How AI is adding the human touch in personalization

• Up to 75% of customers are more likely to shop from a brand that provides personalized services and experiences
• Brands are progressively employing solutions with artificial intelligence to enhance personalization in services

Technology is paving the way for organizations to customize a product or a service so that it reaches its intended recipient.

Delivering carefully crafted content in the appropriate channel and impeccable time to the right audience is key to personalization and the mass opportunity for brands to engage and reengage with their customers.

Back in 2016, Accenture found that a majority (75%) of customers indicated they are more inclined to purchase from a brand that offers tailored services and experiences based on individual preferences. This sentiment was echoed throughout the years with studies like Forrester Research that suggests there is a heightened emphasis for leading retailers to deliver services and experiences rather than just selling products.

Long gone are the days where brands cast a wide net of generalized deals and offer to bait a pool of customers in hopes of a lucrative catch. Presently, emerging technology like artificial intelligence (AI), big data, and natural language processing (NLP) are giving brands the upper hand of selecting the precise bait for the right catch.

AI can help brands deliver personalized content, services, and experiences by consolidating data streams of multiple channels, harnessing the insights of collected data, and identifying actionable strategies. Following a cycle from raw information to actionable insights, AI can gather streams of data from a host of channels such as transcripts from chatbots, customer service hotlines, and review sites. 

They can then analyze this information via NLP and gain a holistic view of consumer behavior, shopping trends, and many more. Subsequently, brands can churn data into strategies to deliver tailored content, services, and experiences that resonate with consumer expectations.

The following brands are a handful of examples of companies across various industries that are thriving in AI-based personalization, with customer engagement at the forefront.

Swisscom

Switzerland-based telecommunications company Swisscom aimed to provide customers with a more personalized experience, in addition to helping its employees understand customer behavior better. They enlisted a cloud-based solution to develop a platform that would help the company achieve these goals.

Swisscom employed a front-end content management system that communicates in their customer base languages — English, French, Italian, and German — that would allow them to easily navigate through the website via various devices.

The cloud-inspired tech also tracks vital data such as the number of visitors, sales, downloads, and uploads that are used to boost customer services, resulting in an average of 40% in improved performance.

Sesame Street

Personalization is also used in the education sector. Sesame Street pioneered an AI-powered vocabulary learning app tasked to develop personalized learning exercises based on a child’s current vocabulary and reading levels. After assessing this, the app would recommend tailored content and continuously update its recommendation as the child progresses. 

Levi Strauss & Co.

AI-powered chatbots are delivering real revenue and business value for brands today. American denim jeans maker Levi Strauss & Co. deployed an AI-enabled chatbot that helps customers find the perfect pair of jeans. The chatbot named Virtual Stylist utilizes NLP to identify what customers are looking for in a pair of jeans by posing questions such as, “How would you like your jeans to fit through your hips and thighs?” before proceeding to deliver personalized recommendations. 

It’s clear that AI is revolutionizing the way organizations personalize a customer’s experience; putting it at the heart of your business strategy may just result in better brand loyalty and overall business value.