5 Ways Your Company Can Use AI Today

Deloitte’s report, Tech Trends 2017: The Kinetic Enterprise, describes artificial intelligence (AI) as a subset of a larger, more important category of technologies that also includes machine learning (ML), deep learning, cognitive analytics, robotics process automation (RPA), and bots, to name a few.

“Collectively, these and other tools constitute machine intelligence: algorithmic capabilities that can augment employee performance, automate increasingly complex workloads, and develop ‘cognitive agents’ that simulate both human thinking and engagement,” the report states.

Many companies have recognized the potential AI has in taking their operations to the next level and are already planning to utilize it. According to a Boston Consulting Group and MIT Sloan Management Review study titled Reshaping Business With Artificial Intelligence, 84% of respondents say AI will enable them to obtain or sustain a competitive advantage, 83% believe AI is a strategic priority for their businesses today and 75% state that AI will allow them to move into new businesses and ventures.

Below we discuss 5 ways how your company can use AI today in various key day-to-day operations.

1. CRM

These days, popular Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platforms like SalesForce, which launched its Einstein AI in 2016, allow small businesses to integrate AI functionality into their CRM systems. Einstein AI enables small businesses to analyze consumer sentiments using data collected across various channels like phone calls, emails, social media posts and online customer reviews.

This way, small businesses can automatically gather information about consumers across different channels, get automatic insights from this customer data and use it to streamline their marketing and sales teams to be more efficient in their interactions with both existing and prospective customers.

2. Customer Service and Support

Customer service and support are vital for any business looking to achieve optimum customer satisfaction and retention. However, the quality of customer service and support offered by a business tends to drop when the employees have to do tedious and repetitive tasks. The monotony reduces their ability to focus on providing unique support experiences for customers.

This is where AI solutions such as Digital Genius comes in, suggesting or automating replies, and categorizing customer queries to quickly route them to the right team. By integrating AI into their in-house customer service and support systems, businesses can free up time and energy for their support staff to focus on a more personalized customer experience.

3. Marketing and Advertising

Managing marketing budgets efficiently is extremely important because every dollar spent should increase ROI.  If there is not a significant return on the dollars spent, the business is simply throwing money away. Fortunately, AI enables companies of all sizes to use even the most modest of budgets as effectively as possible.

AI-powered platforms such as Acquisio can manage marketing campaigns across several channels (including AdWords and social media) by analyzing ad results and suggesting how best to spread the budget in terms of PPC (pay per click). These type of solutions also help cut costs on hiring marketing staff and enable the business to stay ahead of new trends by making informed consumer behavior predictions.

4. Automate Workloads

Due to their repetitive nature, some clerical duties like organizing files, scheduling appointments, and answering emails easily turn into tedious tasks. Many employees end up making mistakes and sometimes even ignoring them altogether.

Robotic process automation (RPA) tools such as Blue Prism, Automation Anywhere, and UiPath enable businesses today in banking, insurance, healthcare, manufacturing and other industries to automate such mundane tasks and outsource them to robots so that human staff can focus on more vital tasks.

5. Competitor Analysis

Competitive intelligence has always been key in business but watching competitors is more important than ever. The fast-evolving nature of modern consumers means a company can get left behind if it doesn’t quickly react to new trends from other players and stay competitive in the market.

Today, AI-powered competitive intelligence tools like Crayon and SpyFu and RivalIQ can help businesses track their competitors across different channels (websites, social media, SEO), identifying price changes and small changes in PR messaging. This offers companies a better understanding of ongoing changes in their competitors' strategy and enables them to quickly identify gaps and weaknesses in it that can be capitalized on, as well as strengths that can be copied and/or mitigated, in creating their own strategy.

AI Is Not for The Future, It’s For Today

Despite the attention it has garnered in the last few years, AI is still often associated with only multinational tech giants like Google and Amazon due to the large amounts of expensive data that efficient AI solutions need. However, as shown above, even small businesses already have several opportunities to integrate it into their processes and improve in key areas of business performance.

Let the professionals at ASB Resources show you how to start embracing the power of AI in your day-to-day business operations, and guide you step by step on your unique journey towards becoming a full-fledged data-powered enterprise. Schedule a chat with one of our experts today!