How Businesses Can Get AI On Their Side To Improve Customer Trust

By Nitin Seth, Founder and CEO at Conversive

The promise of AI has made businesses rush to adopt it without a moment’s thought. And it’s understandable: In customer communications, this technology has helped automate responses, offer 24/7 support, personalize services, and free up human power for other tasks.

But a recent Gartner report revealed that nearly two-thirds of customers don’t want AI in customer service, citing their concern about data usage, inability to resolve inquiries, and a lack of accuracy and humane touch from automated chatbots.

All of this doesn’t mean companies should throw their AI plans out the window. Three in five industry leaders are under pressure to adopt this technology. Ultimately, experts say customers’ skepticism shouldn’t stop leaders from implementing AI as it will still represent a competitive advantage when it comes to shorter wait times and faster time-to-resolution. 

How can businesses effectively adopt AI to improve communications strategies and gain their customers’ trust? It’s all about striking a balance between technology and human oversight — and being transparent about usage policies. When done right, AI can help companies deliver a new level of performance by forming personable relationships that enable bigger growth. Today, AI is an indispensable tool to have on your side.

Let’s address common AI adoption pitfalls, ways to remediate them, and how to instill trust and retain customers through the use of this technology.

Where Businesses Are Getting It Wrong

A lack of digital context and content means companies could be sabotaging themselves when implementing generative AI in their customer communications — leading to most people’s aversion to receiving automated responses that are insensitive or generic.

For example, many companies adopt a chatbot that automates responses, but they fail to feed it enough context to articulate conversations with a personable touch. As a result, these businesses inadvertently represent themselves as inauthentic with formulaic communications that don’t take emotional indicators and other nuances into account. By feeding these tools more contextual content and data, interactions can be more natural and conversational.

For customers to trust AI, they first have to trust existing digital communications. For example, when someone grants consent to be contacted through SMS but then receives a phone call, this sends the wrong message. Keeping opt-in and opt-out preferences updated and upheld at all times is primordial for customers to feel heard and cared for. 

Instilling Long-Lasting Trust

Looking at AI and how a business adopts emerging technologies can be daunting, but keeping customers front and center in these implementations helps companies stay on the right track. The way businesses go about these changes has a massive impact on customer acceptance and eventual positive returns. Rolling out customer-facing AI must be done right so the first engagement is positive, instead of becoming the last engagement.  

To start, companies must maintain full transparency on AI usage and data storage when communicating with their customers. These disclaimers can be pop-ups before starting a chat, included in the terms and conditions under emails, or a quick comment before starting a call. Not doing so can leave customers in the dark about how their data is being handled for purposes like personalization.

Businesses must also have strict oversight of who has access to customer data and apply the least privilege principle. All data should be encrypted while at rest or in transit and follow security practices in accordance with a company’s data protection software. But whatever safety measures are in place, make sure your customers know about them — this will give them a sense of relief. 

And companies must ensure their data usage complies with national or regional regulations and let this be known to their customers. Examples include adhering to GDPR in the European Union, HIPAA for the Healthcare industry in the US, and 10 Digit Long Code (10DLC) registration.

As a rule of thumb for any business delivering SMS messaging to customers in the US, they must comply with The Campaign Registry’s 10DLC registration for full transparency and to avoid their messages from being labeled as spam. Not registering will result in messaging disruptions, penalties, and potentially costly fines of up to $10,000. 

Implementing AI For Enhanced Customer Retention

AI is increasingly becoming a welcomed team member, delivering the intellectual horsepower and extra manpower every company needs. It’s also helping companies stay ahead of the curve to remain competitive, improving performance quality and speed. What’s more, it’s enabling companies to increase their retention rates through personalization.

The more companies communicate with customers through multiple channels, the more data they have at their disposal to make AI more knowledgeable. AI can analyze multichannel interactions to gauge customer sentiment and intent, deliver proactive actions to improve customer experience, and even notify an internal resource for intervention at critical moments. 

With the proper instructions and context, AI can also examine lifecycle stages, product usage, and engagement dynamics to understand whether a customer is at risk of canceling their service or needing a product. Depending on its assessment, it can deliver customized content, tutorials, guides, or special offers tailored to customer preferences, elevating their perception of the brand and their likelihood to stay.

Ultimately, AI should be as trustworthy as any other capability offered by a business. People’s acceptance of new technologies and company changes increases when their experience with the brand improves. So, it’s time for businesses to implement AI wisely and derive real value from it to reduce churn and enhance customers’ trust and confidence in the company. Following regulation, being transparent and personalizing experiences are some of the best routes toward building excellent customer relationships with AI.

Nitin Seth is the Co-Founder and CEO of SMS Magic and Conversive, with over 21 years of experience in driving advanced conversational messaging solutions across platforms like SMS, WhatsApp, and Facebook. A recognized leader in the field, Nitin is passionate about solving the problem of “messaging chaos” caused by irrelevant, impersonal communication. He advocates for using AI and digital technologies to deliver personalized, simple, and effective brand engagements.

Based in Pune, India, Nitin frequently travels across the U.S. and globally. Outside of work, he is a dedicated practitioner of yoga and mindfulness and enjoys discussing the intersections of science, spirituality, and business.