Artificial intelligence is transforming the way businesses function. It can automate many repetitive and time-consuming tasks, analyse vast amounts of data and turn them into actionable insights, and even communicate with customers on its own.

By streamlining your business operations and helping you work smarter, AI can slash any unnecessary costs you may have. As many as 44% of organisations have reported significant cost savings as a result of AI implementation.

Aside from saving money, AI can also help you make it. Here’s how this smart technology can help you boost sales.

Personalised recommendations

Do you know how Netflix always knows exactly what show you’d like to see next? That’s all thanks to its machine learning-algorithm that allows the platform to predict what you might like based on what you have already seen, browsed, or put on your watchlist.

The same predictive analysis can be used in business. An AI-based program can pitch the perfect products or services to your customer by analysing their data, such as their browsing history, previous purchases, and more. It could even recommend them products based on the purchases of customers who exhibit similar behavioral patterns.

Customers value personalisation. This notion is supported by the fact that as many as 91% of them are more likely to shop with brands that provide personalised offers. In many cases, AI knows what customers want even before they themselves realise.

Improved customer experience with chatbots

Did you know that you can automate a large part of your customer interaction by using smart AI chatbots? These bots are becoming increasingly smarter and better at understanding natural human language. They can interact with customers just like any support or sales rep and lead them through the entire process, from onboarding to upselling.

One of the biggest advantages of AI chatbots is the fact that, unlike human representatives, they are available 24/7. That means no more queuing and waiting on the customer's end. Whenever they decide to reach out to you, your digital assistants will be there to greet them.

Thanks to their ability to learn and evolve through communication, these bots get even smarter in time and better at catering to customer's needs. Of course, if someone wants to talk to a human rep, the bots can redirect them too.

Also read: How chatbots are helping in the digital age

AI lead scoring

Thanks to social media and other channels, it’s now easier than ever to collect valuable data about your prospects. However, the enormous quantities of data you can now acquire would be virtually unreadable if it weren’t for AI. Sifting through it manually would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Predictive analytics and machine learning — both aspects of AI — make it possible to find patterns in customer behavior and pinpoint the characteristics that are likely to lead to a sale. AI programs can identify buyer persona profiles and even predict the perfect timing for closing a sale.

As AI connects your business with ideal customers, your sales team is free to handle other things, such as interaction with prospects or working on a marketing campaign.

Facilitate upselling and cross-selling

Upselling and cross-selling involve a lot of guesswork from the sales team. If you’re successful, you profit, but if you’re not, you risk annoying or even alienating a customer to the point of no return.

We’ve already established that AI is an incredible tool for understanding human behavior, and that feature can come in handy here too. Just as it can identify the leads that are most likely to convert based on the analysis of vast amounts of data, so can it point the sales team to the most likely upsells and cross-sells.

With AI, you won’t miss a single chance to increase your sales, which you probably would if you only relied on intuition and people’s limited ability to spot the right opportunity.

Smarter marketing

Maybe you’re familiar with how some dating apps increase your chances of finding a perfect match. They test the effectiveness of your photos and put the one most likely to result in many matches forward.

This is AI working its magic in helping you promote yourself, and it can do the same for your business. It does so by assessing the effectiveness of your marketing messages through interaction with potential customers and identifying their strong and weak points.

That way, the algorithm can put your most-effective message forward as it notices trends in interaction.

A machine-learning algorithm can even optimise your messages automatically and in real-time as it interacts with prospects. That way, you achieve optimal marketing results in record time.

What’s more, the algorithm can show different messages to different types of leads, which means AI can help you personalise even your marketing efforts and connect your business with more potential customers.

Also read: Give AI a chance

Image source: shutterstock.com 

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