Alexa. Siri. The Google Assistant. The chatbot pop-up on a website. The suggested films and shows created just for you on Netflix. What do all these have in common? Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning.
All of these systems use the superior computing power and analysis capabilities of machine learning to create a better user experience. "They can be used to dramatically improve the user experience in general by either making the application or the data, more available," Christophe Coenraets, Principal Developer Evangelist at Salesforce told the Salesforce blog.
Customer Education is another area that benefits from the insights AI and machine learning can uncover. Let's take a closer look at how it's affecting Customer Education (CE).
5 Ways AI is Affecting Customer Education
1. Reinforcing customer learning through chatbots
Chatbots use keywords customers type in the chat window to deliver the right response and the right information. Why not use the same channel to reinforce product knowledge? Education pros can insert product terms, information, and more in the chatbot response library, helping customers make associations with the information they've already learned in previous training programs.
2. Influencing program content and learning pathway management
Managing the vast library of learning content can be a challenge for learning professionals. There's just too much content to monitor, manage, update, and create at any given time. Instead of relying on the CE pros alone to initiate changes to training programs, why not use chatbot data to influence the learning content? The chatbot data contains a wealth of information useful to CE pros and their training programs. They can use the questions customers ask to identify new courses to create or existing courses to update. They can adjust course schedules based on keyword levels in the chat data, increasing engagement with the courses.
3. Letting customers drive learning pathways
AI helps training teams guide learning pathways for customers more accurately, using the access it has to back office and customer background data. For example, instead of merely presenting the same training programs based on assumed product knowledge and usage, AI could analyze the data on customers' past training experience, actual product usage, and any conversations had with the company via email and chatbots. Then, it could create a customized learning pathways for customers appropriate to their situation. Each customer would have a different path to help them be more successful.
4. Updating training automatically
With the rate of change in software products today, it's a challenge to keep up. Updates to training programs are often delayed or are even an afterthought to a product launch, which negatively impacts product usage and customer satisfaction rates. And CE pros continually scramble to keep up and invariably fall further behind.
An AI-powered learning platform could reduce the timeline to update programs by automatically identifying content to update based on the analysis of product development data. It could use support chats and call keywords to identify failure points in training programs and then update them based on priority. It could even use the data to deploy different courses to customers by itself based on analysis of historical usage data for products, customers, etc..
5. Measuring training effectiveness more accurately
Training programs should help customers achieve measurable returns from the program. Customers must gain something useful and of value from it if training is to be worthwhile to them. CE pros need to go beyond the traditional NPS score or survey after a course if they genuinely want to find out how effective their courses are. AI can help measure effectiveness accurately since it tracks more data points. It tracks customers' progress through training, monitor how they apply the knowledge to their product usage, then compare that data across customers to see how effective the training is. Add in AI’s historical analysis, and CE pros have access to accurate training data, driving innovation and demonstrating their value more qualitatively to the business.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
As our knowledge and use of AI continues to grow and expand, AI will play a more significant role in the work of CE professionals. They'll use it to create and deliver more customized education experiences, increase engagement with users, and generate more value for the software products they're helping educate customers on.
Have you been using AI or machine learning in your CE team? Share your experience with it in the comments as we'd love to hear how it's affecting your work.
