Guest Post: conversational AI for customer acquisition

Conversational AI for Customer Acquisition 
By Discover.bot

It’s no secret that customer acquisition has largely moved from the physical to the digital sphere. Now, businesses are looking for new and innovative ways to power their brands and to build relationships with customers. In fact, customers, too, are increasingly interested in communicating with brands. New research from LivePerson indicates that 85 percent of consumers want to use conversational experiences, like messaging via SMS, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and more, to communicate with brands. As such, the marriage between customer acquisition and conversational AI is a perfect fit. By harnessing the powers of conversational AI through chatbot technology, companies are able to more effectively develop relationships with new customers and increase capabilities to retain existing customers.

1. Improved customer experience
   This is evident in the ways that consumers are already using chatbots. It has quickly become an expectation that businesses provide 24/7 customer service through their website, which leads many companies to implement chatbot technology for around-the-clock customer care. The best chatbot experiences happen when a bot can anticipate customer pain points through conversation and then provide quick yet thorough solutions. Not only is increased availability a huge benefit to consumers, but also the interfaces themselves adapt and learn over time to differentiate customer requests. By delivering unique responses and answers to more complex questions, these bots are capable of proving to customers and businesses just how invaluable they are.
   
   Additionally, conversational AI has the power to tap into existing customer relationship management (CRM) and content management system (CMS) platforms, enabling bots to quickly collect customer information and use it to further personalize experiences. These personalized experiences are critical to customer acquisition efforts. By using conversational AI, chatbots are capable of drawing on information more readily than human agents are, saving customers valuable time and energy. There are even suggestions that by using chatbots to help fill in forms, the reduction of friction and mental load on consumers can quickly differentiate your company from others.
   
   2. Deepened customer knowledge
   Although improvements to customer experience are powerful in driving new customer acquisition, knowledge about customers is the backbone of a strong conversational AI system. When looking to distinguish themselves from competitors and to develop a strong relationship with potential customers, companies must leverage customer knowledge to create a cohesive, personal, and simplified experience.
   
   Developing customer insights through conversational AI helps to improve engagement levels. The higher the engagement, the more likely a customer is to purchase—and the more frequently they’ll do so. By using conversational AI to find the links between customer questions and actions, your organization can better understand what’s drawing consumers in and how to keep them interested. For those looking to understand the mechanics behind these customer analytics, the process is actually much simpler than you might think! For advanced conversational AI systems, these processes collect key pieces of information from each customer—from patterns or phrases used by customers and from actions taken by customers through the bot. This key information is then connected with the outcome of each customer interaction.
   
   3. AI-based interest-mapping
   When dealing with customer acquisition, time is of the essence. It’s a well-known rule that most e-commerce consumers decide to stay and shop on your website—or leave—after 15 seconds of browsing. Although you may trust that your product will keep consumers interested for more than 15 seconds, working hard to keep a customer's interest beyond that is essential. This is where conversational AI can help.