Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming how businesses communicate, moving beyond simple chatbots and virtual assistants. Imagine asking a virtual assistant a complex question about your insurance policy and receiving a clear, personalised answer directly from your provider. This future of convenient, tailored customer experiences is becoming increasingly within reach with the combined power of AI and cloud computing.
So, how can businesses unlock the true potential of these powerful tools?
The power of cloud computing
It’s no secret that the public cloud market has surged in the last few years – between 2019 and 2024, the revenue of the public cloud market in the UK increased by a hefty £10.98 billion. This is only expected to keep rising, with revenue forecast to reach £29.87 billion by 2028. This growth provides the essential infrastructure upon which AI-powered communication can flourish. Cloud computing offers vast storage capacity and processing power, allowing businesses to achieve several key advantages.
Firstly, cloud computing facilitates the centralisation of data. This means consolidating customer data from various sources, such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems and past interactions, into a single, easily accessible location. Unlike the data warehouse dilemma, where data is stored centrally but inaccessible for use, cloud computing eliminates the issue of data being siloed across different systems, making it much easier for AI to access and analyse it comprehensively.
Secondly, the unified data pool stored in the cloud acts as fuel for AI engines within the system. With all customer data readily available, AI can analyse it to predict customer behaviour and personalise interactions. Pooling anonymised data across organisations within a specific vertical also gives deeper insights and trends. These factors allow businesses to move beyond generic responses and tailor communication to each individual’s specific needs and past experiences.
What’s more, cloud computing streamlines customer service by allowing AI to store and remember past interactions. This eliminates the need for customers to repeat themselves, as AI can access their history and provide more efficient and relevant support. This not only reduces user frustration but also leads to a more positive and efficient customer service experience overall.
In essence, the centralised data storage and processing capabilities of cloud computing pave the way for a future of personalised and streamlined customer service, powered by the insights gleaned from AI analysis.
Personalised customer journeys
Generative AI is being applied across multiple core sectors like finance and retail to personalise customer engagement. It can be implemented to quickly generate unique, engaging content, tailored to each individual. By applying the concepts of deep learning and language processing, generative AI can form intelligent replies from businesses to customers.
This technology can be further enhanced by leveraging Large Language Models (LLMs) that are trained on massive amounts of datasets. LLMs can generate natural-sounding responses, “learning” to communicate in a familiar, human way and apply context to human queries. They constantly evolve with new information, making them ideal for use in customer communications. Instead of communicating with a cold, automated tone, businesses can use LLMs to speak to customers in a friendly and relatable way, helping to navigate complex conversations and improving overall satisfaction.
Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) takes LLMs a step further by optimising content output. RAGs expose LLMs to content from specific organisations, localising their knowledge base so that they can generate targeted responses with greater relevancy and quality. Using RAG architecture, any LLM model can be deployed and augmented to return relevant results. This reduces the costs and time of fine-tuning or pretraining the model while providing up-to-date and accurate responses.
When leading a customer journey, it’s important to be mindful that consumer needs and interests will inevitably fluctuate. To navigate this, businesses need adaptable communication channels like these to stay ahead of digital transformation and strengthen customer relationships.
Proactive communication and self-service
AI and cloud computing can converge to assist proactive communication, which anticipates consumer needs rather than simply reacting to them as in traditional modes of communication. Instead of viewing them as separate markets, enterprise leaders should understand how AI can build a relationship with cloud computing. AI automation lies at the heart of this connection, streamlining simple processes and increasing efficiency. AI and cloud computing converge in automating many processes, including data analysis, security, data management, and decision-making. As AI can derive impartial interpretations of data, the convergence with cloud computing fuels efficiency and leads to cost savings.
The application of AI in cloud environments delivers intuitive and connected experiences for customers and users. This empowers customers to find answers on their terms, rather than waiting helplessly for support, like being stuck waiting in lengthy phone queues for instance. AI-powered chatbots are a prime example of this symbiosis, giving customers agency in their search for information.
Proactive communication and self-service exist in synergy together. Proactive communications can alert customers to potential issues or guide them towards helpful self-service resources, while self-service experiences gather valuable data to further refine these proactive communications strategies. This successful customer communication trend is emerging as a result of AI and cloud technology working together.
Conclusion
The future of customer communication is intelligent and personalised. With CCM platforms acting as the bridge between AI and the cloud, businesses can transform customer interactions and forge stronger, more profitable relationships.
With the generative AI market in the UK expected to stand at nearly £1.4 billion by the end of 2024, it’s time to ditch the outdated approach and embrace the power of AI-driven communication. Feedback that consumers find customer communications ‘cold’ and ‘unfeeling’ will be a complaint of the past and an individual, personalised approach will become the new norm.
