Using AI: How to Build Trust with Your Customers

Trust is an important component in the business-customer relationship. In fact, according to PwC, 91% of customers have said that they would buy from a business that had gained their trust. However, trust can be gained, built, lost and even betrayed, so businesses should adapt to ensure their relationships with consumers remain strong.

One aspect of business that has greatly impacted trust is the use of artificial intelligence (AI). With customers now unsure if they are speaking to or interacting with a human, their trust in the business might dwindle. Thankfully, there are three main ways that businesses can ensure the trust customers have in them persists, even as they use AI more and more.

Be Transparent About Using AI

The first method to build more trust with your customers while using AI is to focus on transparency. This will often relate to customers knowing how AI is being used by the business as well as if their data is being collected, why it is being collected, and how it will be used by the AI system. Being clear about these aspects will result in more trust from customers, particularly when some consumers do not feel educated enough on the use of AI.

There are numerous ways to build trust with your customers relating to AI. One of the most important ways to accomplish this is to explain the role that AI plays in the business. You should provide information on how this technology is being used by the business and explain how this relates to decision-making practices. This might explain how the AI system decides on personalized product recommendations or similar.

Develop Responsible AI Systems

Due to the data that is used when developing an AI system, it is possible for harmful or inaccurate outputs to be formed. This would be due to the data carrying biased or unethical patterns. To combat this, the framework of responsible AI should be used to guide the development of this technology.

Responsible artificial intelligence is important now for several reasons, and it greatly impacts the trust between businesses and customers. For example, there will be reduced bias when using this framework as AI will be trained using fair and representative data. This will result in a lower likelihood of biased outcomes that could affect specific groups negatively.

Other ways to ensure you run a responsible AI system is to protect data and prioritize privacy, and this will be discussed in the next point.

Protect Consumer’s Data and Privacy

Businesses should protect their consumers’ data and privacy as a normal standard, but this need could be increased when the business uses an AI system. This is because the AI will use personal data to create insights in customer behavior analysis and predictive modeling; these insights will assist the business and the customer.

There is a level of dependency on this data that can cause worries over privacy, though. As previously discussed, customers expect businesses to be transparent about how their data is collected, used, and stored.

Business should try to find a balance between using AI to advance their business and respecting the data and privacy of their consumers. This can be tough when AI systems can collect sensitive data while personalizing the customer experience, but the business must commit to this to be trusted.

By following the three points mentioned in this post, your business will be better prepared to build trust with customers, even as AI is implemented.