From our research on bots and other forms of artificial intelligence (e.g. Alexa skills) meant to enhance the customer experience, we know that customers will not interact with artificial intelligence in absence of a compelling reason to do so. Why change a habit that has served you well for one that may not?
In her article, 10 Customer Experience Implementations of Artificial Intelligence, author Blake Morgan reminds developers of this important point and gives several good examples of use cases.
5 Keys to Giving Customers Compelling Reasons to Use AI
We suggest keeping in mind these best practices:
- Give customers a reason to continue interacting with AI. This is where many bots in their infancy fall short. For example, why would I interact with a travel bot again if, on the first try, I had to repeat “Philadelphia” several times until it understood me, and was asked for my rewards program information that I know would be automatically entered into the associated app or website? The initial experience must reward the behavior enough to make it stick.
- Give your bot a personality appropriate to its functionality, especially if it’s customer facing. Don’t position “him” as being a personal assistant if all he can do is regurgitate a shopping list.
- Make sure it’s intuitive and easy to use. This means testing, testing and more testing prior to full launch.
- Make sure it can link to customer data and learn from customer behaviors: Dominos and Spotify are great examples of this. If Dom is supposed to be intelligent, I would be disappointed if I had to remind him of my address or leave off the anchovies each and every time I order.
- Continue to provide customers “old fashioned” ways of interacting… not everybody is comfortable sharing information with or talking to a bot!
Commentary on this Forbes article by Blake Morgan