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AI & Customer Service & Retention within the Retail Customer Journey

Full report: The impact of AI on the UK retail industry

AI & Customer Service & Retention within the Retail Customer Journey

Leveraging Artificial Intelligence in the pursuit of outstanding customer service and securing retention

The quality of customer service can be the difference between a ‘customer for life’ versus one who never returns again. AI applications are now providing what is necessary to enhance the customer service experience, including issues like consistency, personalisation, accurate product information and clear communication.

As consumers become acclimatised to non-human interaction for customer service issues, the use of AI applications will only increase and become further embedded in the Service and Support stage of the Retail Economics Customer Journey.

 

 

Chatbots, Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR)

According to Gartner, by 2020, 85% of all customer service interactions will exclude human involvement. Understandably, with chatbot availability 24/7/365, they can help to reduce resolution time and increase customer satisfaction. For most customers, it has become more common to use messaging apps to interact with retail chatbots to raise a product query, file a complaint, check an order, give feedback or troubleshoot.

VR and AR also herald possibilities within service centres, using the technology to ensure that accurate product information is at an employee’s fingertips via a facility that allows two parties to see exactly what the other is looking at through a VR library of thousands of products, model variants, colours and sizes.

As a result, this can help with swift issue resolution and increase customer retention. 80% of retailers feel that consumers would accept being served by AI-related technologies. However, there is a generational divide among consumers in the acceptance of this technology.

“80% of retailers feel that consumers would accept being served by AI-related technologies”

 

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Companies are confident that consumers are willing to engage with AI technologies

Survey question to retailers: Thinking about in-store and online customer service; I feel that consumers would accept being served by AI-related technology (e.g. touch screen assistants, AI natural language use, chatbots).

Source: Retail Economics/CMS, 2019

 

AI customer personalisation and retention

From a retailer perspective, customer retention and loyalty is the Holy Grail. Securing retention and building loyalty often stems from using data to understand the consumer, and thanks to AI-driven advancements, data mining techniques and processes, this is helping to leverage previously inaccessible insights which will lead to a new generation of customer service.

For instance, next best action marketing and post-sales data analysis will be influenced by new technology. Various next best actions that retailers could consider might include individualised offers via social media, advice on how to use a recently purchased product, texting or sending a catalogue in an attempt to sell products to an already loyal customer, or even delivering samples to a customer.

More than 85% of retailers think that AI powered data analytics will enable more sophisticated and personalised targeting of customers which will improve loyalty and lifetime value.

However, many of the technologies rely on vast amounts of personal data, and with that, comes trust. Only 17% of consumers trust retailers and consumer companies to handle sensitive data properly.

“Only 17% of consumers trust retailers and consumer companies to handle sensitive data properly”

Retailers and consumer companies are trusted only slightly more than social networks

Survey question to consumers: Who do you trust the most to handle your personal data?

Source: Retail Economics/CMS, 2019

 

Only time will truly tell how consumers and retailers will interact with AI-integrated technology, but the research certainly indicates growing interests, albeit tempered with issues around trust and ethical use.

 

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Found this short article interesting?

This insight article forms part of a thought leadership report entitled “Disruption 2.0 – Here we go again: AI in Consumer and Retail”. It was produced by Retail Economics in partnership with CMS and looks at consumers across all age groups in the UK and explores their attitudes regarding AI technologies they currently interact with, and the cutting-edge applications emerging. To contrast this, the research also includes a business survey of senior leaders from Consumer and Retail organisations, FMCG manufacturers and fashion and luxury brands, to gauge their sentiments towards disruptive technologies and the opportunities and challenges they currently face.
 

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