How Forward Thinking Retailers Are Using A.I.

Forward-thinking retailers are already seeing the benefits of implementing A.I. across different parts of the retail journey. Whether it’s boosting sales, reducing staff costs, automating expensive processes or improving customer experiences, the upsides are almost endless.

Here are a few ways you could do the same:

1. Pre-interaction

Discover customers who are more likely to purchase and present your products in the most appealing way.

• Target Marketing finds customers with the highest propensity to buy, giving you a better ROI from your marketing budget.
• Demand Matching learns the common interests of customers, helping you increase sales with improve product positioning.

2. Customer contact

Automate your communications to enhance the customer’s experience and save costs.

• Chatbots solve enquires and capture data by automatically communicating with customers via text chat. This takes the strain off your workforce and providing a better customer experience.
• A.I. Search and Recommendation predicts and suggests ideal products/services. This gives customers a faster and more relevant search experience.
• Written order and inquiry digitization reads typed or handwritten documents and converts them into digital ones. This enables you to process them more efficiently and accurately.
• Voice IVR and Call Routing let you prioritize incoming calls and gather information before human interaction, making your call center operations more efficient.

3. Live agent and in-store interaction

Enhance how your agents interact with customers in-store and on calls.

• Clienteling combines search and recommendation with historical customer data. This helps to promote relevant instore products based on customer interests.
• Data entry processing extracts key details from customer conversations. This makes it easy to automatically process requests and save time in agent interactions.
• Automated call classification organizes text and audio calls after communication. This allows them to be automatically and accurately logged.
• Call satisfaction rankings classifies how successful individual calls were. This provides powerful insight into training requirements, personal performance, and call routing efficiency.
• Returns handling streamlines processes for when products are returned, helping you protect customers and reduce fraud.

4. Inventory management

Understand and automate key inventory functions to drive efficiency.

• Demand prediction estimates upcoming inventory requirements and splits them by location and region, allowing you to better manage stock flow across your depots.
• Automated stock management improves downstream processes and systems to make your inventory management more efficient.
• Automated planogram compliance ensures the right products are in the best position on shelves, increasing sales and ensuring a consistent brand feel instore.

5. Pick and pack

Automate warehouse operations with robotic workers.

• Warehouse robotics use Deep Reinforcement Learning to accurately adapt and perform tasks in your warehouse, allowing you to save considerable costs on workforce and energy.

6. Delivery and pick-up

Optimize delivery slots and improve logistics to keep customers happy.

• Delivery prediction combines traffic data, inventory location, weather and more. This provides accurate delivery window times, optimizing your logistics and improving service levels.

7. Customer aftercare

Automate your issue resolution system to make it indefinitely scalable.

• Trouble ticket management automatically resolves complex tickets using historical data and Intelligent Process Automation software, providing customers with a quick, consistent and quality service.

To learn more about the applications of A.I. across the retail journey, download our full guide, A.I.: The Future of Retail.