How retail brands handle the influx of customer support inquiries during another record-shattering back-to-school (BTS) season will make or break Q3 and beyond. According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), BTS spending will match 2021’s record high of $37 billion. You may be thinking, it’s August, it’s too late, school is back in session. However,…
Fang Cheng
After all the recent upheaval to the retail industry and heightened consumer expectations, omnichannel retailers are looking for ways to future-proof their customer experience (CX) strategies to ensure they’re not caught flat-footed again. Customer experience automation, which leverages digital workers to assist customers in accessing product and order information in real time from pre-purchase through…
The 2021 holiday season brought with it several trends and surprising changes to consumer habits that were unexpected across the retail industry. After nearly two years of sporadic lockdowns and social distancing, it’s unsurprising to many that, for the first time in history, brands experienced a year-over-year decline in online sales during Black Friday and…
As brands turn to automated intelligence to meet expectations for great customer experiences, new restrictions are being placed on the data collected to inform those experiences. On Jan. 1, California enacted the nation’s strictest data privacy law, following on the heels of Vermont, which has been regulating online data brokers since January 2019. In Europe,…
As pressure mounts to differentiate with superb customer service via interactive channels, more brands are turning to artificial intelligence (AI) to help deliver that service at scale. Technology researcher Gartner predicts that by 2021, seven out of 10 companies will rely on AI to boost productivity. Consulting firm McKinsey found that 47 percent of companies…
For years, online shoppers prioritized free shipping over fast delivery by a wide margin. High shipping costs were a top cause of abandoned online shopping carts, and consumers would add items to their carts to qualify for free shipping thresholds. Today, “free” still trumps “fast,” as more than half of shoppers say free shipping is…
The internet has not only increased the importance of customer service as a differentiator; it’s altogether changed the way shoppers and brands interact. In the past, sellers could rely on mass messaging to communicate offers and announce new products, with a toll-free number or mailing address for customer service inquiries. Now customers expect to have…
Over nearly three decades, online shopping has ushered in many changes to the retail landscape — one of which is that a growing number of product categories are now commoditized. Whereas previously, shoppers wishing to comparison shop had to travel physically to other stores or seek out new catalogs, now it’s easy to find multiple…
To stand out during the high-stakes holiday season, merchants should start a conversation with shoppers — literally. Conversational commerce that combines human and machine intelligence is crucial to delivering the interactive customer experience shoppers crave. The conversational commerce revolution is underway. Fueled by the swift adoption of voice-activated “smart speakers,” which Microsoft predicts 75 percent of…
With the importance of customer experience (CX) firmly entrenched in their psyche, most successful retailers now understand that if they want to retain customers long term, they need to think about what happens after shoppers hand over their credit card numbers. These retailers get that they need to think about customer journeys and not one-off…
The customer experience (CX) doesn’t start when the customer arrives. Internal processes, methods and data are the building blocks — and perhaps the limiters — on the quality of every customer experience. To deliver experiences that will win customers back time and time again, brands are digging deeper than polished scripts, perfected web pages and…
There’s no doubt about it , chatbots are changing the e-commerce landscape. They’re shaking up expectations around customer engagement with use cases spanning concierge-like customer care, the post-purchase experience, brand marketing and product discovery. While it may still be early days for this technology, the chatbot landscape is already valued at $4 billion and annual global revenue…
