In an era where artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming industries, understanding its impact on client retention has never been more crucial. Recently, a roundtable discussion featuring several industry leaders shed light on how AI can either enhance or jeopardize client retention strategies. Here’s a deep dive into their insights, exploring both the potential benefits and pitfalls of AI in maintaining strong client relationships.
Meet the Participants
Chris Conant, CEO at Zennify: LinkedIn
“Everybody’s inundated with way too much information. Aggregating it together and translating it into an insight that somebody can action is I think the key activity that we’re focused on; I think AI presents a great opportunity to do that because of the number of things that it can maybe triangulate together.”
David Sawartzky, CEO at Consero Global: LinkedIn
“How do we get better at predicting and solving it [churn risk] before we get the notice letter? I think we’re all probably so excited about what AI can do for us and analytics; it’s amazing, but it is overwhelming with trying to find the priorities.”
Kenny Etinson, President & CSO at Etinson: LinkedIn
“The big risk is: are the heavy hitting larger clients really satisfied? We don’t have the tools in our business to say, what other data could we be looking at to see is this client really sticky? If there’s some peripheral information we can start gathering, that would be an interesting perspective to be looking at.”
Karen Posey, Managing Partner at KP Strategies: LinkedIn
“It’s looking at the lifecycle of your clients and measuring those moments of time…what are those moments when people are going to love you or leave you? If you’re measuring those, you’ve got a better pulse on what’s going on in the organization.”
Elisabeth Beller, Chief Commercial Officer at 3Pillar: LinkedIn
“Wouldn’t it be great if you knew what all the leading indicators are, and then it’s not a human creating a score? I would much rather have an algorithm that tells me ‘I’ve taken all these different data points from across the organization;’ some of it can be sentiment, some of it can be actual facts…and pull all that together and give me a red flag when something’s at risk.”
Tracy Edwards, CTO at SBI Growth: LinkedIn
“I still think people are very confused about what the one metric to be measured is…there’s debate about engagement, stickiness, NPS, sentiment, post-project review…and I don’t think any of them are exactly right, because all clients are a little bit different.”
Conclusion
The roundtable discussion highlighted the transformative potential of AI in client retention and attraction. By leveraging AI to gain deeper insights, personalize experiences, enhance engagement, and proactively address client issues, businesses can significantly improve their ability to retain and attract clients. However, the effectiveness of AI depends on strategic implementation and continuous optimization. As these industry leaders have demonstrated, AI can be a powerful tool for driving client retention and attraction in today’s competitive business environment.
For more information, find the full roundtable discussion here.
