If you want to keep your customers happy, fulfilled, and — most importantly — coming back regularly, then you want to give them the best service possible.
And today, that’s almost impossible without AI.
This guide is your ticket to understanding how AI customer engagement tools can help you get more efficient, reliable, and consistent results.
We’ll cover:
- What is AI customer engagement?
- How can AI improve customer engagement?
- The main types of AI customer engagement tools
- How to use chatbots for AI customer support
- How to leverage your data for AI customer engagement
- How to use AI to automate customer feedback
- Real-life examples of AI-powered customer service
- Lindy’s customer engagement superpowers
Let’s break it down.
What is AI customer engagement?
AI customer engagement means using artificial intelligence to optimize how businesses interact with their customers.
This includes everything from personalized recommendations to automated customer support.
Why it’s important:
- Personalization even as your business scales: AI allows businesses to personalize interactions with thousands of customers without breaking a sweat. The idea is to make each customer feel special — even when dealing with larger numbers.
- Gains in efficiency boost: AI can handle repetitive jobs like answering common questions, which frees up your team for higher-level queries. This not only speeds up response times but also improves the overall customer experience.
Today, the use of AI-powered customer service and engagement tools is introducing sweeping changes, like customer service chatbots, more personalization, and the opportunity to automate more tasks.
Let’s go into more detail below.
How can AI improve customer engagement?
Here are some ways AI customer engagement can take those customer experiences from “meh” to “I just had my mind blown.”
They are:
- Personalized experiences, anyone?: AI doesn't just remember your customers' names — it remembers their favorite color, shoe size, and probably what they had for breakfast on April 28th, 2004. It’s the kind of memory and attention humans can’t match, especially as your client base starts growing by leaps and bounds.
- Automating tasks for always-on support: AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants make the dream of constant, 24/7 support a reality — and they do it without you having to 5x your staff. They handle routine queries faster than you can say, "How may I help you?" leaving you free to scale your business and start frying bigger fish.
What are the main types of AI customer engagement tools?
Let's dive into the world of AI customer engagement tools that are making waves:
- The ubiquitous chatbot: You may have seen these digital chatterboxes when you hang around a new website or click on the “Chat to us” button. They're always on, ready to tackle questions instantly — even during the graveyard shift.
- Support squad: From Lindy's Customer Service Chatbot to an AI Email Responder, these tools are always there when you need them.
- Feedback tools: These tools help you tune into what your customers are really saying. We’re talking about things like well-made user surveys, for instance, the type that users actually enjoy filling out.
How to use AI chatbots for AI customer support
Ready to dive into the world of AI chatbots? Getting started with AI chatbots is easier than you might think, especially with tools like Lindy.
Here’s how you do it with Lindy:
- Sign up with Lindy: It takes just a few seconds to get in the door.
- Choose your template: You can choose a template from Lindy’s Customer Support AI Tools and customize it to your heart’s content, or you can create your own in 30 seconds.
- Link your communication platforms: Use an embed code to connect Lindy to your customer communication channels — whether your website, social media, or email. Lindy integrates seamlessly with popular communication platforms like Slack, email, and websites, centralizing key customer interactions in one place.
- Customize your chatbot: Use Lindy’s easy-to-use interface to set up your chatbot’s personality, language, and responses. Tailor it to your brand’s voice so that interactions feel natural. You can also have it interact with your knowledge base so it can understand your business inside and out.
- Set up triggers and responses: Define specific triggers (like certain keywords or customer actions) that will activate the chatbot, and program the responses you want Lindy to give. It’s all about anticipating what your customers might ask and having the right answers ready.
- Go live: Once everything is set up, launch your chatbot and monitor its interactions to make sure it’s performing as expected.
Now, for the best practices:
- Keep it real, Mr. Roboto: Your chatbot should sound human, not like a tin can with a keyboard.
- Know when to fold them: Set up clear triggers for when to pass the baton to a human agent. While you may think there’s no need, trust us; escalation will be necessary from time to time.
- Learn and grow: Use those chat logs to improve your bot's responses. Your feedback will also help it improve, so keep your AI well-fed.
Are you measuring success? Easy peasy! Track response times, customer satisfaction scores, and how often your bot successfully resolves issues without human intervention. With these tips, your AI chatbot will be the talk of the (digital) town in no time!
How to use your data for AI customer engagement
Yes, you can (and should) use data to keep driving that customer engagement up.
Let’s dive into how:
- You have to catch them all: Gather customer information like it's going out of style. From purchase history to their favorite color, every data nugget counts.
- Track them down: Monitor customer behavior and preferences. Their dos and don’ts will greatly influence how you continue to tweak your sales funnel.
- Always use data for personalization: Use those juicy analytics to create marketing campaigns that'll make your customers feel like you’ve got a 24/7 staff of psychics on your payroll.
How to automate customer feedback with AI
Let's dive into how you can harness the power of artificial intelligence to make sense of all that feedback:
- Customer surveys: AI-powered tools like Lindy's survey generator can help you create mountains of engaging surveys that allow you to get inside your clients' heads.
- Action Jackson: Once you've got the lowdown, it's time to shake things up! Use those AI-generated insights to make changes that'll have your customers doing the happy dance. Data is no good if you don’t use it to your benefit.
Examples of successful AI-powered customer service
Now, it’s time to examine some real-world examples of companies that have used AI in their customer service to improve customer engagement easily.
Check out these examples:
1. CIBC Bank
- Why it matters: CIBC Bank uses an AI virtual assistant to offer customers always-on support for a wide range of banking services, from paying bills to locking credit cards. This guarantees that customers have access to instant assistance whenever they need it, leading to higher satisfaction and engagement.
- Engagement win: By providing round-the-clock service, CIBC has easily increased customer engagement, ensuring users feel supported at all times.
2. Century 21
- Why it matters: Century 21 and other real estate firms use RiTA, an AI tool developed by AiRE, to automate personalized SMS and email communication with potential leads. This approach has enhanced lead conversion by maintaining relevant and consistent engagement.
- Engagement win: Automated, personalized follow-ups keep potential clients on the hook.
3. Morgan Stanley
- Why it matters: Morgan Stanley uses AI platforms, including Next Best Action (NBA), to offer advisors real-time, personalized recommendations based on client data, enhancing the quality of their advice and client engagement.
- Engagement win: More in-the-know advisors mean more informed, happier, and satisfied customers.
Lindy's AI customer engagement superpowers
Lindy is like having a complete customer service team packed into one super-smart, never-sleeps assistant. Here's what Lindy brings to the table:
- 24/7 availability: Lindy's always on, ready to chat with customers any time, day or night.
- Multilingual: Sprechen Sie Deutsch? Lindy does, along with a bunch of other languages and dialects. Yeah, your customer support game just went global.
- Lightning-fast responses: Lindy processes info faster than you can say "customer satisfaction." Quick, accurate answers are its bread and butter.
- Extreme personalization: Lindy uses customer interaction data to tailor responses and provide more personalized service.
- Does it all: From AI customer service to tech support to social media posts, Lindy’s got your back. Plus, Lindy can forward sensitive or highly important issues to people when a customer needs human interaction to solve their problem.
- Way beyond AI customer engagement: Lindy’s got a multitude of tools and AI assistants for you to choose from, from coding gurus to content creators. What’s better is that these tools can collaborate as a team to get even faster results.
- All of the integrations: Lindy is designed to mesh with your existing customer service ecosystem. It integrates smoothly with popular tech and CRM platforms, keeping all your customer data in sync.
Try Lindy for free today.
Summing up
We've reached the end of our AI customer engagement journey.
You're now armed with enough knowledge to use AI to boost your customer support effectiveness across all channels.
The combination of AI and human know-how is powerful, and it’s up to you to start using these advancements to sell more and keep your customers as happy as they deserve.
