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Conversations: A key to building customer relationships

Explore why customer interactions should be at the center of your business.

Erica Richert

December 18, 20233 minutes

visual of the conversational flywheel, a tool for building customer relationships powered by AI

It’s not about the AI, it’s about the conversation.

In fact, forget the AI hype. We’re living in the age of conversation. Customers expect authentic, ongoing conversations. It’s what fuels building strong customer relationships, earning customer loyalty, and ultimately driving growth.

Unfortunately, 70% of customer conversations are still trapped in the call center. In 2024, this isn’t an optimal experience for new or loyal customers or the business. A conversational AI platform like LivePerson’s Conversational Cloud® can change the trajectory of those conversations to help build better customer relationships.

When you put conversations at the center of your business, you can empower your people, accelerate your shift to digital, and embrace an automation-first customer experience.


Conversational AI’s role in building customer relationships

Conversation is what builds the connection between brands and customers. And with conversational AI, brands can engage and maintain customer relationships at scale, from unifying communications across channels to providing a more personalized experience or automating the use of customer feedback to inform future interactions.

Conversational AI solutions like LivePerson provide brands with the technology to shift many voice conversations to the digital communication channels consumers love — while using AI to improve customer service team efficiency and ensure compliance.


The Conversational Flywheel™: How AI empowers conversations across the customer journey

conversational flywheel illustration, noting where LivePerson solutions come into play to build customer relationships

The Conversational Flywheel is a guiding framework for teams using conversational AI platforms. Encompassing four stages, the flywheel helps teams elevate service quality, engage customers on their preferred platforms, and increase operational efficiency — all within a continuous, mutually advantageous cycle. Take a look at the four stages and how customer relationship management can benefit:

  1. Understand – Leverage LivePerson’s suite of AI-powered conversational intelligence tools to analyze conversation data across voice and messaging channels and learn why customers interact so you can better personalize relationships and meet customer service expectations.
  2. ConnectSeamlessly integrate web, in-app messaging, and social media messaging with your business and contact center software, shifting conversations to more efficient channels that meet customer’s preferences.
  3. Assist – Equip customer service teams with generative AI tools, workflows, and a customizable workspace to improve agent efficiency and customer satisfaction.
  4. Automate – Speed up resolutions and scale self-service with AI chatbot and generative AI technology. Automation helps you grow your conversation data set, which feeds into the “Understand” phase of the Flywheel so you can constantly improve the customer experience.

LivePerson customers have seen real business outcomes from these tools, from 30% reductions in operating costs to a 25% customer satisfaction boost and a 10x in conversions vs traditional digital methods. Read more customer case studies here.


Want to focus even more on building customer relationships? Accelerate your conversational journey with LP 360, our turnkey contact center as a service

We’ll build and manage your end-to-end conversation strategy — from agents to automation to guaranteed outcomes.