By Mr Debasish Mitra, Vice President of Engineering, Mihup
The technology landscape has been evolving at breakneck speed over the past couple of decades. Lately, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) have been at the helm of this change. While most technologies come and fade into oblivion even before we know it, AI and ML have completely disrupted the way we live and operate, and hence, become irreplaceable; just like electricity and smartphones that we just can’t imagine our lives without!
Not just that, AI and ML have completely transformed the way businesses (including the eCommerce industry) operate and have become the driving force for delivering an improved customer experience (CX). In fact, a recent study suggests that the global AI revenue is pegged to cross US$ 36.8 billion by 2025.
How AI & ML are shaping CX
Given below are some of the key ways AI and ML and AI are driving e-commerce growth by improving customer experience (CX).
● Effortless, intuitive & personalized product discovery
Voice and image search on eCommerce platforms have been gaining momentum rapidly and replacing the usual text-based search that had been the norm so far. This makes the search process more intuitive and effortless, and the overall online shopping experience more inclusive and easily accessible to all.
Ecommerce platforms use NLP (Natural Language Processing) to understand the customer’s natural language with the help of AI and ML and offer more relevant search results. This helps maximize product discovery and sales by ensuring that the right products are displayed to the right users at the right time. This personalized product discovery approach also makes the customer feel heard, and therefore, improves brand affinity and customer experience.
● Hyper-personalization with AI is driven by predictive analytics
While personalization is common on eCommerce platforms, hyper-personalization with the help of AI-based predictive analysis has proved to be a game-changer. A simple example of personalization is including the customer’s name in online ads or emails. Hyper-personalization, on the other hand, would include showing ads of home decor items based on parameters like last search location, social media activity, payment method, etc.
As a result, AI-based predictive analysis makes the buying process more interactive and is key to creating relevant and lead-generating ad campaigns.
● Drive product recommendations
Recommending relevant products based on search history is yet another way of personalizing the buying journey of customers and improving the shopping experience. Moreover, people who click on recommendations also end up visiting more pages on the website, and as a result, end up with more products in their cart.
While customers are obviously delighted with the experience, it also translates into more sales on the website for a smaller ad spend, as such customers don’t need much persuasion to buy the recommended products.
● Improved customer service with AI-based chatbots
AI-based chatbots and voice bots help deliver real-time and 24*7 customer support and address routine script-based queries. It helps cut down the response time drastically while simultaneously helping minimize the load on customer service staff.
Moreover, with AI at their disposal, businesses get access to key insights and trends that can help them address issues like abandoned shopping carts, collect crucial first-party data, send notifications to customers about the latest offers and promotions, etc., which in turn helps drive customer engagement and get repeat customers.
Conclusion
Intelligent and hyper-personalized AI-driven customer experiences will drive the future of eCommerce. So, the sooner eCommerce businesses adopt AI and ML into their businesses, the better their chances of getting a competitive edge in the market.