Customer experience (CX) is a crucial factor that determines long-term business success.
Statistics show that CX has a significant impact on customer loyalty and overall satisfaction. In fact, 86% of consumers are willing to pay more for a great customer experience and 73% of them say that CX has a major impact on their purchasing decisions.
For startups, this means that providing a great CX is essential. AI can help them achieve this goal.
No matter if it's excellence in customer service, fine-tuned analytics, or nuanced personalization, AI has the capacity to help startups take their CX to the next level. In fact, some predictions say that AI will handle as much as 40% of all customer service issues by 2027.
Here are four platforms that can be instrumental in reaching this target.
Nextiva
To begin with, there is Nextiva, a market leader in customer experience solutions. Nextiva is a US-based Unified Communications provider that allows businesses to centralize all their internal and customer-facing channels of communication - from voice and video calls to messaging and live chat. This helps startups streamline their communication workflows, avoid friction losses, and provide maximum flexibility and support to any customer reaching out to them.
Going further, Nextiva also offers a wide array of AI-powered tools that allow startups to level up their communications. These include functionalities based on natural language processing (NLP) such as interactive voice response (IVR), automatic voicemail, call transcripts, and meeting summaries. Nextiva's advanced IVR, featuring conversational AI, for example, eliminates the need for customers to endure an endless series of dial menus. Instead, they can express their query in their own words and get forwarded to the right agent to deal with it, or resolve it directly with AI help.
Additionally, customer service agents have access to real-time analytics and sentiment analysis, as well as an AI assistant to support them during challenging customer conversations.
Zendesk
Another tool to help startups improve their overall customer experience is Zendesk, a cloud-based customer service platform.
Zendesk is a notable tool in the customer service sector, offering a wide range of functionalities, including a helpdesk, email marketing, live chat, and customer engagement solutions.
Plus, Zendesk's AI capabilities are custom-tailored to help businesses, including startups, build better and longer-lasting relationships with their customers. Zendesk boasts that its AI tools help businesses automate over 80% of their interactions, allowing customers to resolve issues autonomously and save time at scale.
Zendesk also offers Copilot, an AI productivity assistant that can provide real-time insights, propose replies during conversions, and handle a range of actions approved by agents.
ProProfs Chat
One of the most best-known applications of AI in CX are chatbots. They can handle routine customer interactions, allowing human agents to focus on complex issues. They are also able to provide instant responses even outside of normal business hours.
However, in order to be effective, chatbots need to be well-trained. Otherwise, they can easily trigger frustration and waste customers' time.
ProProfs Chat offers an easy and intuitive solution for startups to train custom chatbots that align perfectly with their brand's voice and values. No coding skills required.
A key advantage of ProProfs Chat is that the platform integrates seamlessly with widely-used e-commerce and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platforms. This is a major asset in avoiding data siloing and friction losses.
Apart from helping businesses harness well-trained chatbots, ProProfs Chat also allows them to provide better chat options with human agents. Its AI tools boost productivity and help provide a better customer experience - from automated greetings, to proactive chat invitations, to intelligent chat routing.
UserTesting
Finally, for startups looking to get direct feedback from their customers in order to improve CX, UserTesting offers streamlined paths towards making data-driven decisions to elevate their products and services.
UserTesting allows startups to explore how customers engage with their products and services, and gather invaluable insights. From getting diverse perspectives and comprehensive user feedback, to sharing results as highlight reels and clips, this platform offers businesses ways of better understanding their target audience and customer base.
In terms of AI, UserTesting stands out through its extensive analytics and visualization capabilities. Startups are instantly provided with an AI insight summary that unearths the most important trends and patterns and offers starting points for manual analysis. Going further, UserTesting also leverages AI for advanced analysis of written survey responses, for instance through theme grouping.
Finally, UserTesting's AI can also automatically identify customer friction points and conduct real-time sentiment analysis, helping startups pinpoint exactly where resources need to be invested to instantly improve CX.
Conclusion
Improving customer experience is an integral part of startup success. Choosing the right tools can help businesses reach this goal and increase their overall efficiency.
Which tool best suits each startup's unique needs and budget varies, but platforms like Nextiva, Zendesk, ProProfs Chat, and UserTesting are invaluable when it comes to delivering a personalized customer experience and building loyalty.
