new! listen to article
There’s no denying that AI has completely changed the landscape for businesses. However, most companies still struggle to successfully turn their AI expectations into reality.
Only 25% of CEOs say their AI initiatives have achieved the expected ROI.
While large enterprises often have the time and resources needed to experiment with this technology, small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) working within tight budgets don’t have the financial resources to wait. Lack of ROI has a huge cost to your bottom line.
Small businesses need to see tangible results to help justify their investment. This means your AI strategy must take an approach that can drive shorter-term business outcomes.
So how can small businesses turn their AI investments into real-world impact?
CX expectations create new opportunities for SMB marketers
With business growth increasingly reliant on customer experience (CX), with 78% of consumers saying they would stop working with a business if the customer experience was poor, small business marketers are in a prime position to help their businesses reap the benefits of AI.
Marketers are the driving force behind a lead’s first interaction with a brand, and in today’s CX-centric world, that first impression is everything. Especially when people are willing to take their business elsewhere if their expectations are not met.
Enhanced customer experience plays a critical role for SMBs in not only converting leads into customers, but also in overall growth. This CX demand provides SMB marketers with a unique opportunity to make AI investments that deliver real, immediate results for their businesses.
3 reasons why SMB marketers need voice AI in their toolkit
Given the proliferation of AI tools available to businesses, finding the right solution can be a major hurdle. In fact, nearly half (48%) of SMBs using AI struggle with choosing the right tools.
SMB marketers need solutions that can drive real results while enabling enhanced CX interactions, so they should prioritize investments in voice AI that can process and generate human-like voices.
Instead of typical robotic voices with limited responses, voice AI solutions provide customers with human-like interactions with the ability to recognize and adapt responses based on everything from tone to the caller’s needs.
Voice AI capabilities take traditional interactions to the next level. With the right voice AI tools, SMB marketers can achieve three strategic goals.
1. Eliminate lost business opportunities
Due to resource constraints, SMBs often have small teams taking on many roles. So, when a call comes in, you might be so preoccupied with other high-priority tasks that you miss the call.
For SMBs, each call is an opportunity, and missed calls result in lost revenue.
Voice AI solutions enable SMBs to ensure that all calls to the company are answered, even during non-business hours. SMBs that leverage voice AI capabilities have an advantage over their competitors by being able to provide 24/7 support to leads and existing customers. This allows marketers to increase lead conversion and increase revenue for their business.
2. Deliver enhanced CX interactions
AI agents are all the rage right now, but their capabilities tend to be limited to performing specific, narrow tasks. Voice AI technology can perform more advanced tasks, from automatically scheduling appointments for callers to handing off calls to SMS and continuing conversations via text, helping create a more seamless experience for callers.
Agents powered by voice AI are equipped with powerful intelligence, including the context of a caller’s previous conversations and multilingual support that allows the AI agent to switch from English to Japanese during a conversation.
This additional layer of intelligence allows small businesses to ensure that every interaction is not only smooth, but truly instant and personalized for every customer.
3. Optimize your budget with data-driven insights
Voice AI tools not only help small businesses receive more calls; It also tracks important insights from every call. This not only tracks details like why the caller contacted you, but also things like how qualified the lead is.
These solutions not only provide marketers with deeper knowledge about the best leads, but also provide recommendations on the next best action for high-quality leads by analyzing call insights.
Even more amazingly, we can now take things a step further by using Call Insights to create templates that allow marketers to instantly follow up with leads in a way that is tailored to their specific scenario.
* * *
As small businesses look to break through the AI noise and find areas where they can see real ROI, voice AI solutions should be top of mind. After all, small businesses can make an immediate impact, including increasing both the quantity and quality of opportunities that come to their business.
Voice AI technology allows SMB marketers to give potential and existing customers the experience they actively want from their brand, converting more leads and driving overall business growth, as well as building strong levels of brand loyalty.
CX demands continue to drive business into new realities. To keep pace with this rapid change, voice AI technology will be what separates the leaders from the laggards.
