In 2016, e-Commerce grossed $400 billion in online sales in the United States alone. With this number projected to grow beyond $600 billion by 2020, it comes to no one’s surprise that e-Commerce has established itself as an industry of its own. Ever evolving as the industry has become, e-Commerce service providers are constantly coming up with ways to enhance customer experience. Thanks to technological advancements, groundbreaking ideas, and innovative solutions are being brought to the table; revolutionizing the process and reinventing what we have come to know today as e-Commerce. Artificial intelligence is one of such creative solutions that has taken off in recent years and is proving to be a game-changer.
Alternative Solutions
The years where artificial intelligence was thought to be a sign of the future are long over. That future is now. Corporate giants like Google and Microsoft have long since begun investing heavily in AI and have moved on to utilize it in various ways. In combination with satellite data,Google is using AI to prevent illegal fishing. Microsoft Soundscape is a research project that makes use of AI to create 3D sound maps that provide those with blindness or problems with sight a more comprehensive perception of their surroundings. Gartner has stated that by 2020, e-Commerce customers will manage 85% of their relations with the company without ever interacting with a human. From predictive intelligence to contextual messaging, chatbots are just one of the many applications of AI and robotics that online giants have adapted to engage healthily with their customers.
Personalization in AI
It’s become personal - that is to say, AI has brought personalization to an entirely different level. Relying on existing analytics, AI uses the data from it to understand the customer more thoroughly and caters their personal experience to better suit them. Reflective of the customer’s behavior, it creates personalized messages along with recommendations based off of the user history. Time is saved as well - if the customer sees the product they wish to buy on the homepage, they don’t waste any time searching for what they want via manually typing it in the search bar and scrolling through multiple result pages. Moreover, conversion rates are improved and the customer is more likely to make a purchase due to the purchase decision journey being much shorter.
Thanks to the imminent detail with which AI takes customer behavior into account, modeling and analysis have been notably simplified. E-Commerce vendors can now depend upon AI to aid in communicating effectively with the prospect through messages that are carefully selected based off of existing data. What’s preferable - sending mass emails that are blanket in nature, or sending precise messages automatically customized for the customer based off of their onsite behavior?
Enhanced Customer Experience
Chatbots are available 24/7, but their effects go far beyond this. An intricate understanding of the customer’s preferences and history not only increases bottom-line but also helps strengthen their loyalty to the brand. Predicting customer preferences, providing customized support, and ultimately changing the way the customer and company interact, this is but one major function of AI. Already, the use of AI in e-Commerce is revolutionizing business and will continue to do so in the years to come.
Interested to know more? Talk to our Experts.