The retail industry has seen a surge in modern e-commerce revolution over the last decade, which led large and small-scale retail businesses to adopt innovative technologies across the marketplace. With the onset of AI-powered models, most retailers have realized the potential to make the best use of these technologies that uphold significant business performance, profitability and streamline operations to majorly enhance retail customer service.
In this article, we will take a closer look at the importance of retail customer service and explore the 5 best AI strategies in improving customer support in the retail space.
From the time a customer first walks into your store for any intent to purchase, as retailers you have only a matter of time to create lasting impression. What remains to crucial is whether it has delivered a positive or negative experience. This can be evaluated by measuring retail customer service across different parameters – from the time of store visit to post-sale consumption. In such cases, integrating smart, intuitive, and innovative solutions using AI-powered technology helps drive exceptional retail support services.
According to Salesforce, 92% of consumers in retail agree that positive customer service encourages them to likely make another purchase.
As a matter of fact, retail customer service is a system of listed methods and policies that are used by businesses to provide customer support and constant interaction from the pre-purchase to the post-purchase stage enabling personalized touch that includes product recommendations, anticipating customer queries and needs. Furthermore, customer service in retail is not only how the agents interact with their customers across various touchpoints both in-store and online, but it is also about generating relevant and contextual customer experience throughout the purchase journey to increase revenue, sales, and profit margins.
Moreover, with AI in retail support services, complex computational processes are easily eliminated using robotic automation for conducting activities like product promotion, identifying supply chain complexity and inventory assortments etc. Retail customer service when combined with AI and other advanced technologies leads to making smarter decisions with better accuracy, real-time forecasting and enabling smart retail solutions. However, driving such promising solutions comes with myriad challenges.
Here are a few ongoing challenges faced by retail customer service from time-to-time:
In today’s competitive world where data is generated, processed, and easily captured online – its time retailers take their game a notch high to make a difference in the digital world. AI being one of the most indispensable tools has been widely used in retail customer service to improve efficiency, data collection, and customer support leading to less waiting time so that agents can deal with more complex issues.
Let us understand how AI can enable potential customer support in retail. Here are the top 5 remarkable strategies that will help you enhance retail customer service using intelligent AI automation solutions.
Imagine a customer is checking a particular item at a store and with the help of AI data sensors, retailers can notify a personalized recommendation on their smartphone based on past activities, behaviors, and preferences. Another smart way is by tracking the multiple visits and frequently bought products where AI can use such data to offer personalized rewards like discounts, membership, loyalty points etc. and meet customer needs.
On other hand, AI-enabled store apps gather already-collected data with the use of search optimization offering out-store recommendations to customers online. Therefore, this data can help retailers target product advertisements to specific audience and attract them back to the store leading a way to create significant retail customer service.
Managing an accurate inventory is a major challenge that most retailers are facing today. AI-powered technologies offer retail support services to gain 360-degree view of the purchase experience, store, and product availability and help with effective inventory management. AI support sensors combined with computer vision techniques can quickly identify pricing errors, mitigate product loss in real-time and alert low stock or misplaced items for more up-to-date inventories. As a result, with such solutions retailers can efficiently free up associated time to focus on maximizing customer support, demand, and expectations.
The more retailers understand customer behavior and trends the easier it gets to meet their demands. On this journey, AI provides retailers with demand forecasting approaches that make price decisions easy, optimize product placement, and gain future insights using predictive measures. Furthermore, AI intelligence at the retail edge recognizes customer intent to promote engagement with products and enhance customer service in retail using personalized touchpoints.
Deploying an automated chatbot system can conduct customer interactions easily with retailers via auditory or textual methods stimulating human-like communication in form of text or speech. This AI-enabled technology works as a virtual assistant to enhance the shopping experience and help retailers scale business outcomes, boost sales conversion, reduce support tickets, and increase workplace productivity. Moreover, having a designated bot system provides immediate solutions to product queries or complaints and enable customers to maximize their purchasing power.
According to eMarketer, 62% of customers are likely to return to a website that offers hassle-free live chat support while 38% make their purchase decision due to the chat experience itself.
Image recognition is the most widely popular and rapidly expanding area in the retail industry. The primary benefit AR contributes to the evolving conventional stores is that it allows customers to find their preferred products using AI visual search while you can enjoy a spectacular virtual walk-through experience. This visually enabled feature also known as AI-powered mirrors helps search for in-store products easy using an image notified by customers and suggests a similar product with its exact location. As a result, this visual listening technique can accelerate sales conversion, deliver a smooth omnichannel experience and advance interaction providing exceptional retail customer service.
Retail customer service is one of the most crucial factors a company must consider when it comes to maintaining a successful retail business. With AI-enabled automation, retailers can efficiently operate product selling in a better way to make smarter decisions, boost revenue and enhance customer retention.
If you would like to learn more about how AI retail solutions shape your customer service landscape? Check out our blog that talks about redefining customer experience with conversational AI in retail using advanced automated technologies.
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