How Conversational AI Is Changing Business Communications?

Virtual communication has become the norm today.

From engaging with audiences to resolving prospects’ queries, and helping customers place an order—intelligent virtual assistants are digitizing key business interactions.

And since consumer expectations are ever-growing, the footprints of conversational AI are rapidly expanding.

According to a report^[i], the conversational AI market size is expected to reach $41.39 billion by 2030, increasing at a CAGR of 23.6% from 2022 to 2030.

The rise in omnichannel customer engagement and the need for speedy responses by customers are the primary influential factors behind this growth.

In this blog post, we’ll discuss everything you need to know about conversational AI and how it is helping businesses refine their communications and improve ROI.

What Is Conversational AI?

Conversational Artificial Intelligence (AI), aka virtual assistants, aka AI-powered chatbots, is a type of artificial intelligence that enables users to interact with computer applications in a human manner.

It uses a combination of natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML) to analyze and interpret human speech and respond to it with the help of static interactive technology like chatbots.

But while conventional chatbots are limited to textual interactions, conversational AI can make small talk, answer frequently asked questions, and troubleshoot issues via audio, video, and text media.

Key Features of Conversational AI

Conversational AI helps businesses transform their customer touchpoints into rich meaningful interactions using the following capabilities –

Human-like Interactions

Conversational AI is capable of handling a variety of business interactions be it a product inquiry, price confirmation, or document verification. This reduces the burden on customer support teams for engagement while offering customers human-like conversations.

Self Service

Self-service is all about empowering customers to resolve their queries themselves.
Conversational AI takes self-service to a whole new level. It allows customers to perform many tasks, such as scheduling appointments, generating reports, and placing an order without any human intervention.

Personalization

Virtual assistants offer a high level of personalization as they remember previous conversations. They use customer data – including user name, age, location, and interests, to make the conversation relevant and tailored to the individual.

Omnichannel Experience

Customers, these days, like to interact with different channels at once. AI chatbots help ensure that the same conversations can be carried out on the website and application hassle-free to deliver true omnichannel customer experiences.

Data Analysis

Virtual assistants can analyze the conversations and drive insights about customers. Based on the interactions, they can pick up on customer sentiments and thoughts about a product. This can help businesses optimize their offerings and make data-driven decisions for business strategy.

Benefits of Conversational AI

Using conversational AI in business can help in many ways, including –

Reduced Efforts and Costs

Virtual assistants help automate the interaction between the business and the customers which frees up support resources. This reduces the service cost as well as the turnaround time for customer queries. As a result, the overall performance and productivity of the company increase.

Refined Customer Acquisition

Conversational AI provides a personalized touch to the conversation, thus, making it memorable. This entices customers to engage with the business further, which increases brand awareness. This results in higher conversion and customer acquisition.

Better Retention and ROI

Conversational AI helps build a solid customer support system that is available 24/7. It provides customers with personalized suggestions, offerings, and promotions to keep them hooked.

Industries Using Conversational AI

Conversational AI is expanding and getting adopted in various industries, including –

Healthcare

AI chatbots enable patients to book their appointments and generate reports and prescriptions by themselves. Moreover, it can brief them about their conditions through a series of questions. During the pandemic outbreak, these chatbots helped a great deal by responding to public queries on diseases, COVID-19 symptoms, precautions, and accessing medical facilities.

eCommerce

Conversational AI is highly useful in an eCommerce environment. It not only helps customers in completing their orders but also provides them with effective recommendations on similar products and categories to upsell and cross-sell.

IoT

Devices such as Amazon Alexa and Apple’s Siri come with conversational AI capabilities. Along with humans, they can also interact with other smart home devices to fulfill user requests.

Travel

Conversational AI assists users with voice-based navigation for traveling, as in the case of voice commands in Google Maps. Many travel and aviation companies also employ conversational AI to help customers with their travel bookings, cancellations, and refund processing.

Human Resources

Virtual assistants automate the sifting of candidates’ credentials based on set parameters. This makes the initial selection phase quick and easy for the HR department. Furthermore, it also facilitates the employee onboarding process by providing a dedicated start guide, company FAQs, and admin support.

Conversational AI: The Future of Business Communications

Conversational AI understands the very intent and context of customer interactions to establish an intelligent and emotional customer-to-machine connection. Equipped with the ability to provide a human touch to machines, this technology will evolve to be the digital humans of the future that can simulate real-life conversations balanced with automation.

For businesses, this means that conversational AI is a golden opportunity to enrich their overall customer engagement and experiences to improve business ROI. And given the technology is nascent, it is the right time to implement it in your business to set yourself up for long-term success.

Want to Enhance Your Business Communications With Conversational AI? Contact Us.

References –

[i] PR Newswire – Conversational AI Market Size, Grand View Research Inc.