Understanding buying intent is critical for providing great customer experiences. Think about it: if you don’t know what your customers want, how can you expect to meet their needs? Companies that don’t understand buying intent risk annoying customers with poorly targeted ads, irrelevant content, and frustrating conversations with contact centre agents.
With advancements in artificial intelligence and machine learning, businesses can better predict what users are looking for when they type a query into a search engine. For example, they can identify which search queries are most likely informational and those that signal immediate intent to buy. They can then tailor the next phase in the journey accordingly.
In addition, businesses are using AI to capture intent data from an often-overlooked channel: customer phone calls. With conversation analytics tools like Invoca, teams can understand which callers have high intent to buy, what products they’re interested in, and if they’re experiencing barriers to purchase. This allows for an even deeper layer of personalisation.
This article dives into how AI can help you identify user buying intent and how you can use those insights to create seamless customer experiences that build loyalty.
Search intent refers to the underlying goal or purpose behind a user’s query. It can be categorised into four main types:
Accurately identifying search intent allows businesses to deliver more relevant results, improving user satisfaction and conversion rates.
Traditional search systems rely on keyword matching, which often fails to capture the nuances of user intent. For example, the query "apple" could refer to the fruit or the tech company, depending on the context. Additionally, users may use ambiguous or incomplete queries, making it difficult for search engines to interpret their intent.
This is where AI and ML tools like Algolia come into play. By analysing patterns, context, and user behavior, these technologies can provide a deeper understanding of what users are looking for.
Below are some of the ways marketers use AI to help identify search intent:
Search is only part of the picture — you can also glean buyer intent from other channels your customers use to engage with you. A key channel that often goes overlooked is phone conversations.
These interactions are brimming with valuable insights about what your customers want and how to make them happy. In addition, research shows that callers are often your most valuable customers — on average, they buy more, convert faster, and stay loyal longer than web leads.
Tools like Invoca use AI to turn phone conversations into structured data you can use to understand buyer behavior and intent. By capturing and interpreting these conversations, companies can gain a competitive edge in targeting the right audience and addressing barriers to purchase.
Here are some of the data points you can unlock from phone conversations with Invoca Signal AI Studio:
When you clearly understand users’ past search intent, you can retarget them with ads that align with their future interests. For example, if they searched for a car with “safety features,” you could retarget them with ads for your top crash-rated SUV.
You can also use caller intent data to enhance retargeting. Invoca’s data can be integrated with advertising platforms like Google Ads and Facebook, enabling businesses to retarget customers across multiple channels based on the content of their phone conversations. For instance, if a customer calls to inquire about a product but doesn’t purchase it, they could be targeted with tailored ads offering a discount or additional information.
When you know what your customers’ needs are, you can streamline the experience to ensure they’re met promptly. For example, if you’re a cruise line and a consumer has recently searched for “Caribbean cruise,” you can personalise their website experience so that your most appealing Caribbean cruise package shows up on the homepage banner.
When that same consumer calls your business, you can use solutions like Invoca PreSense to automatically route them to an agent who specialises in selling the cruise packages they browsed on your website. You can also give the contact centre agent those details before the call is connected so they can personalise the conversation.
See how PreSense works in the short video below:
Personalising experiences with intent data not only enhances customer satisfaction, but also reduces customer acquisition costs (CAC). When customers feel understood and valued, they’re more likely to engage with your brand and complete their purchase, reducing the need for costly follow-up campaigns or incentives. Additionally, personalised experiences often result in higher customer satisfaction, which can decrease churn and increase lifetime value. By aligning every touchpoint with the customer’s intent, businesses can streamline their acquisition process, maximise the efficiency of their marketing spend, and ultimately achieve a lower CAC while driving sustainable growth.
As a bonus, personalisation builds trust and loyalty, which can lead to repeat business and referrals, further lowering acquisition costs over time.
Identifying user intent is essential for delivering seamless customer experiences. With Invoca, businesses can tap into an often-overlooked source of intent data: phone calls. Invoca’s artificial intelligence analyses phone conversations at scale, surfacing deep insights into callers’ needs and barriers to purchase. Marketers can use this data to create personalised experiences that make customers feel like VIPs.
Want to learn more about how Invoca’s AI can help you understand buying intent? Check out these resources:
