Are machines better customers than humans?

Are machines better customers than humans?

The number of smart devices surpasses potential human buyers nowadays. Some printers possess the capability to order toner without human input, while cars can procure new parts autonomously, as a great example of predictive maintenance. Furthermore, people are increasingly comfortable relying on virtual personal assistants such as Siri and Alexa to assist them in their daily tasks. As these digital assistants continue to evolve, their repertoire of tasks will expand even further.

According to research conducted by Gartner, 37% of customers will experiment with using digital assistants to interact with customer service on their behalf by 2025. In light of this, organizations must now strategize and prepare for the escalating number of machine customers, considering their evolving capabilities.

Machines are the logical customers we all want to be

Conventional marketing and sales have long relied on human initiative, emotions, and personal interactions. However, this approach must be reconsidered regarding marketing or selling to machines. Decades of insights and training in catering to human customers must be re-evaluated because machines lack emotions and operate based on logical and rational rules and programming. Additionally, dealing with machines in low-complexity and recurring transactions allows humans to allocate their efforts to high-complexity transactions.

Engaging with machines proves more efficient as they are transparent and problem-solving-driven. Unlike humans, machines do not require emotional satisfaction. Therefore, a portion of resources that would have been dedicated to surpassing human customer expectations and appealing to emotions can be redirected towards ensuring seamless machine transactions.

Nevertheless, it is important to note that the impact of machine customers will vary across industries, situations, and geographical locations. While selling to a machine customer is ideal when decision-making is driven by rationality, it becomes challenging, or even unattainable, when emotions play a significant role in purchasing decisions, as seen with luxury goods or other indulgences or when the project at hand is complex such as custom-built IT projects.

Reliable and predictable purchasing behaviors

Reliability plays a pivotal role in establishing trust between organizations and their customers. It revolves around the fundamental question: Does the product or service live up to its promises? As human customers, our reliability and predictability throughout the purchase journey may not be as linear as we perceive them. However, machine customers exhibit remarkable reliability, following a linear and predictable purchase journey.

Machine customers are renowned for their consistency and predictability. They can precisely order the required items at the right time, contributing to sustainability efforts. Moreover, they possess the capacity to identify suitable products that may be located closer to the customer, resulting in reduced shipping costs. Their proactive nature enables them to request products and services before the actual need arises, and they can provide recommendations for long-term cost optimization.

As organizations strive to regain growth, machine customers present a viable pathway, particularly when humans seek to shop from a safe distance. It is important to note that machine customers will not completely replace humans, but they provide an opportunity to minimize involvement in low-value transactions. This, in turn, will allow organizations to prioritize and focus on initiatives of greater significance. However, this requires organizations to reconsider what customers are and how they will engage them to fuel growth.