45% retailers may use AI to improve customer experience

The physical and digital worlds are forever intertwined, said the 2017 Customer Experience/Unified Commerce Benchmark Survey conducted by BRP, an independent retail management consulting firm. The survey was carried out to understand retailers' customer experience priorities today and for the future, and how the evolution of unified commerce helps provide retailers with the right people, processes and technology to enable retailers to enhance the customer experience.

"Most retailers have plans to implement new technologies to identify customers via their smartphones, mobile applications and other emerging technologies. Within three years, 59 per cent of retailers plan to use wi-fi and 63 per cent plan to use mobile apps to identify customers in their stores," the survey stated.

Further, it has also been observed that the overall utilisation is up from 73 per cent of retailers utilising it last year to 92 per cent this year, however, many retailers indicate that their current social media offerings need improvement. It is time that the retailers realise the importance of utilising customer insights gathered from social media as 89 per cent of retailers are now using social media comments as a critical customer satisfaction measurement, up from 59 per cent last year.

The survey has also pointed out that enhanced networks are a critical requirement for a unified commerce environment and 76 per cent of retailers plan to enhance or replace their network within the next three years. 67 per cent of retailers are offering a consistent product assortment across channels; however, many retailers are still struggling with manual processes as 43 per cent indicate the processes need improvement. (RR)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk – India