Intelligent Products
How Intelligent Products enhance the retail and CPG customer experience
Elevating customer experience (CX) is both an art and a science within the retail industry. It takes creativity to come up with new methods to grab shoppers’ attention in a world filled with everything from physical stores with indoor skateboarding ramps and shelf-stocking, salad-serving robots to digital shops that allow people to try on goods using augmented reality and buy items via shoppable live streams.
The science is in finding innovative and efficient ways to speak directly to customers, meeting their needs whenever and wherever they want, and ensuring that a negative experience doesn’t drive them away.
Here are a few stats to consider:
- 84% of customers say the experience a company provides is as important as its products or services. [1]
- 78% of shoppers say they’re more likely to be a repeat customer if they’ve had an exceptional customer experience using a digital channel, while 64% have jumped to a competitor after a poor experience. [2]
- 60% of consumers have bought something from one brand over another due to the service they expect to receive. [3]
- It costs 6 to 7 times more to get a new customer compared to retaining existing customers. [4]
So, what’s a retail or CPG company to do to advance the art and science of customer experience?
Many are turning towards Intelligent Products to reimagine every touchpoint along the customer journey. The entire industry is buzzing over the promise of how artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) aim to reshape shopping as we know it. Investment in AI and ML within the retail sector has been booming, with global spending on artificial intelligence services set to reach $11.8 billion in 2024 and a whopping $45.74 billion by 2032. [5]
How can Intelligent Products create a better retail & CPG customer experience?
Thanks to their data-crunching capabilities, Intelligent Products help to ensure greater convenience, enable deeper personalization, and empower seamless shopping experiences. They take in information, learn from data inputs, and then solve challenging analytical problems faster and on a larger scale than even a room full of the most tenured employees.
Here are a few areas where we’re seeing Intelligent Products prove their value in creating a superior retail and CPG customer experience.
Customer service.
Given that 70% of shoppers expect every employee they interact with to have easy access to context from previous conversations and past purchase information, Intelligent Products can provide faster, more accurate responses based on a customer’s complete transaction history. [6]
AI systems can intelligently route customer inquiries to the correct departments or agents, identifying the required expertise and escalating more complex issues for higher-level human support. Intelligent products streamline the customer service process, reducing wait times and speed to resolution time. No more “Please hold. Your call is important to us” messages or waiting in long lines for the next available associate.
Personalization.
Way back in 1998, when detailing his vision for Amazon.com, Jeff Bezos said, “If we have 4.5 million customers, we shouldn’t have one store. We should have 4.5 million stores.”[7] AI is making it possible to achieve this kind of 1:1 hyper-personalization across multiple channels.
Intelligent Products can analyze vast amounts of customer data to rapidly gain insights into individual preferences, behaviors, and purchasing patterns. This data empowers more accurate personalization of customer interactions, including recommending relevant products or services, offering tailored promotions, targeted marketing campaigns, or suggesting items based on previous interactions. The information can also be used to power clienteling capabilities and systems.
Leveraging customer data and sophisticated algorithms using artificial intelligence and machine learning helps retail and CPG companies:
- save time
- improve accuracy and relevancy
- deliver targeted marketing and advertising
- succeed with omnichannel personalization
- increase conversion rates and revenue
- reduce cart abandonment
- enhance customer satisfaction
- drive customer loyalty
Chatbots, virtual and voice assistants, and generative AI.
Where better for chatbots, virtual and voice assistants to be put to work than in the retail industry? In 2023, more than 70% of chatbot conversations will be in this space. [8] Conversational commerce tools are a welcome rescue from listening to endless minutes of cheesy hold music.
Generative AI is a significant game-changer that many retailers are starting to implement, including using it to power their customer service chatbots and create videos that respond to common customer queries. These Intelligent Products power rapid, human-like, personalized service 24/7 and deliver consistency in customer interactions.
What do customers think of brands using generative AI for personalized recommendations or offering customer service support? A March 2023 survey reveals the majority of respondents “somewhat” or “strongly” back its use. [9]
Experiential retail.
Intelligent Products facilitate memorable experiences by delivering new ways to engage and interact with shoppers. They can help customers navigate a store for a 1:1 customized shopping experience or recommend products by looking at the person’s purchase history, loyalty information, location, and other data points to trigger mobile notifications.
Robots, apps, visual search, interactive dressing rooms, and self-checkouts further enhance a customer’s in-store activity. Artificial intelligence powers immersive environments that captivate shoppers and drive sales, including virtual personal styling, facial recognition technology, interactive in-store displays, intelligent pricing and dynamic promotions, and smart checkout systems.
What next?
For some time, customer experience has been more than just a buzzword; it’s the foundation for sustainable success in the future. In this rapidly evolving landscape, embracing Intelligent Products supports exceptional customer interactions that will set new retail and CPG industry standards.
Interested in learning more about how Intelligent Products? This whitepaper will give you ideas on how and what you could start building. Or you can contact us to book a discovery session to gain insights into how Intelligent Products can help you exceed customer expectations and maximize profitable revenue growth.
[1] Connor Donegan. “State of the Connected Customer.”Salesforce. July 12, 2019. https://www.salesforce.com/new...;
[2] Business Wire. “New Survey Reveals 64 Percent of Consumers Have Jumped to a Competitor Following a Poor Customer Experience.” June 15, 2022. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220610005375/en/New-Survey-Reveals-64-Percent-of-Consumers-Have-Jumped-to-a-Competitor-Following-a-Poor-Customer-Experience
[3] Deflieze, Margaret. “35 Customer Experience Statistics to Know for 2023.” Zendesk. February 14, 2023. https://www.zendesk.com/blog/c...;
[4] Bernazzani, Sophia. “Here’s Why Customer Retention is So Important for ROI, Customer Loyalty and Growth.” HubSpot. March 11, 2022. https://blog.hubspot.com/service/customer-retention
[5] Precedence Research. “Artificial Intelligence in Retail Market Size to this Around USD 45.74 BN by 2032.”Globe Newswire. December 23, 2022. https://www.globenewswire.com/...;
[6] Hueffner, Erin. “How to Cut Retail Customer Service Costs with Artificial Intelligence.” Zendesk. May 9, 2023. https://www.zendesk.com/blog/c...;
[7] Walker, Leslie. “Amazon Gets Personal with E-Commerce.” Washington Post. November 8, 1998. https://www.washingtonpost.com...;
[8] Dey, Victor. “How AI-Powered Conversational Commerce will Transform Shopping in 2023.” VentureBeat. January 10, 2023. https://venturebeat.com/ai/how...;
[9] Stambor, Zak. “Retailers are Bullish on Generative AI’s Potential.” Insider Intelligence. April 19, 2023. https://www.insiderintelligenc...;