Have you filled up refinancing documents for your property? Or a mortgage loan application? Both are processes that can take an hour to get done. The back and forth of text messages with the bank agent, accessing documents from various domains, filling and cross-checking the forms. A task I wish some sort of intelligence could do for me automatically.

While this isn’t the norm for banks as yet, today forward looking enterprises are shortening customer journeys and providing smarter services that delight their customers. Not doing so risks business failure. Accenture records that US$1.6 trillion worth of businesses change hands in the US because of inadequate customer service.

To meet the expectations of customer service today, AI assistants have to take a more central role than ever before. They have to be embedded not just within a department but across whole organisations, unilaterally serving both internal and external stakeholders. They cannot be a standalone application but have to work with other applications to provide more services. How would such an AI assistant of tomorrow look like today?

Search, compare and recommend like a customer service pro

Google home today is great for daily conveniences. Will it rain today? What’s the amazon stock price today? Play spotify..etc. Increasingly, time crunched consumers expect AI assistants to take on more cognitive roles like research, compare and educate. Hotels care about early bookings and filling rooms during lull periods. A hotel’s AI assistant that is integrated with a search engine that has access to multiple domains, say CRM or/and public databases, can read and evaluate a customer’s profile, booking preferences, important dates and spend behavior prescribe truly personalised room packages. Better still, do this preemptively as a VIP protocol to improve pre-booking volume.

Read and understand documents and fill that dreaded application form

Form filling, the dreaded task I did yesterday would be a thing of the past. Banks or retail enterprises can expect AI assistants that are synced with unstructured document extraction software to facilitate submission, validation and population of complex documents. With digital identity authenticated as a security measure, they can extract the relevant information and auto-fill forms with it – a solution a client of Taiger is exploring. The customer journey from filling to application submission will be dramatically reduced, improving customer satisfaction at scale.

Pocket sized sales trainer for retail environments

AI assistants are common in retail as gateways to purchase but in today’s fast paced and demanding retail environment, customers expect more attention to detail and more personalised service, all while maintaining the human touch. An omnichannel approach to customer service emphasized by McKinsey shows the level of complexity and customisation needed to treat each customer with care and competence. AI assistants can add more value in the omnichannel value chain, especially in retail.

“They can be an always-on salesperson assistant rather than the final stage transactor.”

When a customer asks for a technical product in store, the salesperson might not have a complete understanding about the ask and can refer to the AI assistant immediately to know more about the product, where to find it, how to use it, provide useful recommendations on what else to buy, giving the salesperson the confidence to deliver the care while up-selling naturally.

The rise of integrated, application connected AI assistants

While Alexa and Google assistant are shiny examples of enablers of convenience today, they are just the tip of the iceberg. AI assistants are doing more than before, being integrated and operable with applications across whole organizations. They are the lynchpin of any organisation that wants to scale their customer service operations without the traditional cost and inefficiencies associated with it. They are critical to any organisations who wants a single view of their business and customers, and serve with greater proficiency and personalisation all at their fingertips. It’s time to rethink what AI assistants of tomorrow look like.