Seasoned Marketer: Embracing the Future – The Role of AI in Enhancing Client Experience in the Professional Services Industry

As marketers, we aim to tell differentiated stories about our brands, services and people. In a saturated marketplace, it’s essential to market each effectively and provide our clients with an elevated experience and real-time interactions. What if artificial intelligence (AI) could help us achieve this lofty objective?

Recently, AI has been widely discussed in the professional services industry. According to Zendesk, 57% of leaders plan to increase their AI investment by at least 25% over the next year. Many business leaders today don’t need to be convinced about the power of AI. They are swayed by the promise of efficient and personalized interactions at every step of the client journey (Zen Desk, 2023).

In the spring of 2024, Marcum LLP launched our AI solution, AskMarcum.ai, along with an AI Accelerator Kit. Many firms have access to other commercial AI products in their CX and marketing toolkit. Here are a few tips and tricks on how you can use AI to enhance your CX and marketing efforts:

• Personalized Client Engagement: There’s truly no end to how AI can help deliver customized client communications. AI can assist you in crafting responses to sensitive client emails and tense situations, taking into consideration what you know about the client’s personality type and communication style. For clients who are not yet versed in complex accounting procedures, AI can help describe nuanced engagements in a way clients can understand. It can even help with customized onboarding communications and survey invites; the opportunities are abundant!
• Marketing & Sales Strategies: AI can analyze client data to create highly customized marketing and sales strategies. By understanding individual client preferences, behaviors and purchase history, AI can help marketing and sales teams craft personalized emails, recommendations and targeted promotions that are more likely to resonate with each client, increasing the chances of conversion and fostering client loyalty.
• Content Creation and Optimization: AI can assist marketing teams in generating and optimizing content for different platforms and audiences. AI can suggest themes and keywords by analyzing successful past campaigns and current market trends and even create drafts for blog posts, social media updates and ad copy. This helps maintain a consistent brand voice while dynamically adjusting the content to engage with different audience segments effectively.

There have been concerns that AI will replace key workforce personnel in our profession. However, according to Zendesk, 75% of CX leaders see AI as a force for amplifying human intelligence, not replacing it. AI is like a lightsaber, if you put it in the hands of the right people it’s a powerful weapon. If you put it in the hands of the wrong people, it won’t turn on. As client experience experts and marketing storytellers, hopefully, AI can continue to allow us to put our best foot forward with our clients. When used correctly, AI can empower us to create new content and ideas we have not yet conceived, helping us to provide more valuable and strategic services to our clients.