Customer experience (CX) is just as important for the selling organization as it is for the customers. It enhances reputation and unlocks revenue through increased brand loyalty, referrals, and positive reviews. A report from SiriusDecisions even found that as many as 81% of B2B buyers make a decision based on the buyer experience rather than on the price or product. It is clearly of paramount importance that B2B brands do all they can to ensure a positive CX from start to finish.

As we move into the 2020s, CX will only serve to be more important as organizations look to close the gap between the customer and the company. This CX gap refers to what the customer expects, and the experience that is being delivered. A good example of the CX gap has been demonstrated by PwC, who highlighted that while 73% of US consumers outline CX as being one of the most important factors to consider when making a purchase, only 49% revealed that they had actually experienced a positive CX. So how do organizations close the gap? For B2B organizations, the answer may lie with Artificial Intelligence (AI) for sales and marketing.

AI for sales and marketing

AI, when used correctly, can help sales and marketing teams effectively use CRM data to boost revenue. AI provides sales representatives with actionable insights and intelligence, while enabling them to spend more time on prospecting and closing deals, therefore helping them progress along their pipeline both increased productivity and better intelligence.

However, AI can be used not only to improve margins and increase profitability. It can also reduce human error by finding the areas where humans could potentially make mistakes and create inconsistencies when collecting and processing data along the customer journey. The impact that this reduction in human error has on the businesses can be significant, meaning leads won’t be missed, engagement will be more targeted, and customers will get consistent experience along the customer journey; money won’t be wasted on untargeted marketing campaigns with incomplete data. This is where customer experience increases along with profit margins.

Customer experience issues tackled by AI

The needs of the customer have changed, with customers now craving an experience that is extremely personalized to suit them. Using AI helps to assist and track these changes by automatically tracking and analyzing the data that is ingested. AI also ensures that there is zero data loss giving full visibility of the key customer contacts, enabling customer success teams to build better and stronger relationships with those who are key stakeholders for their business.

It is clear that data is still one of the biggest assets an organization has, even with the GDPR law implemented throughout the EU. Sales teams in particular use data to reach their desired audience, however, according to a HBR report, out of 320 participants 53% said that CRM data is inputted incorrectly or lost. With the help of AI technologies this prevalent issue can be tackled, and there will then be a more accurate data source of CRM allowing for them to have a better customer experience.

The HBR survey also reported that 64% of large companies’ sales teams found CRM difficult or bothersome to use, and that they fail to enter some, or all of the information required into them. AI and augmented intelligence platforms would assist for this issue through collating the data automatically predicting the health of the customer through previous engagements.

Aligning Go-to-market teams through AI

The importance of closing a deal for a business has become increasingly reliant on the alignment of go-to-market teams, with AI platforms providing the ability to solve this issue and align the two conflicting teams. This full-funnel view of campaigns allows marketers to see if their campaigns were successful or not and where breakdowns such as if the sales team has followed up on leads, allowing for better communication and then eventually aligning the discrepancies between these departments.

If organizations want to keep up with the current needs of customers, then they must invest in AI to support and improve their sales, marketing and customer success teams. Not only will it benefit the working environment, providing organizations with optimum effort from their teams, but also accelerates time to revenue and overall efficiency in the long term.

 

Written by Oleg Rogynskyy, CEO, People.ai. 

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