Top AI Tools for Innovative Customer Experiences

• AI technologies reshape businesses and customers’ engagement, driving personalized experiences and loyalty.
• Businesses use AI to improve customer interactions, making things easier and better for everyone.

AI-Led Customer Experience: Unveiling Innovative Tools for Business Growth

Customer experience (CX) is the cornerstone of success in today’s highly competitive business world. It’s not just about offering a product or service; it’s about creating unforgettable experiences that foster loyalty and enthusiastic support. The realization that AI has the power to change how businesses interact with their customers is driving enterprises to adopt cutting-edge AI tools for better customer experience.

6 Use Cases for AI-Driven Customer Experience Tools

AI has changed the game in customer experience by enabling businesses to personalize interactions, automate processes, and analyze data to gain deeper insights into customer behavior.  By leveraging AI-powered solutions, companies can predict customer needs, deliver personalized experiences, and drive unparalleled levels of engagement. So many new AI tools are being released that it is difficult to keep track of the available options.

This article will review each use case and provide examples of popular tools that can help improve your CX.

Chatbots/Virtual Agents

Chatbots and virtual agents are AI-based software developed to stimulate human-like conversations with customers. These tools enable businesses to automate customer interactions and address common inquiries, such as questions about features, account status, or subscription plans. It also accesses information from your knowledge base to provide relevant resources when needed. In most cases, businesses can integrate these tools directly into their website.

Disclaimer: These lists are based on publicly available information and may include vendor websites that sell to mid-to-large enterprises. Readers are advised to conduct their final research to ensure the best fit for their unique organizational needs.

IBM Watson Assistant

IBM Watson AssistantOpens a new window is a leading AI-powered virtual assistant that enables businesses to build and deploy chatbots across multiple channels and manage extensive customer service inquiries. Based on recent research conducted by Forrester Consulting, IBM’s solutions have enhanced customer engagement and improved financial growth for Watson Assistant customers. These enhancements have generated an impressive ROI of 370% and delivered $23 millionOpens a new window in revenue over the past three years. 

Pricing: The “lite” plan is available for free. Standard plans start at $140/month for 1000 monthly active users. Enterprise plans are custom-priced.

Google Dialogflow

Google DialogflowOpens a new window offers a comprehensive development platform that helps to build conversational interfaces such as chatbots, voice bots, and virtual agents using natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning.

Pricing: It varies, as monthly pricing is based on the edition (standard or advanced) and the number of requests made.

Salesforce Einstein Bots

Salesforce Einstein BotsOpens a new window employ AI to automate customer interactions and assist support agents, enabling businesses to offer personalized and efficient customer service across channels. This streamlined approach enhances customer satisfaction and ensures smooth service delivery by providing quick assistance. 

Pricing: $70 for 100 conversations per month, available with Enterprise and Unlimited editions.

Microsoft Azure Bot Service 

Microsoft Azure Bot Service Opens a new window allows enterprises to develop intelligent bots that interact with people through natural language. This tool helps companies to provide assistance, gather information, and perform tasks on behalf of users, streamlining business processes and bolstering productivity. 

Pricing: Microsoft Azure includes unlimited messages in standard channels. Premium channels are also free for up to 10,000 messages/month. Users pay for resources consumed and can build custom packages for an additional fee. 

Oracle Digital Assistant

Oracle Digital Assistant Opens a new window enables businesses to develop and implement conversational interfaces across multiple channels, including websites, mobile apps, and messaging platforms. The platform facilitates the seamless creation of conversational experiences within business applications, supporting text, chat, and voice interfaces. 

Pricing: Users can pay per request ($0.0232 per request) or select a monthly subscription by the employee ($3 per seat), named users ($6 per seat), or sessions ($275/1000 sessions). Minimum amounts may be required.

Voice Recognition

Voice recognition technology enables customers to interact with businesses using natural language, eliminating the need for traditional input methods such as typing or clicking. This delivers shorter wait times, provides 24/7 availability, ensures consistency, simplifies personalization, and empowers users to help themselves. Customers enjoy faster access to support, round-the-clock assistance, consistent experiences, personalized interactions, and hands-free convenience.

Amazon Lex

Amazon LexOpens a new window is a fully managed AWS service that develops conversational interfaces using voice and text. It powers Amazon Alexa’s voice recognition capabilities and enables businesses to integrate voice-enabled features into their applications and services.

Pricing: The bot is free (with limits) for the first year. Afterward, the cost per request varies based on the type of request (text or speech) and the number of requests. Custom bot training incurs additional costs.

Google Cloud Speech-to-Text

Google Cloud Speech-to-TextOpens a new window is a powerful speech recognition service that converts audio input into text transcriptions and integrates speech recognition into applications with easy-to-use APIs. It offers high accuracy and supports multiple languages, making it suitable for various applications, including voice-enabled customer service and voice-controlled devices.

Pricing: Per minute ranges between $0.016-$0.024, based on the API version.

IBM Watson Speech-to-Text

IBM Watson Speech to TextOpens a new window , available on the cloud, is a speech recognition service that converts audio into text with high accuracy. It supports multiple languages and can transcribe audio from various sources, such as phone calls, videos, and live streams.

Pricing: Up to 500 minutes per month are free. After that, pricing varies based on the minutes used. Enterprise pricing is available by request.

Apple SiriKit

Apple SiriKitOpens a new window is an iOS, iPadOS, and watchOS framework incorporating Siri, Apple’s virtual assistant. It enables developers to add voice-controlled features to their apps, allowing users to perform tasks and access information using natural language commands. The framework creates a better customer experience and loyalty by simplifying user interactions and offering hassle-free convenience.

Pricing: Free, but requires an Apple Developer Program membership.

Omnichannel Support

Omnichannel support means customers get the same great experience no matter how they reach out, whether through chat, email, phone, or social media. Customers can switch between channels without feeling lost, and businesses can track all their interactions. This is essential for meeting modern consumers’ diverse needs and preferences who expect a seamless and integrated experience across all channels.

Zendesk

ZendeskOpens a new window is a leading customer service software trusted by 200K+ customers that offers omnichannel support solutions, including ticketing, live chat, phone support, and self-service portals. It enables businesses to manage customer interactions across multiple channels from a single interface, ensuring every customer’s consistent and personalized experience. It allows businesses to capture insights and make informed decisions for their customers.

Pricing:  Basic plans start at $19 per agent per month. Plans with access to ticketing, messaging, and AI features start at $55 per agent per month. Enterprise pricing is available on request.

Freshdesk

FreshdeskOpens a new window is a cloud-based customer support software with omnichannel support capabilities, including email, chat, phone, and social media integration. It helps businesses streamline customer satisfaction and deliver timely and personalized support across all channels.

Pricing: A free plan is available for up to 10 agents. Monthly fees start at $15 per agent and range up to $95.

Salesforce Service Cloud

Salesforce Service CloudOpens a new window is a customer service platform that helps businesses efficiently manage and resolve customer inquiries and issues. It also assists companies in delivering personalized and connected customer experiences across all channels, including email, chat, phone, social media, and messaging apps. Salesforce Service Cloud provides a unified view of customer interactions and enables seamless collaboration among service teams.

Pricing: A free trial is available. Monthly fees start at $25 per user and range to $500. Some features may incur additional costs.

HubSpot Service Hub

HubSpot Service HubOpens a new window is a customer service software that offers omnichannel support solutions, including ticketing, live chat, phone support, and knowledge base management. With Service Hub, businesses can provide prompt, exceptional, personalized customer support and build lasting customer relationships.

Pricing: Free tools are available for up to five users. Plans vary based on company size and features and range from a monthly fee of $15 per seat up to $130 per seat.

Zoho Desk

Zoho DeskOpens a new window is cloud-based help desk software designed to create happier customers, empower agents, and foster healthier businesses. It helps companies monitor critical customer service KPIs, gain deeper insights into customer needs, and provide value-driven support.

Pricing: A free plan is available for basic needs. Tiered plans start at $7 per user per month.

Personalization Engines

According to a BCG survey, 67% of CMOs actively consider generative AI for personalizationOpens a new window . This technology drives personalization engines, which analyze customer data to deliver tailored experiences and recommendations. With the help of personalization engines, businesses can anticipate customer needs, provide targeted offers, and create personalized marketing campaigns. This boosts customer engagement, increases conversion rates, and fosters greater satisfaction and loyalty.

Adobe Target

Adobe TargetOpens a new window is a personalization engine that helps businesses deliver targeted and personalized customer experiences across digital channels. It offers advanced segmentation, testing, and targeting capabilities, enabling companies to create and optimize customized campaigns, content, and offers. By delivering personalized experiences, Adobe Target empowers businesses to improve customer engagement, drive conversions, and enhance overall CX.

Pricing: Adobe Target software packages and licensing are custom-built. Pricing varies based on the feature set, the type and number of digital properties involved, and the number of channels in use.

Dynamic Yield

Dynamic YieldOpens a new window is a software platform that focuses on real-time personalization to enhance customer experience. It uses machine learning and predictive analytics to deliver product recommendations and other dynamic content to individual customers. It makes it easier for businesses to optimize interactions across websites, apps, emails, and other digital touchpoints.

Pricing: Potential customers must contact the sales team for a demo or submit an RFI/RFP for pricing information.

Personalization Engine by Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Salesforce Marketing Cloud offers a Personalization EngineOpens a new window tool to help deliver personalized one-to-one experiences to customers across websites, mobile apps, and other digital channels. The platform provides advanced segmentation, real-time personalization, and behavioral targeting capabilities. Businesses can deliver customers with relevant content, offers, and recommendations based on their unique preferences and behaviors.

Pricing: Salesforce Marketing Cloud Personalization is available to enterprises on an annual basis, starting at $108,000 per year.

Acquia Personalization

Acquia PersonalizationOpens a new window is an add-on for Drupal that can deliver personalized, relevant customer experiences across websites, mobile apps, and other digital channels. It offers no-code personalization, adaptive targeting, and machine-learning-powered content recommendation capabilities, empowering businesses to tailor their messaging and offerings to individual customers in real-time. It also integrates with customer data platforms (CPD) to incorporate real-time data into tailor-made customer experiences.

Pricing: Varies, as this is an add-on for Acquia’s CMS offering.

Sentiment Analysis

Sentiment analysis, also called opinion mining, uses natural language processing and text analysis techniques to extract qualitative insights about how customers are feeling or reacting to a topic or brand. These tools analyze text-based information (such as customer feedback, online reviews, and social media posts) to determine the prevailing sentiments or emotional tones expressed within the text. Businesses can more easily analyze customer perceptions, identify trends and patterns, and adjust their products, services, or overall customer experience programs accordingly.

Lexalytics

LexalyticsOpens a new window is a text analytics and natural language processing platform that provides business sentiment analysis and data mining solutions. It provides an easy and quick way to determine sentiments from extensive unstructured data. Use cases include social media monitoring, regulatory compliance, robotic process automation, and voice-of-the-customer programs.

Pricing: Pricing varies based on the chosen solution and installation method: on-premises, in the cloud, or within a hybrid infrastructure.

Talkwalker

TalkwalkerOpens a new window is a consumer analytics platform offering sentiment analysis and social listening solutions that Hootsuite recently acquired. The platform combines data sources on audience demographics, interests, motivations, and other factors to better monitor brand sentiment and analyze social media conversations.

Pricing: Potential customers must contact the sales team for a demo and pricing.

Predictive Analytics

Predictive analytics utilizes historical data, statistical algorithms, and machine learning techniques to forecast future trends, behaviors, and outcomes. A familiar use case of predictive analytics is when your mobile phone suggests what word you are most likely to use next in a text message. This technology can improve your company’s operations by calculating customer lifetime value, finding high-value customers, targeting marketing campaigns, and improving customer retention rates.

IBM SPSS

IBM SPSSOpens a new window is a software platform for performing advanced statistical analysis, including predictive analytics and modeling capabilities. It is designed to analyze large datasets, build predictive models, and uncover insights that support decision-making. Several add-ons are available, including a modeler, collaboration, deployment services, structural equation modeling, and an analytic server.

Pricing: Flexible, including monthly subscriptions and perpetual licenses, with options like Base ($3,830/user), Standard ($8,440/user), Professional ($16,900/user), and Premium ($28,200/user). Discounted rates for students and educators are also available.

Google Analytics

Google AnalyticsOpens a new window is a web analytics platform that provides predictive analytics and business insights. It helps businesses understand their customers across devices and platforms. It also allows companies to track website traffic, analyze user behavior, and measure the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. Using Google Analytics, businesses can predict customer preferences, identify opportunities for improvement, and optimize CX strategies to boost user experience and drive conversions.

Pricing: Google Analytics is available for free. Additional features may be available through Google Marketing Platform, an enterprise-level solution.

Microsoft Power BI

Microsoft Power BIOpens a new window allows users to connect to and visualize data. It also integrates with Microsoft 365 to deliver real-time insights within the apps themselves. Capabilities include descriptive and predictive analytics to identify trends and forecast future outcomes.

Pricing: Free accounts are available. Advanced licenses start at $10 per user per month, or it can be bundled with access to Microsoft Fabric.

Conclusion

Integrating AI technologies in CX transforms how businesses engage with customers. Companies can deliver personalized experiences, simplify customer interactions, and drive loyalty by utilizing advanced AI tools. With the right AI-driven strategies and solutions, businesses can stay ahead of the competition and thrive in today’s digital landscape.

Do you use AI technologies to enhance customer experience in your organization? Let us know on LinkedInOpens a new window , Facebook,Opens a new window and XOpens a new window . We would love to hear from you!

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