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I visited the Victoria University website to make a few inquiries at around 4 AM in the early morning. When the page finished loading, I saw an AI assistant called Conan. Conan and I exchanged over ten messages as I inquired about Victoria University’s courses, tuition and study modes. At the end of the conversation, I had got what I wanted without speaking to a single human being. This is customer service in 2024, with businesses, nonprofits and organisations all turning to AI to answer customer queries and accumulate leads.
The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into customer service and sales is reshaping the business landscape, providing companies with innovative tools to enhance customer interactions and optimise sales strategies. As businesses face increasing competition and evolving consumer expectations, AI technologies such as chatbots, predictive analytics, and automated customer support systems are essential for delivering prompt and personalised service. These advancements not only improve customer satisfaction but also foster deeper connections between brands and their clients, enabling businesses to respond to inquiries and resolve issues with unprecedented speed and efficiency.
Just like Victoria University, 300 other businesses use an AI assistant to engage with customers. This AI assistant, which can be customised to fit every business, is the work of Neexa AI, one of the first Ugandan AI startups. Neexa AI was founded in 2023 by Campaignity Technologies, a tech startup led by Ethan Bampaire who serves as its CEO.
“Neexa is an AI customer and sales agent” Ethan tells CEO East Africa, “You can integrate it on your website, WhatsApp and other social media platforms to interact with your prospects and customers and to close deals on your behalf — 24/7. Today’s Customers are people who move on quickly. They are distracted and entitled. If a customer makes an inquiry and doesn’t get an instant response, they usually have moved on by the time you respond. Neexa ensures your business can respond 24/7 with instant human-like responses to help you sell more.”
These instant responses have helped businesses to close more deals. “Instant responses work like a charm. For example, Purifaaya, which is Uganda’s leading manufacturer of ceramic water filters, had an increase of 52% in website sales in six months by simply integrating Neexa AI on their website”
The businesses that have benefited a lot from Neexa are those that get relatively many inquiries that it becomes hard for humans to follow up instantly. Most of Neexa’s clients are institutions and manufacturers.
Most people who make the inquiries do not realise that they are talking to an AI. This is because it’s trained to respond conversationally, in a human-like way.“Our clients have access to a dashboard that enables them to train the AI by scraping their website or uploading documents about their businesses. In the dashboard, they can also take over conversations at any time and administer the other parts such as leads the AI has generated, Analytics, and more.
Neexa has become popular. In a month, Ethan estimates that they currently handle close to 10,000 conversations from all their customers. It is understandable why Neexa AI is now popular with businesses. Using AI in customer engagement and lead generation has its fair share of advantages over using humans, but Ethan believes the Future is both co-existing and supplementing each other’s strengths.
“We don’t think Neexa is going to replace humans. We look at it playing a complimentary role. AI will just increase the capacity of humans. For example, Purifaaya who increased their sales by 52% didn’t fire anyone because of Neexa, they just increased their productivity. The AI engages with the clients, but in most cases, the human still has to reach out, to follow up on the sale or deliver the order. The AI does the repetitive mundane tasks easing the work of the human.”
Ethan, however, recognizes why clients have been quick to adopt Neexa. “Instant responses are everything to a business, and Neexa will do that for any business even at 3 AM in the night when humans are sleeping. It will also be able to handle large volumes of customer inquiries without breaking down, getting annoyed or involving any emotions when answering. And it will answer any inquiries with accurate, precise replies.”
Ethan further adds, “Neexa can be trained once, and it can do the work for years to come. Even when a business changes its model or operations, the AI can be updated easily. This is a far cry from having to train humans every time you make a new hire.”
Neexa makes money by charging business-tiered monthly subscriptions. The cheapest package costs $65 a month for 500 responses, while the most expensive package costs $950 a month for 10,000 responses.
“This is quite expensive for small businesses,” Ethan admits. “But it is of great value for big businesses that get many inquiries, especially when you compare it to the cost of hiring extra humans to do the same job.”
It hasn’t been smooth sailing for Ethan with Neexa AI, especially when introducing such a new technology in a market not well known for innovation and attracting investment. “To perfect AI, one needs to do a lot of research and development (R & D). However, R & D usually costs a lot of money to be done effectively. This is where investors come in usually, but we have struggled to raise the funding needed so far. Also, market adoption is slow. Many of our large companies do not embrace new technologies easily, so we have had to dig deep in convincing them.”