Machine Learning for Business: Using Natural Language Processing

Although machines are always getting smarter, they still cannot beat human beings’ natural capability of communicating with each other, right? Well… almost right. And there is where NLP (Natural Language Processing) steps in. But, first things first: what is Natural Language Processing?

Simply defined, Natural Language Processing is a technology that learns from customer behaviour analysis and responds to it accordingly, in a way that sounds as natural as possible — well, I suppose everybody can relate to being on the phone trying to get some sort of support while talking to a machine that seems to only answer with “I did not understand. Please repeat”. Natural Language Processing exists to ensure that contact between customer and company (by using a machine) goes as human-like and effectively as possible.

Maybe people are still not aware, but this machine learning branch of Artificial Intelligence is already part of our everyday life.

A few examples of it would be virtual and voice assistants, smart speakers, predictive text and auto-correct, among many other options. And because it is all so present in people’s lives, they are great marketing tools to understand customer behaviour in order to improve customer relationships.

But how can this technology help businesses to improve customer relationships?

To explain that, we can mention a few applications of Natural Language Processing that are most commonly used:

- Sentimental Analysis, such as Facebook interaction buttons, where people can express feelings in relation to a specific brand, post or comment.

- Chatbots, commonly used on websites, this tool have pre-set answers that will make the contact between company and client easier, offering quicker and more practical customer support.

- Speech recognition, for which we could mention Siri, Alexa and Cortana as the more well-known samples — and as reported by TechCrunch, voice commerce is expected to reach more than $80bi/year in sales by 2023 (Perez, 2019).

As customers are always looking for fast and personalized services, NLP holds great potential to be one of the best customer strategies. Besides providing support, it can also recommend products, offer discounts and consequently, implement ways to increase sales revenue.

Applications will also include information extraction and advertising matching, which are very important points on how to create a strong digital marketing strategy.

One of the greatest advantages of machine learning for businesses is their ability to learn on their own. In Natural Language Processing it is possible to chain multiple tasks, like sentiment analysis, keyword extraction and intent detection, to make it all work simultaneously for even better results.

Click here to understand how Natural Language Processing is a very important part of Big Data processing.

References: Natural Language Processing (NLP) Guide — What Is NLP & How Does it Work. Available at: https://monkeylearn.com/natural-language-processing/ (accessed on 15th of February 2021).

Sarah Perez, 2019. Report: Voice assistants in use to triple to 8 billion by 2023. Available at: https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/12/report-voice-assistants-in-use-to-triple-to-8-billion-by-2023 (accessed on 15th of February 2021).

Keywords: what is Natural Language Processing; customer behaviour analysis; great marketing tools; customer behaviour; improve customer relationship; strong digital marketing strategy; increase sales; machine learning for business.