Artificial intelligence seems to get fame among US retailers as more than 45% has planned to use it, in order to enhance their customer experience; said was so by a survey. The Savvy retailers have planned to use innovative technologies to enhance customer service. More than 55% of the net US retailers are focused on improving the mobile shopping experience for a unified experience across channels.
The BRP conducted a “2017 Customer Experience/Unified Commerce Benchmark Survey” and suggested that both physical, as well as virtual worlds, are necessary for a successful business generation. According to the Vice President and the practical lead of the BRP, “The customer experience in a unified commerce world is much more complex than it is in a pure play e-commerce or brick-and-mortar retail environment and we are seeing retailers map out the entire customer journey to design the optimal customer experience. This complexity expands exponentially as the proliferation of social media, the Internet of Things, (IoT), AI and machine learning influence the retail world and more specifically, the customer journey.”
According to the reports, the major customer experience capabilities include; educate, engage, execute, enhance and enablers. One of the areas of greatest improvement is the offering of social media as a research option for customers to learn more about the brand and products. Overall utilization is up from 73% of retailers utilizing it last year to 92% this year, however, many retailers indicate that their current social media offerings need improvement.
Now more retailers have plans to implement new technologies to identify customers via their smartphones, mobile applications, and other emerging technologies. Within three years, 59% of retailers plan to use Wi-Fi and 63% plan to use mobile apps to identify customers in their stores.
Retailers realize the importance of utilizing customer insights gathered from social media as 89% of retailers are now using social media comments as a critical customer satisfaction measurement, up from 59% last year. Enriched networks are a critical requirement for a unified commerce environment and 76% of retailers plan to enhance or replace their network within the next three years, said was so in the report.
