AI’s ability to identify patterns makes it an excellent resource for tracking customer behavior. Understanding how your customers use your product helps you figure out what they like and predict their future needs.
Below, you'll learn how to use AI to understand your customers' behavior and effectively put AI to work.
How AI Understands Customer Behavior
It Analyzes Data Based on Past Behaviors
AI tools comb through large datasets to identify patterns and trends in customer behavior. Even better, it sifts through the data in a fraction of the time it might take you to manually work through it.
User preferences, buying frequency, and preferred communication channels are all elements AI analyzes to get a good idea of what your users like. The goal is to give you insights you can use to tailor your product to match your customers’ needs.
It Monitors Conversations to Understand Customer Needs
Let’s say you visit a website and a chatbot appears on the side of your screen. You’re probably not surprised when you realize this is an AI tool ready to answer questions or accept your feedback.
As you’re interacting with this tool, it’s using natural language processing (NLP) to understand the sentiment behind what you enter into it. When you integrate NLP tools into your own product, you get a close look at what your customers need while giving assistance and support.
It Uses Advanced Algorithms and Machine Learning
Many AI tools use complex techniques to continuously learn more about your customers. Machine learning (ML) algorithms adapt and learn from new data, allowing your AI system to refine its predictions and recommendations over time.
Sprig’s AI Analysis tool puts algorithms like these to work. Powered with OpenAI’s GPT large language model (LLM), Sprig AI takes responses to your Sprig in-product surveys and automatically generates top takeaways based on the data. This model never stops learning about how your customers interact with and feel about your product. It’s how you get the most reliable, up-to-date insights into your customers’ behavior and preferences.
The Benefits of Using AI to Understand Customer Behavior
Improve Your Customer Experience
Imagine walking into a coffee shop and the barista greets you by name. That welcoming gesture makes you feel valued and appreciated, enhancing your overall experience. AI takes this same concept and applies it to your users' experience.
When you use AI to better understand your customers, you give them personalized experiences with your product, improving your products’ relevance to your customers. From marketing efforts to in-product messaging, understanding customers with AI means you can give them more engaging touchpoints centered around your product.
Unlock Hidden Patterns
AI can analyze customer purchases, social media comments, and browsing behaviors to see how customers interact with your product. It can do the same with user sessions and responses to your in-product surveys.
Through these data sources, AI software can uncover patterns in customer behavior that might not be immediately apparent to you. AI tools use this information to identify correlations, preferences, and trends so you can make informed decisions about your product.
Uncover Emerging Trends in Your Users’ Behaviors
AI tools identify trends so that you can understand what’s gaining popularity and adjust your strategies accordingly. Trends aren’t only about the flashiest new thing that catches users’ eyes. AI might, for example, note a behavior trend in which users frequently drop off after using your product’s search function.
With this information, you can investigate potential issues with the search bar and optimize it to improve user experience. Sprig AI gathers experience data from your users and analyzes it automatically to spot any friction points. This means you can more quickly address this friction and prevent any significant impact.
Considerations/Challenges of Using AI
Timely Customization
Depending on your product’s complexity, it might take time to set up AI systems for effective customer behavior analysis. Getting the most out of AI might also require you to tweak its algorithms so that your user insights are accurate and reliable.
Adequate Human Involvement
AI is a “supertool,” but it can’t quite do everything. It’s nearly as smart as you are, but it’s not actually a person. You’re best off combining your own brainpower with your AI platform.
For example, when you use Sprig, you get AI analysis alongside human-in-the-loop. When Sprig first launched Sprig AI, we included people in the analysis process to ensure the data was accurate. Our AI team continually monitors results to ensure accuracy today.
Customer Concerns
The concept of AI is still fairly new to many people, so they might not fully understand its role and benefits in your product management. Giving your users a personalized experience with your AI software and integrating it seamlessly into your product can help you create a positive experience.
Sprig’s In-Product Surveys do just that — they gather feedback from your users without detracting from their experience with your product. This way, you get valuable feedback from your customers, who will feel comfortable interacting with your product and this feature. After all, the surveys pop up right in your UX and take just about a second for your users to complete.
How to Implement AI to Understand Customers’ Behavior
- Set Objectives
Determine exactly what you want to track and what you aim to achieve from analyzing customer behavior. The more specific your goals, the more accurate the final analysis. Whether you want a better understanding of purchasing patterns or customer preferences, be clear about your objectives. From there, you can define your metrics and KPIs.
- Gather Data
You can find customer data just about anywhere you look — social media, your website, email newsletters, your chatbot, and most importantly, your in-product surveys. Decide where you want to focus on analyzing customer behavior and gather data to get a good look at what’s keeping your customers’ attention.
We recommend using Sprig’s In-Product Surveys to gather data. Using surveys, product teams can target audiences based on specific events already tracked in your product.
- Choose the Right AI Tool
Use an AI tool that suits your product while being as easy to use as you’d like your product to be for your customers. Whether you want to collect feedback through surveys or see exactly how customers interact with your product, Sprig is a great choice.
Sprig uses GPT-powered analysis to thoroughly understand human language and context. This way, you can tap into customer sentiment, preferences, and feedback despite nuances that would otherwise make interpreting your customers’ needs quite difficult.
- Implement and Iterate
With everything in place, you can now launch your AI tool and begin analyzing customer behavior. Sprig’s AI Analysis software automatically generates easily digestible summaries of your data analysis. This way, you can view key takeaways of your data without having to scrub through paragraphs upon paragraphs of detailed reports.
Finding Data in Behaviors
Using AI to analyze customer behavior is all about finding out what your users really want and how they feel about your product. From there, you can deliver the best possible product experience. AI tools are your friend here — they analyze dizzying amounts of data quickly and efficiently.
When you use Sprig to dive into your customers’ behaviors, you open the door to learning all about their habits and preferences. Sprig’s AI features collect genuine customer feedback, then analyze and present it in ways that are easy for you to understand and act on. Your customers use your product every day, so take advantage of the insights their actions give you — and give them exactly what they need.