AI technology is quickly transforming the future of work. Smart business leaders know they need a good AI partner to help.
You may recognize the importance of this new tech, but still feel lost about how to use AI. It’s okay, you’re not alone. Many business leaders are clueless about how to design and implement a strategy. The good news is, the right partner can make all the difference.
As your team identifies opportunities and prioritizes solutions for AI technology, the right partner should be working hand-in-hand with you to develop an AI roadmap for your future. It’s essential for your team’s success that you seek a true partner in this transformation, not simply an off-the-shelf product.
If AI partner selection is a new process to your team, you may not know what to ask or how to compare offerings. Here are four questions the Capacity team recommends you ask any vendor offering AI solutions:
#1: Do you know my business?
AI can’t solve your problems if it doesn’t understand the cause. A good partner should start by conducting a competitive analysis to understand your company’s processes and tools.
This should be a collaborative process in which your team educates partners on the inefficient, repetitive and expensive tasks that are causing your business pain.
Look for a partner who’s worked with businesses of your size or within your industry. This is especially important for businesses with regulatory, compliance and/or security concerns. A good partner should be able to customize a solution to meet the specific needs of your business.
#2: What’s the process for determining the right solutions for my business?
This isn’t buying a new t-shirt… one size does not fit all when it comes to AI. A partner should have an established and transparent process to learn about your businesses’ needs, identify opportunities and recommend solutions. You should understand upfront how they’re going to teach you how to use AI.
At Capacity, we have a five-step process to help customers build an AI roadmap. Steps include:
- Survey + Analyze: We facilitate a comprehensive survey and analysis of your current processes and tools.
- Collaborate: We summarize our survey findings and review with your team during a collaborative listening session.
- Map Your Journey: We use your team’s feedback to identify opportunities against 65 areas of potential AI investment.
- Recommend: We recommend key areas of AI investment based on your team’s priorities and challenges.
- Implement: We deliver a report that your team can activate internally or Capacity can implement the plan and apply the cost of the assessment toward your licensing fees.
When assessing potential AI providers, it’s essential that you understand how they’ll arrive at recommendations that will make the most of your AI investment.
#3: Can the solutions be scaled?
Your customers are increasingly operating across many channels and your AI solution should too. Think about the way you operate – switching from email, to text, to social and back again.
Scaling AI for the future of your business means that it needs to move seamlessly from channel to channel, just like your customers.
Ask potential partners about what channels they operate on today and where they’re headed in the future. It’s not worth investing the time, effort and dollars into a partner who cannot grow into the channels where you meet the customers of today and tomorrow.
#4: How’s your track record?
This might seem obvious, but the most important question you can ask of an AI partner is their tech’s success rate. Go back to those pain points and identify the metrics for which your team wants to move the needle.
This could be everything from emails fielded by AI vs. team members, or number of customer service tickets deflected. As potential partners to compare their success rates to competitors.
For example, Capacity’s chatbot boasts a 90% ticket deflection rate, besting most competitors that operate in the 40-60% range. Your company isn’t AI-ing for the sake of AI. Metrics matter.
Start with an AI Assessment
If you’re still feeling lost about how to get started with AI, Capacity can help. We offer a customized AI Assessment that will help you identify opportunities, prioritize solutions and implement new technology. Our team of pros will partner with you to conduct a comprehensive analysis and develop a plan to increase productivity, eliminate inefficiency and boost customer and employee satisfaction with AI.
Ready to get started? Visit AIAssessment.com to learn more and connect with our team. The next step in your AI future is just a few clicks away.
