction of the cost of conventional customer service. Computerization solutions like Chatbots help combine machine learning and advanced speech and keyword recognition. This improves on what was the conventional interaction with customers while delivering a 60-80% decrease in outsourced human based call centers. 

Speed is King

Surveyed customers who receive quick resolutions to their issues equate that with good customer service experience. Companies that transition their customer service into a digital atmosphere have the power to speed up resolutions and improve their service satisfaction levels. Placing your F.A.Q. content online gives you the power to immediately answer those commonly asked questions without having a human customer service representative take the time to research the answer. Giving the customer these easy answers at their fingertips without having to interact with another person can increase your customer satisfaction ratings quickly. 

Self-Serving Technology

The new generation of customers has created a new generation of customer service interaction. Millennials are more likely to avoid situations that require human interaction and prefer to have a self-service option instead. Salesforce had a recent customer service study that showed that 72% of Millennials think that customer service over the phone is not the most effective way to resolve issues. This generation is steeped in technology and prefer to solve their own customer service issues by interacting with that technology. Solutions include: FAQ content, Chatbots, and even online chatting with another person. Many Millennials are multi-taskers and don't want to spend a long period of time tied up on the phone or on hold. This self-reliant generation is clamoring for a new style of customer service and these 'human-free' customer service technologies will be crucial in the next couple of years.

Personalized Customer Service

AI like Internet of Things (IoT) and IBM's Watson will help gather thousands of gigabytes of data on us in our lifespan. Of that data, only 30% has any true value. That data is only valuable if it is properly analyzed, and organizations that collect customer data can combine that data with machine learning and AI to help personalize the entire customer experience. From a simple product recommendation to a complex real-time website redesign tailored to a customer's browsing habits; personalization can improve the customer service interaction, improve conversion rates, increase customer satisfaction, and create repeat customers.

Profound.js helps you easily integrate Watson and other Artificial Intelligence into your IBM i applications by taking advantage of the resources available on the Open-Source Ecosystem and Node.js. Click here to see how you can easily get started with Profound.js.