In this blog you will understand- how retailers can manage real time interaction virtually.
To support and complement the new retail practices, it is important for omni-channel retailers should adopt and utilize several virtual technologies and cope with the increasing demands of consumer for better shopping experiences. It is imperative to analyze several specific cases, which utilize virtual and make synergy among those technologies to strategically manage and implement in efficient an effective way.
Digital shift of the retail industry have a positive influence from revenue and margin perspective, it helps to reduce the operational cost and improve employee motivation and provides opportunities for retailers to engage better with the existing customer and to acquire new customer.
Whether it’s online, in the store, or on their device, customers expect a seamless, personalized experience. Retailers need a way to meet customer needs while still keeping costs down, especially in this age of digital transformation when customer experience becoming an increasingly important competitive differentiator. To scale up as seasonal spikes occur, without adding costs, retailers can take help from Virtual Assistants who can handle complex self-service tasks with flexibility which was previously handled by customer agents.
How Conversational Artificial Intelligence Can Support Retail Customers?
To deliver effortless and productive conversations with retail customers, Intelligent Virtual Assistant can understand on human level by using innovative Adaptive Understanding technology which leverages machine learning, Natural language processing and automatic speech recognition. Virtual Assistant powered by Conversational AI can guide and help customers whether they are on their mobile device or in online store.
To create personalized experiences for your customers, Artificial Intelligence (AI) can also be used in retail. For example, if a guest calls customer service on the phone to initiate a return of recently ordered an item online, then, to create a speedy and efficient return transaction, the phone number can trigger the past purchase history of that guest using AI. This prevents your guest to find order numbers and receipts, by searching through their email.
What makes a good customer experience in retail?
The number one characteristic of a good retail customer experience is convenience. To provide your customers a personalized conversation on the channel of their choice, companies must leverage Artificial Intelligence technologies and incorporate omnichannel options.
And more, customers expect businesses to be available not just during business hours but at all times of the day. With an VA powered by Conversational AI, you can still have consistent positive experiences by providing service to customers at the time of day that is most convenient to them.
How to address seasonal and unpredicted volume with the help of AI?
It’s simple. VAs can handle routine tasks like returns, order status, store location, and technical support so that your customer leaves happy and with their issue solved, whereas your agents may take more time to deal with complicated customer issues. And VAs able to provide a positive and effective customer experience as they are powered by Conversational AI.
And in some case the live agent can focus on solving the issue and the VA can handle data collection so that the customer does not have to repeat any information. As VAs can handle an unlimited number of customers, this allows for scalability during your busiest times of year.
“VR is a way to escape the real world into something more fantastic. It has the potential to be the most social technology of all time.”
– Palmer Luckey, founder Oculus VR and Designer of the Oculus Rift.
How to address seasonal and unpredicted volume with the help of AI?
Here are the seven ways how a Virtual Assistant can improve your customer experience.
1. Seamless Live Chat
In an online conversation Customers can engage with a Virtual Assistant in much the same way as a live customer support employee. Virtual Assistant can analyze the customer’s question and deliver a response that meets the customer’s needs. As VAs are integrated seamlessly, customers can talk to your brand at any time for the answers they need, which saves them from the trouble of searching the company’s online resources.
2. Customer Service 24/7
Your Virtual live chat support need not sleep — but your Live chat staff does.
At times when customers service staff members are unavailable, customers need a way seek out answers to vital questions, and their needs often arise outside of business hours. So, they don’t have to wait for a response from a voicemail or email message. Virtual Assistants offer customers the opportunity to get answers to their questions at any time, and also get feeling of conversing with a live operator at any time.
3. Answer Endless Queries, Without Any Miss
The goal of Virtual Assistants is to satisfy the customer’s needs, handle the repetitive tasks. VAs will not mind if your customer asks for a password reset fourth time in a week. They have been developed around the idea of letting computers do the things but designed to simulate human intelligence.
“A brand shouldn’t try to build a human-like chatbot. A great chatbot should be able to take actions that maximize their chances of success toward achieving particular goals.”
– David Cancel, CEO Drift.
Source: https://socialmedia.co.ke/bots-are-not-there-to-humanize-your-brand-but-they-can-make-some-good-brand-reps/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CA%20brand%20shouldn’t%20try,~%20David%20Cancel%2C%20CEO%20Drift
4. A Smoother Journey
To offer additional information, video content or even a discount code, your virtual assistant can pop up on any product page, to ease the purchasing process for the customer. This help unexpected guidance may even drop the dreaded rate of shopping cart abandonment.
5. Say No To IVR
The use of interactive voice response (IVR) systems during phone calls to customer support is one of the biggest complaints that customers have about the customer service process. On the other hand, with less IVR-induced frustration, Virtual Assistant can be used in a similar way. While the VA can try to lead them towards solution or to a human representative, which provides a feeling of personalised service and the customer feels that their problem is understood.
6. Personification of Brand
To engage with customers on many different levels, the flexibility of Virtual Assistant provides the retailers the chance. They are available in various types of “personalities” and can act as the customer’s primary resource for technical support. From precise and technical to friendly and helpful and humorous, VAs can also be programmed with different types of conversational styles. This can help the retailers to re-engage the customers with the brand.
7. Reinvent Your Forms
You give your customer a form to fill in, if you want their information. Often, they’ll do it so reluctantly which led to a cognitive load to your staff. On the other hand, a Virtual Assistant spruces the situation up and can get the same information that any form can — but without the friction and mental stress.
A recent survey by chatbot developer Helpshift found that to satisfy specific needs, customers would welcome the use of chatbots. Virtually Assistants work much more promptly in resolving any issue and streamline the entire customer service process to reduce the time required to get a customer service representative online to resolve the issue on time. Maximum retailers want this shift as no one wants to lose customers to the competition.
The ground fact is that it is easy to say that the marketers need to develop good relationship with customers, but with a never-ending evolution of needs and desires, it is really tough to engage with customers spontaneously everywhere at any time.
Customers are embracing the brands where they are getting the touch of personalization. To deal with expectation of extraordinary relation, marketers are using a tool to manage which maximum times leads to disconnected experience to precious customers and if multiple teams are working hotchpotch is more as situation arises where all the teams are trying to reach the same customer. In nutshell, the scenario is lack of internal governance leads to a devastating marketing campaign.
This is where Salesforce real-time interaction management (RTIM) can help. `
To determine the eligibility, prioritization, offers and validity of content, visualize keenly how individuals are progressing across touchpoints on all your channels and your observation can help you to provide your customers the best interaction. Orchestrate campaigns across every channel, pause irrelevant interactions or offers, decide which offers should be removed altogether, and limit the number of times a piece of content can be seen before it’s replaced. By emphasizing the mentioned pointers on time, you can manage and optimize the customer experience.
Benefits of using Salesforce Interaction Studio
- Boost marketing campaign performance
- Increase relevancy and personalization
- Enhance the relationships with consumers
- Increase engagement
Interaction Studio works with and across your existing systems. You don’t need to manage periodic upgrades and it won’t replace existing technology. To provide real-time analysis and actionable insight across individual consumer journeys, liberate your data from functional silos. Interaction Studio is a cloud-based engagement layer that can integrates with Journey Builder, Email Studio, or any other systems of engagement.
The main features of Salesforce Interaction studio that creates the impact on the entire business
- Improve customer experiences, and proactive customer service by creating brand advocates with loyalty programs
- To cross-sell and upsell, boost lifetime value with new tools
- With renewals, relevant and timely campaigns, retain more customers
- By targeting the next best offers or actions by promoting campaigns or personalised content, increase the conversion rate.
- Decrease average call-handling time and increase first-call resolution with self-service customer care
- With lifecycle insights and optimization, onboard new customers
No other Real–time interaction management (RTIM) platform is as apt as Salesforce Interaction studio that can strengthen your consumer relationships with every step. To make the perfect matches between products and individuals, Salesforce Interaction studio is the best option as it is light, agile and delivers the speed-to-value that top marketers and executives need.
About ETG Digital
ETG is a Crest Level Salesforce Partner headquartered in Plano, Texas. We are ISO 9001:2015 certified company with a global delivery center in Hyderabad, India. We have dedicated teams of professionals spanning continents located in US, Canada, UAE, UK, Australia and India. Our ability to maintain talent hubs in multiple locations and working on projects for clients from various domains gives us a very unique advantage. An advantage to leverage proven technologies like Salesforce Commerce, Sales, Service, Partner and Marketing Clouds and using them to deliver tailor made solutions for clients to suit their business requirements.
If you are looking to take your business into the next league, you are at the right place. Connect with us at info@etg.digital or call us at +1 469 666 1119
