1. Customer Service Automation
“Speed is the most important component of customer experience and the only one that never pauses or goes backward,” notes Forbes. And this need for speed isn’t limited to the checkout line; it expands to customer service.
A recent study found that customers dislike having to contact a business more than once. So, it’s not surprising that 82 percent of consumers who have never before used AI for shopping want to employ it for customer service-related matters, according to IBM. By automating FAQs, appointment scheduling and more, generative AI can help streamline customer service with less human intervention. Retailers should assess their current customer service inefficiencies and select tools such as AI chatbots to help solve issues.
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2. Conversational Commerce
Chatbots are becoming more common, but their ability to facilitate conversational exchanges can be lacking. Retailers need kinder AI bots as conversational commerce becomes a mainstay.
“Ultimately, conversational commerce is about building meaningful, personalized connections with customers,” notes Salesforce. “It combines the convenience of digital communication with the warmth of natural, human language, enabling businesses to grow sales and foster long-term loyalty.”
Retailers can train AI bots to be more personal, but they don’t need to limit themselves to traditional chatbots. They can also expand to voice assistants, such as Amazon’s Alexa or Apple’s Siri, and to copilots for shoppers to support customers with personalized recommendations and more.
“The key to successful conversational commerce comes from understanding consumer intent to purchase and guiding them through the process with conversational AI,” notes Jon Jessup, founder and CEO of conversational commerce solutions company 1440, in a Salesforce blog post.
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3. Product Catalog Management
Customers can’t purchase products if they never discover them. Mismanaged product catalogs can lead to low product discovery, which in turn “leads to inaccuracies, poor recommendations and reduced conversion rates,” according to an article on SAP’s website. “Inconsistent product tagging and inaccurate descriptions, which are often handled manually by key account or merchandising managers, can ensure products are hidden beyond customers’ reach.”
By assigning these tasks to AI, retailers can mitigate cataloging errors and save customers from a game of hide and seek — a game that customers are likely to quit. Retailers can use generative AI tools such as Shopify Magic to write search engine optimization-driven product descriptions, edit product image backgrounds, automatically tag and categorize products and more. And when used in conjunction with smart shelves and other AI-powered hardware for inventory management, retailers can easily update their catalogs to reflect real-time product availability.
