Week 5 - MBA 6601 - Business Strategy: AI and Calling Customers

I read an article by Entrepreneur that discussed strategies to generate ecommerce revenue. The reading begins by explaining how these quick tactics employ for immediate funds. The first recommendation is brand partnerships, which involves partnering with "like-minded entrepreneurs" that can compliment your business. Other ideas include hosting virtual events, investing in email networks, and pre-orders.

For this post, I wanted to discuss the second strategy, that is, calling your customers. Initially, I though the article was referring to cold calling. As defined by Investopedia, cold calling is "the solicitation of a potential customer who had no prior interaction with a salesperson" (1). This was one of the most common forms of marketing, however, it has declined in recent years. Another interesting note is that cold calling has about a 2% sucess rate (2). Check out the Investopedia article for more intriguing facts on this topic.

Alternative calling methods has been developed to help increase success rate. Robo-calling is one tactic that relies on "automated dialing and pre-recorded messages" (2). As it relates to AI, the technology is only continuing to improve. These messages become more personalized and realistic in hopes that the customer will better respond to the business initiative.

Improving this AI certainly cannot be an easy task considering the endless conversation possibilities, types of voices, emotion, and physiological aspects. According to an article by ConsumerAffairs, robocallers "are using artificial intelligence to hide the fact that you're talking to a machine" (1). In fact, "if you ask if it's a machine, the machine will lie to you" (1). That is both fascinating and scary at the same time. As with anything else, technology has its good and its bad.

There is clearly a lot that goes into calling customers as a business strategy. It can become unethical when businesses use AI to deceive customers. It is certainly something that should be carefully considered before pursuing!