Amelia’s industry-leading Natural Language Interface (NLI) allows users to locate information or make changes in their delivery options through multiple channels 24/7.
Studies have shown that it can cost up to five times as much to acquire a new customer than it does to retain an existing one. In fact, a report from Bain & Company found that a mere 5% increase in customer retention translates to more than a 25% increase in profit because “return customers tend to buy more from a company over time. As they do, your operating costs to serve them decline. What’s more, return customers refer others to your company.”
One of the key avenues to customer retention is meaningful post-purchase engagement. Cognitive agents like Amelia are uniquely qualified for this role as they can provide personalized and immediate omnichannel communications at scale.
Here are four ways that a cognitive technology can maximize your post-purchase communication strategy.
Receipts and Other Transactional Confirmations
While most consumers have learned to ignore the barrage of email offers and messages from retailers that they receive throughout the day, there are some reliable high-engagement communications, such as the transactional receipt — a confirmation notice following the purchase of a product or service.
According to the email marketing platform SendGrid, receipt emails detailing a recent transaction have three times higher open rates than commercial email because consumers “took a certain action in which they expect to receive a communication from you… As a result, they are more apt to open your email.” According a study highlighted by SendGrid, 64% of consumers consider transactional emails to be the most valuable messages in their inbox – far more than even newsletters and promotions (which only garnered “high-value” designations from 20% and 18% of respondents, respectively).
Amelia can augment the sending of email receipts across multiple channels, while adding personalization touches that can further enhance the overall customer experience. For example, a user who signs up for a service via a voice interaction can receive a confirmation through email, SMS or whatever channel the customer prefers. She can also deliver the same cross-channel communications following brick and mortar purchases.
Furthermore, Amelia has the ability to craft personalized messages by incorporating user data from back-end systems, consumers’ purchase histories or other elements. This same functionality allows her to automate relevant up- and cross-sells (e.g., banking customers who add a spouse to a checking account might be sent information on opening a joint savings account).
Interactive, Always-Available Delivery Status
Any modern CRM solution can proactively send automated communications about product delivery status (e.g., “Your widget has left the shipping center and will arrive in three to five business days”), but a cognitive agent like Amelia can do much more.
Amelia’s industry-leading Natural Language Interface (NLI) allows users to locate information or make changes in their delivery options through multiple channels 24/7. Customers can tell Amelia, “I would like to change the delivery to my office address,” or “What time of day is the delivery expected?” This ubiquitous accessibility adds a level of convenience as customers can connect at any time through the channel of their choice.
Automated Omnichannel Customer Support
As a customer support agent, Amelia offers many advantages over chat bots or even human-powered call centers. Notably, she can be accessed 24/7 scales to meet demand, so users are never forced to wait in queue. Her NLI allows customers to locate information or find answers to their FAQs. In the event that Amelia is not able to assist a customer, she can package all the relevant information and seamlessly escalate the customer inquiry to a live human agent.
Meanwhile, Amelia’s secure back-end integrations allow customers to independently resolve issues with limited human intermediation, such as updating credit card information for a subscription service or changing contact information.
Furthermore, Amelia can proactively alert companies to relevant spikes in specific support issues, which allows problems to be addressed in a timely manner (e.g., a sudden increase in reports of a particular toy car model’s wheels falling off may signify a production problem that needs to be addressed).
Immersive Feedback
Customer feedback is invaluable for companies to systematically improve their products and decide on new offerings moving forward. Giving customers the ability to provide opinions and feedback can benefit companies, but it also allows customers to feel like their opinions have been heard and taken seriously.
With her NLI, customers can give their feedback at any time of day through email, voice, text, chat and other channels. This feedback can then be turned into data points that can influence future communications. For example, if an airline customer comments that they would have vacationed in Hawaii instead of Arizona if fare prices were lower, the customer could receive an alert on a special deal on flights to Honolulu.
It’s far easier and more profitable to work with the customers who are already familiar with your business and its offerings. An advanced cognitive agent like Amelia can help you retain, engage and upsell to current customers, and keep customer satisfaction high.
