The current market is like a sea. And if the customers are fish, the companies offering their products are fishermen. And since the number of fishermen grows constantly, they are looking for new ways to lure fish into their nets. And that’s where artificial intelligence joins the game. AI is not only a great tool to help companies to attract and keep customers, but more importantly it offers customers a new level of accessible, pleasant and personalized service.
The release of a new product is often preceded by a marketing survey. Its task is to observe the target audience and its needs. Today, however, it rarely happens that a marketer stops you on the street and starts asking questions about which notebook or kind of soap you use. The process of data collecting has mostly moved to the telephone and internet world. And that is where AI virtual assistants are increasingly working.
Page Contents
Reason #1: AI is safe and always professional
There are a couple of reasons why the use of virtual assistants in marketing research means more safety. The first one is most valid during present times affected by a coronavirus. AI makes completely contactless surveys easier for both sides. The other reason is that a virtual assistant is the safest interviewer to share your information and opinions. Whatever you say will not make the conversation unpleasant or provoke a mocking reaction. “AI remains professional in all circumstances. And the information you provide is nothing but data to it,” explains Tomáš Malovec, director of the Born Digital startup, which develops virtual assistants.
Reason #2: AI is a great help to its human colleagues
Artificial intelligence doesn’t mind doing the same activity over and over again every day, which is good news for business owners and human operators. Their AI colleagues handle the most routine calls and surveys instead of them and allow others to focus on more complex parts of research. After the data is collected, a virtual assistant can also create necessary marketing reports, which usually cost marketers their valuable time.
Reason #3: AI is a great conversation partner
A virtual assistant for marketing research is not a slow automaton with a monotone robotic voice. “Thanks to artificial intelligence, these assistants can have a fluent conversation with people, answer their open questions and move the survey forward. Besides, they have a pleasant voice and are constantly learning and improving,” Malovec described. AI can remember the hundreds of ways a conversation can take during a survey. And it can still learn new ones.
Reason #4: AI takes care of the secondary marketing research
The essence of secondary marketing research is to work with data that is freely traceable. This is a mechanical and time-consuming activity. And that’s why companies often welcome the opportunity to entrust it to artificial intelligence. It can easily find its way around the enormous amount of data offered by the archives of the media and government institutions. AI then extracts only those data that are essential for marketing research. All for a fraction of the time and cost that secondary marketing research would otherwise cost.
5th and biggest reason: AI improves customer satisfaction
While new kinds of jobs appear across the industries, some current positions are replaced by machines. And it’s good news for customers that in the field of marketing research, those machines are more and more often equipped with artificial intelligence. “Thanks to their pleasant voice, professional approach, speed, and accuracy, virtual assistants are miles ahead of other technologies for digitizing communication, such as interactive voice response machines,” adds Malovec. They are also more consistent in routine tasks and sometimes even friendlier than their human colleagues because they do not mind asking the same questions all day or being rejected.
And while it may seem that the first four reasons have little or no impact on customer satisfaction, they all help to build the environment, in which the customers always receive complete and helpful service, which will make their life easier. And as research shows, the use of AI does not only help the companies, but it mainly improves the satisfaction of customers.
