In the first part of this blog, we looked at how Artificial Intelligence (AI) has changed the supplier side of the retail eco-system, especially on two fronts – Price and Product Offering.
In this post, we shall analyze how it has affected the buyer’s journey almost every step of the way.
As most of you will know, a buyer’s journey starts from the awareness stage, where they come to learn of a product or a brand, and then goes on to the following stages: research, consideration, purchase, and retention; the latter is where a company tries to hold on to its customers.
After all, history shows that people who have bought from your company before are most likely to be repeat customers if they are happy with the overall journey.
AI retains the ability to analyze vast tracts of data, including human behavior.
If you were to look at it from the customer’s viewpoint, the ushering in of the digital era, and now AI, has leveled the field for the buyer vis-à-vis Price and Product Offering.
All a customer has to do to get the best price or the best product within a price range is use their portable computing device to search the entire marketplace for what they want.
The introduction of AI and its applied fields, such as Machine Learning, now affects almost every stage of a customer journey.
What is the facilitator today is that consumers live in an omnichannel, multi-channel world, and AI provides a means to enable informed and intelligent responses across all these platforms.
It is also a known fact that good customer service means good business. And good customer service never ends at a sale; it continues way beyond that.
Take, for example, how retailer Neiman Marcus’ Innovation Lab, or iLab, used digital tech to help customers in the department stores. Some years ago, it introduced the ‘Memory Mirror’ technology.
This is a digital mirror that a customer stands in front of and keeps twirling in front of. A hidden camera takes eight-second videos of you spinning. On playback, a buyer can see themselves from all angles.
You don’t have to ask anyone how you look in different poses; you can see it for yourself. This was an advancement on the average dressing room we’ve all seen so far. Today, Neiman has 38 fashion Memory Mirrors in 20 stores.
With newer technologies such as AI now in play, retailers like Neiman can use them to create even “more meaningful” customer experiences.
In fact, Neiman is believed to be already contemplating incorporating AI and augmented reality into the customer buying experience.
The use of AI in a buyer’s journey, for now, may be in its early stages, with some brands testing the waters by introducing chatbots.
But experts believe the day is not far off when AI will affect every stage of the customer journey – from marketing messages and ads to product design and shipping.
Virtual shopping assistants or recommendation engines that help consumers find products in catalogs are another area where AI is helping.
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Even real-time recommendations, as a shopper looks up what’s on display, turn the entire experience into a one-on-one experience.
Here are the many ways in which AI is helping customers:
Personalization
It is a fact known to every marketer – customers are drawn to experiences, which in turn, makes them loyal to a brand.
In the offline world, thanks to the assembly line method of producing goods for the masses, not much personalization is possible. With the advent of digitization, though, that changed.
Data on individual customers was used to create an engaging experience that would attract them back to the e-store.
Now, with AI in the picture, its ability to analyze vast amounts of data at very high speeds has given personalization of goods a whole new meaning.
AI techniques help recognize patterns, learn from them, and churn out hyper-personalized recommendations for customers.
What’s more, AI can analyze customer sentiment across various social media channels and match customer profiles to their social experiences with a particular product.
It can perceive what a shopper’s style is and adapt product recommendations in real-time, even as the customer shops.
Some retailers are then using such AI-generated output to offer products that will appeal to an individual customer’s taste.
At every stage of a customer journey, AI will offer gains for retailers and their customers alike.
Visual Search
The next disruption in long-term keyword search is visual search, and it’s almost around the corner.
After all, shopping is a visual experience. No amount of words can ever accurately describe a product or service.
Visual search is expected to take customer experience to the next level.
Here’s how: Brands will upload images of goods in their inventory, each with its own unique codes.
When customers upload a picture of a product they like, an AI-based system will evaluate it and factor in aspects such as brand, color, and so on.
This may be done by analyzing the pixels in the image. It will then surface suggestions on alternative brands or products, all in real time.
Alternatively, AI-based software can also suggest products based on a shopper’s history, likes, and dislikes.
Experts predict that once visual search is in full swing, shopping cart abandonment will decline significantly.
Using AI, brands can scan petabytes of data to predict customer behavior and present visual recommendations to individual consumers.
Going ahead, companies will be able to combine AI and visual capabilities to develop analytics models to identify even micro trends and consumer behavior patterns, and then make intelligent recommendations.
Virtual Personal Shopper
Department store Macy’s tried to do this in late 2016. Using IBM’s Watson, it created a personal mobile AI shopping assistant called ‘Macy’s On Call’.
Using Watson’s Natural Language API, the cognitive mobile tool helps potential shoppers find information about some of Macy’s retail stores.
Not everybody can duplicate what Macy’s did for now, because of the high costs involved.
Yet AI-driven virtual assistants can be highly effective recommendation systems.
There’s little doubt that they retain the potential to transform the retail industry and, in the long run, drive sales. Where time is money, consumers will find using a personal shopping assistant, so to speak, very effective.
