The Invisible Salesmen Driving the COVID-19 Economy: Chatbots, Hyper-Personalization, and Virtual Assistants
Throughout history, pandemics have served humanity as a catalyst for change. Once a pandemic hits one civilization, it starts spreading globally, infecting people, and wreaking havoc on human societies. However, unlike plague-stricken civilizations of the past, today’s society has the power to ensure a certain level of economic continuation.
In times when humankind must practice social distancing, certain technologies can fill the gaps. Invisible salesmen like chatbots, hyper-personalization and virtual assistants, powered by artificial intelligence, are working non-stop to support the economy. At the same time, criminals and social activists use the same digital techniques to prey on fear and disarray, practice social engineering, and spread misinformation.
This article examines real applications of AI-based sales technologies during the COVID-19 pandemic.
How Hyper-Personalization Can Help Brands Survive COVID-19
Hyper-personalization is a one-to-one marketing strategy that employs AI to process large amounts of customer data and apply insights to customer interactions. This strategy can be a vital tool for helping organizations engage with customers in a meaningful way during times of crisis.
Retaining customer loyalty
Strained budgets and restricted revenues for many businesses have caused market competition to become even more fierce. Many organizations do not have the resources needed to court new customers which makes retaining existing customers more important than ever.
Hyper-personalization can help you retain customer loyalty by enabling you to leverage the data you already have. This data can enable you to show that you understand customer needs and highlight how your services are more valuable than alternatives.
For example, restaurants can remind frequent dine-in customers of their favorite orders and offer delivery services to help satisfy any cravings. Swiggy, a food delivery platform did this via a no-contact offer sent through app notifications. In this way, the brand was able to show customers that they cared about their health and stomachs.
Strengthening brand position
Hyper-personalization can also help you strengthen your brand position and show solidarity with customers. For example, reaching out to customers with relevant content based on their known interests or behaviors.
If you design content in a way that encourages sharing you can entertain or inform existing customers and get them to spread your message and name with others. This can also be useful for showing awareness of current happenings and can enable you to spread evidence of brand values.
For example, many US national parks are posting virtual tours of their hikes and attractions on social media, and are responding to requests for specific locations. By interacting with user comments and acknowledging the hardships of the times, these organizations are building engagement and support even when visitors can’t come.
How Chatbots Are Helping People During COVID-19
During the current crisis, many technologies are being harnessed to help businesses and customers continue their relationships. One of these technologies is the chatbot, an automated messaging tool that businesses can use to interact with customers.
Providing safety information
Many citizens and patients are actively seeking information about current conditions, effective precautions, and legal guidelines. These searches can create an influx of requests for information for many organizations, taking time away from more pressing efforts.
Rather than compromising either their efforts or citizens' awareness, some organizations are using chatbots to lighten the load. For example, the World Health Organization (WHO) recently launched a Facebook messenger bot that can deliver health alerts and answer basic questions automatically. This bot has already reached over 12 million people and has the potential to help 4.2 billion gain the valuable information they need.
Automating delivery and takeout services
Many businesses can no longer receive the public and many customers don't want to leave their house to shop. However, people still need supplies. To accommodate this need, businesses have started offering delivery services to distribute goods, including food, household goods, and medicines.
This adaptation has allowed businesses to continue serving customers but has also caused some to become overwhelmed with orders. Many places were not set up to handle requests through calls or applications. Others need to reassign workers for delivery, leaving no one to attend to customer requests.
Rather than lose possible business, some companies have adopted chatbots to automate taking orders, arranging payments, and responding to customer queries about delivery times. These bots are enabling businesses to focus on packaging and delivering items without sacrificing customer service.
Assisting with mental health services
Times of crisis are stressful and many are experiencing mental health concerns due to that stress. To provide services to those affected, some health organizations are implementing chatbots with specialized chats for mental health.
For example, the SAJIDA Foundation in Bangladesh has adopted a bot that can provide tips to help clients deal with anxiety. It also has the ability to connect clients with mental health professionals or provide recommendations for seeking help.
Providing sales and customer support
Chatbots are not only helpful in providing health-related information. During COVID-19 eCommerce retailers have seen a huge increase in sales. Since many people were not able to get out of their homes, they had to rely on remote communication when making purchases.
While eCommerce sites do make an effort to provide as many details as possible for each product, customers often need help when choosing a product. In brick and mortar stores, salespeople would be enlisted to help customers understand which products suit their needs. In times of social distancing, this is not always possible.
To solve this problem, some companies operate call centers dedicated to sales and support. However, this isn’t always an affordable solution for all businesses. Additionally, demand has also increased for phone assistance, and customers do not like to wait hours on end, just to be able to make a purchase.
The alternative many eCommerce retailers adopted is chatbots for sales and customer service. This method has proved to be both effective and helpful. Chatbot statistics show that chatbot adoption has increased to such a level that today’s users prefer using chatbots when communicating with companies.
How Virtual Assistants Can Help During COVID-19
Another technology that is proving helpful during COVID-19 is virtual assistants (VAs). These may seem similar to chatbots at first glance but VAs can provide more in-depth assistance. Where chatbots are designed to answer basic questions and follow scripts, VAs often integrate more advanced AI technologies and can process complex instructions.
Increasing customer engagement
Virtual assistants can help engage customers in ways that chatbots cannot. For example, by managing and creating communications across digital channels. By coordinating responses in social media, website, and email platforms, you ensure that your customers get a consistent experience.
You can also ensure that they are not left waiting for a response regardless of how they reach out. This helps maintain relationships with customers even if you do not currently have anyone at work to manage interactions and can help companies cope with work from home restrictions or layoffs due to financial hardship.
Research and adaptation
Virtual assistants can help businesses maintain operations closer to normal as well as help them adapt to changing conditions. For example, VAs can help you identify alternate vendors to supply materials when existing delivery pipelines are interrupted. You may not have the ability to go talk to vendors in person but a VA might be able to scour the web for reviews and quotes to ensure that you’re making the right choice.
VAs can also help you manage your brand image. For example, by tracking press releases naming your company or its competitors. Or, by helping you find digital conferences that you can participate in. Speaking at these conferences can enable you to highlight how your company is adapting to changing conditions and economic demands.
Fighting coronavirus misinformation with healthcare virtual assistants
While fighting misinformation about COVID-19 doesn’t directly help businesses, it does have the potential to help economies in general. The sooner pandemic risks decrease, the sooner restrictions can be lifted and less economic damage is caused. The faster businesses can return to operations as normal, the better off most will be so providing reliable COVID information should be a priority for all businesses.
In particular, VAs can be used to help with this in two ways — by providing dynamic information from medical sources (like the WHO) and by helping patients get screened and treated sooner. Informational VAs can help provide real-time information to citizens about local and global conditions. These assistants can also be used to screen potential patients and direct them to medical facilities as needed.
With many medical resources straining to meet care demands, virtual assistants can help offset some of the administrative work that might otherwise detain care providers. For example, scheduling appointments, checking results, or collecting information on demographics and symptoms.
Conclusion
Powered by increasingly sophisticated computing and designed to mimic the human brain, artificial intelligence continues to advance. Unlike pandemic-stricken societies of the past, today’s economy can keep on moving, assisted by AI technologies leveraged for the benefits of society as a whole.