Ever since the launch of generative AI, business leaders keep asking: How can I build an AI strategy?
AI is capable of accomplishing more and more each day. It can be an effective, reliable tool for businesses hoping to increase efficiency, scale operations, or differentiate in a competitive market.
But every company is different. So the way every company uses AI should be unique, too.
If you don’t already have an AI strategy, or if you’re just not sure where to start, ask yourself these four questions to kickstart the process of getting started with automation:
#1: What is one area of your business that you hope to improve in 2024?
On a macro level, the answer to this might be your number of customers or a better bottom line. The right AI solution will help improve customer experiences and cut expenses in the long run, but AI tools work best when they’re first applied towards smaller, bite-sized goals.
These goals could be individual and team KPIs, such as response and resolution times. For example, AI-powered self-service can deflect over 90% of inquiries, leading to lower resolution times and more streamlined workloads for teams. What area of your business could benefit from a lower volume of requests? That’s the ideal place to start.
After successfully improving these metrics, you can then scale your AI strategy across larger tasks, complex projects, and multiple departments.
#2: What tasks and processes are essential to your business—but are also time-consuming and repetitive?
Everyone has to do work they really don’t want to do. But what if you could shift those slow, annoying tasks to AI?
Time-consuming and repetitive tasks, like data entry, steal valuable time and brain power away from businesses. A smart AI strategy can improve productivity and team experiences by automating necessary but painful tasks, so employees can focus on higher-level work instead.
One example is onboarding and training. New hires need support, but HR teams don’t always have the bandwidth to help them. Support automation can streamline those processes using dynamic training guides, automated document sends, and FAQ deflections.
With the right tool, you can even automate PTO requests!
So, are there any slow and painful processes at your business that you wish AI could do?
#3: If there were one task or process you’d change to make work easier, what would it be?
Remembering your answers to the previous two questions, consider this: Which of your tasks and processes, if automated, would provide the most value for your team and business?
Ultimately, an AI solution should resolve smaller tasks and processes that can scale into big returns. A great place to start is customer service.
Customer service teams get a lot of repetitive questions, and every second counts when it comes to answering them. Deflecting common questions and automating backend processes can lead to not only faster resolution times, but also higher customer satisfaction, better team productivity, and lower expenses.
When creating an AI strategy, consider a solution and implementation that will result in the best ROI.
#4: What’s your budget to invest in AI tools?
Of course, AI strategy is nothing without an AI budget. But it doesn’t take millions to get an AI solution up and running.
Luckily, there are plenty of affordable and effective AI solutions out there. Review your available budget and team bandwidth to determine what solutions best fit your needs.
Be sure to prioritize solutions that can scale their implementation, so you can continue to optimize your own processes. Watch out for data security policies, too—the best AI tools are the most secure.
Ready to dive deeper?
AI can’t do everything humans can, and automation can’t perform every repetitive task. But support automation can shift repetitive, slow tasks to AI, so your human team can focus on what matters most: growing the business.
Ready to get started? Learn more about how support automation can help your business scale and discover frameworks for implementation with our guidebook, The State of Support Automation.
