How to boost retail sales with conversational AI for better customer loyalty

As a retailer, you’re always thinking of ways to keep your customers coming back for more and how to provide them with superior service without increasing operating costs.

With retail disruptions such as global supply chain shortages, inflation, and labor shortages, the retail industry has faced significant economic struggles in recent years, but these struggles provide an opportunity for a much-needed revival. To stay ahead in a highly competitive market, retailers must strive to provide seamless customer experiences from the perspective of their consumers. Retailers need to make sure they recognize and value customers, empower them with options and resources, listen carefully to feedback, and actively engage them to build loyal relationships that will bring repeat business.

Retailers can ensure their success and sustainability by using conversational AI technology as part of their customer service approach. Conversational AI offers a variety of use cases that can help create more personalized consumer experiences, drive sales, and even reduce customer support costs. Agreed Juniper, some of the benefits of using chatbots to retailers include cost savings, increased sales, marketing campaign effectiveness, and cart abandonment prevention. Given these benefits, it’s no surprise that they predict that chatbot adoption will lead to $112 billion in e-commerce transactions made through chatbots by 2023.

Here’s how retailers can use conversational AI:

• Offers 24/7 omnichannel connectivity online and in-store
• Personalizing consumer interactions for better customer satisfaction
• Creation of order fulfillment automation
• Take your sales associates from zero to hero on day one

Offers 24/7 Omnichannel connectivity

One of the most important aspects of creating and delivering a seamless customer experience today is leveraging omnichannel experiences. Omnichannel experiences involve connecting consumers across multiple channels (eg, web, mobile, in-store) to create a unified shopping experience that meets their needs and expectations. Having an immersive virtual experience allows customers to feel like they are getting a unique, personalized experience.

With a seamless experience, you have the ability to connect with customers on their preferred platform, even before an issue arises. This is beneficial to avoid making customers unhappy if you force them to use the organization’s chosen channel when they have problems. By offering customers the flexibility to provide feedback through their preferred channel, you make the experience more convenient and comfortable for them. By being proactive and attentive to customer needs, you can build a deeper level of understanding and trust. This may not always result in a faster resolution, but it will promote greater satisfaction and stronger brand loyalty.

Omni-channel solutions can help retailers:

• Reduce customer frustration
• Extend the capabilities of existing channels
• Offer better self-service to reduce combined store and contact center usage
• Better customer service experiences through better relationships

Personalizing consumer interactions for better customer satisfaction

Delivering a truly personalized experience means that every interaction your consumers have with your brand will make them feel connected, understood, and ultimately lead to more sales conversions and higher consumer satisfaction. Even offering a simple personalized message at each step of the order fulfillment and shipping process can make a big difference to the customer’s last-mile experience.

Conversational AI helps retailers personalize their interactions with customers, leading to improved sales. Using AI-powered virtual assistants, retailers can offer a personalized shopping experience, including natural language searches, order tracking, inventory checks, price comparisons and customized ads. Customers are often willing to share their shopping data for a more personalized experience. This leads to churn, improved customer retention and increased customer lifetime value, creating a loyal customer base for the brand.

Creation of order fulfillment automation

When a company does not fulfill its promises and does not fulfill the order, the consequences can be irreversible. It may seem like a small aspect of a larger whole for the company, but this misstep breaks the trust between you and your customers while reducing the chances of repeat business, leading to decreased profitability. When you provide customers with self-service to monitor the progress of their order in real time, they will experience a high level of openness and engagement that reinforces what they value.

Personalizing each step of the delivery process can have a huge impact on how customers view their experience with your company. A 2020 survey by Statistica found that 42% of respondents, including logistics providers, solution providers and retailers, said their customer base wanted real-time updates on shipment status. Using conversational AI enables you to effectively offer customer order fulfillment regardless of the time, location, or method they use to communicate with you. By doing so, you’ll earn their loyalty and create memorable positive experiences across all your channels, both online and in person.

Take your sales associates from zero to hero on day one

Answering employee questions quickly and efficiently is an absolute necessity in the workplace, but searching through separate systems or access points can be time-consuming and frustrating. Conversational AI-powered intelligent virtual assistants (IVAs) enable employees to send queries via their preferred chat or voice channels with immediate responses, enabling effortless productivity.

Empowering employees with self-service automation from onboarding to hiring and retirement offers a better employee experience that sets them up for success. By using a unified approach, companies can offer rapid omnichannel support for urgent issues and allow partners to immediately resolve HR queries, help desk issues, ticket tracking, scheduling queries, product queries and system reports.

Conversational AI also helps partners deliver better customer service. Associates will be able to provide accurate product information, stay up-to-date on current price promotions, and find the right products for customers. This saves time for partners, provides a better consumer experience and allows new partners to get up to speed immediately.

How Kore.ai RetailAssist can help

As an AI-native conversational commerce solution, RetailAssist combines the online and in-store shopping experience with one intelligent virtual retail assistant. Retailers can create frictionless experiences, giving consumers everything they need to find the perfect product and buy it easily, while giving store associates a digital partner that can help them deliver superior customer service on day zero.

RetailAssist enables retail and e-commerce companies to modernize, scale and transform their operations by building competencies around self-service automation, personalization, omni-channel fulfillment and 24×7 pre/post-sales service and support. It even acts as an intelligent virtual employee assistant to help retail companies with onboarding, day-to-day operations and customer support.

Conclusion

To stand out in the increasingly crowded retail industry, retailers need to deliver frictionless customer experiences from the perspective of their consumers. Retail consumers want to be recognized and surprised by pleasant surprises that offer them independence and freedom of choice when shopping. In other words, listen carefully to what your consumers are saying and develop meaningful interactions through engagement, fostering a loyal customer base of returning customers.

Conversational AI helps create a frictionless experience for both buyers and partners. Offer a personalized omnichannel shopping partner that empowers consumers to find everything they need to find the perfect product and buy it with ease. all while giving your store associates a digital partner that can help them deliver superior customer service on day zero.

How Conversational AI is Helping Retailers