How will AI impact your organization?

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The news about artificial intelligence has been coming fast and furious over the past six months.  The list of things AI can do is reason for excitement as well as some worry.  But either way, it’s coming.  Organizations that learn how to utilize AI will benefit, but those who don’t risk falling behind.

  • Shameless plug: I’m offering a 60-minute webinar, “Intro to AI for Business” and a full-day workshop, “How Your Company Can Benefit from AI.”  Details at the end of this email.

How can organizations benefit from AI?

  • Encourage employees to familiarize themselves with AI.  Learn the basics of what AI is and how it works.  Use AI chat bots such as Chat GPT and Bard.  Find out what platforms are offering AI-powered services for your industry and get demos.
  • One caveat to the above: have a policy about acceptable ways for employees to use AI, and in particular, what data may and may not be shared on an AI platform.  Be aware of data confidentiality considerations – these differ by platform.  For example, information shared with ChatGPT is used to train it further.  However, OpenAI announced it will soon launch ChatGPT Business which will enable organizations to keep their data confidential.
  • Customer experience: the fact that AI can analyze vast amounts of data with ease can provide opportunities for organizations to serve their customers faster, better or in a more customized fashion.  For example, could your organization use AI to handle customer questions more quickly?   Or anticipate their needs with tailored recommendations? 
  • Innovation: organizations can use AI to analyze the behavior and needs of customers and prospects and come up with new products and services.
  • Marketing: AI can help organizations target their marketing more effectively, as well as help reduce the time needed to create marketing materials.
  • Productivity: AI sharply decreases the time to accomplish knowledge work tasks.  This raises concerns about layoffs, but the benefit could also be used to increase productivity and to enable employees to have the work-life balance so many organizations say they aspire to.

Of course, the above is just a partial list, and each organization will have their own specific opportunities and challenges when it comes to AI.  I’m here to help with the following options:

  • Intro to AI for Business: 60-minute webinar that explains what AI is and how organizations can benefit from AI, as well potential pitfalls to be aware of.  Includes time for Q&A.
  • How Your Company Can Benefit from AI: A full-day, in-person facilitated workshop to brainstorm ways your organization can best utilize AI, including a review of the relevant AI-powered platforms currently available.

Email me at info at bureauwest.com and let’s discuss how I can help!

Sources: Bureau West research; “OpenAI previews business plan for ChatGPT, launches new privacy controls,” TechCrunch, 4/25/23

Posted on by Jay Zaltzman

Learn to use AI now… before the competition

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been in the news lately because a recent advance in the technology now makes AI both significantly more advanced and more accessible to businesses. While in the past, companies needed big budgets and teams of developers to utilize AI, current tools have opened the technology to medium and even small companies.

Marketing is one area where companies are benefitting from AI.  A few examples:

  • Companies are using AI to analyze data on customer behavior, demographics, and purchase history to create personalized marketing campaigns that are more likely to resonate with individual customers.
  • Retailers are using AI-powered chatbots to provide personalized product recommendations to customers based on their browsing history and purchase history.
  • Restaurants are using AI-powered predictive analytics to analyze customer data and make predictions about which menu items are likely to be popular, allowing them to optimize their menu and improve their sales.

And there are many benefits beyond marketing, such as:

  • Companies are uncovering new business opportunities by using AI to analyze customer behavior and preferences.
  • Banks and other businesses are using AI to detect and prevent fraud.
  • Manufacturers are using AI-powered predictive maintenance systems to predict when equipment is likely to fail, so that maintenance can be scheduled before a breakdown occurs.

And that’s just a small sample of the ways AI is being used.  To be fair, many people have concerns about AI, such as job losses and potential abuse of AI systems.  But like it or not, these advances are coming and companies that don’t get involved may find themselves at a competitive disadvantage.

I’m starting a mastermind group for those interested in discussing how to utilize AI to benefit their companies.  Please let me know if you’d like to participate.  Email me at info at bureauwest.com.

Sources: Bureau West research; ChatGPT; “How AI could empower any business,” Andrew Ng, TED2022; Graphic: Designed by pikisuperstar / Freepik

Posted on by Jay Zaltzman

Consumers planning to spend less

We’ve all heard about the pent-up demand that has led to increased spending lately and which is a major factor in the inflation we’re experiencing currently.  That increased spending has been particularly noticeable in the travel category.  Flights have been full and prices for transportation and accommodations have risen sharply.

In recent focus groups about travel, we asked frequent travelers if they intend to continue the increased pace of travel.  The answer was a resounding “no.”  Almost all participants had postponed travel plans during the pandemic and finally made those trips this year.  Now that those trips have been made, they are planning to go back to their normal travel frequency.

In other research, we’ve been talking to consumers about inflation and the impact on their spending.  While many talked about accepting higher prices and adding higher tips during the pandemic, now consumers are being more careful and looking to spend less.  My own personal experience: I was going to order a pizza online from a local restaurant, which I planned to pick up myself, until I noticed they added a “pickup fee.”  For me, that just crossed a line, and I decided to order somewhere else.  A few weeks later, I ordered from that restaurant again, and the pickup fee had disappeared.

What does this mean for marketers?  It may be time to return to emphasizing value and offering promotional deals.  Let’s find out how your customers feel about spending.  Email me at info at bureauwest.com.

Source: Bureau West research

Posted on by Jay Zaltzman

Customer delight creates big ROI

Many companies’ approach to customer experience focuses on eliminating negatives (“was your customer service rep knowledgeable?  Was your hold time acceptable?) rather than increasing positives or “delighting” the customer.

Of course, it’s important to ensure customers don’t have a terrible experience.  But a great deal of research has shown that focusing on customer delight has significantly greater return on investment than eliminating negatives.

  • In their book “The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact,” Chip Heath and Dan Heath examined data from Forrester and found that elevating positive experiences creates nine times more revenue than eliminating negative experiences.
  • Another Forrester study found companies that prioritize customer experience grow their revenue 1.7 times faster than companies that don’t, and they also increase their customer lifetime value by 2.3 times more.
  • Watermark Consulting looked at thirteen years of stock performance of companies that are customer experience leaders and found that customer experience leaders outperformed the broader market, generating a total return that was 108 points higher than the S&P 500 Index and they generated a total cumulative return that was 3.4 times greater than that of customer experience laggards.

In “The Power of Moments,” the Heath brothers provide two great examples of companies who have profited significantly from customer delight:

  • You know the funny safety announcements that sometimes happen on Southwest Airlines?  (E.g., “the smoking section on this airplane is on the wing.”)  The company was able to calculate the impact of hearing a funny flight announcement on customers’ likelihood of flying Southwest: they flew an average of half a flight more over the next year than did similar customers who hadn’t heard one.  They calculated that if Southwest could double the number of customers hearing a funny flight safety announcement, the result would be more than $140 million in revenue per year.
  • Sharp Healthcare made a significant investment to improve the patient experience.  Beyond the medical care patients received, they wanted to improve the service experience.  For example, caregivers stopped talking over patients and actually introduce themselves and explain their roles.  In the five years since starting the effort, net revenue increased by half a billion dollars.

Figuring out how to elevate the customer experience requires investing some resources and some creative thinking – but the result is clearly worth the investment.

How can you delight your customers?  Let’s talk to them and find out!  Email me at info at bureauwest.com.

Sources: “The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact,” Chip Heath and Dan Heath, 2017; “The Business Impact Of Investing In Experience,” Forrester, June, 2021; “2021 Customer Experience ROI Study,” Watermark Consulting, 2021

Posted on by Jay Zaltzman