If used properly, AI could replace clumsy sales spam with meaningful, targeted engagement that customers actually want.
With all the debate around artificial intelligence (AI), from the flatearthers wanting to go off the grid to escape it, the lazy kids in class doing their essays with it and the tech bros rushing headlong towards it, couldn’t we suggest a fourth option – customer interaction?
Probably the greatest failing that the great sweatshop call centres have, as their operators do their thankless task of cold calling arbitrary people to pitch their wares too, is that the recipients of those calls only have a very tangential link to that what it is that the cold callers are trying to flog to them.
I’ve had someone trying to get me to consider moving over to the bank that I actually bank with.
The same has happened with insurance, while being upsold a new decoder by someone who can’t understand that a smart TV actually does the same work, is probably the ring that rules them all.
Spray and pray e-mails, sent out blindly to everyone in a contact list, in the hope that you’ll open the e-mail, click on the link and start engaging with the content are a close second.
I’ve heard of a media company (not The Citizen, I must add) that actually sends e-mails to its supporters behaving like a born again pastor demanding more tithes, without acknowledging the support that is already being given – and guilts those same supporters because of the vitally important role the organisation is playing – all in the same e-mail.
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It’s counterproductive. If AI was used properly, the pitches would be on point and to the point.
After all, we all click on enough cookies every day, are continuously overheard by our phones and cosseted by our algorithms. The talking bots might even be more empathetic, too, if they were properly prompted.
Who knows? Many of us might actually take up that holiday offer, buy the time share, change our insurance or migrate to different banks – we might even buy a new car, all from a telephone call or an e-mail.
But here’s the thing, how do the cold callers and e-mail spammers know how to get hold of us in the brave new world of Popi?
Perhaps that’s what we need to be using the ChatGPT on our phones for – to develop our inhouse blocking app that can divert any unwanted interaction, or even better, block it at sources automatically.
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