ChatBots

Retail sales over the past year have declined 21.6 percent, with recent months piling on additional unprecedented challenges. Not only are consumers embracing e-commerce, but how they seek out support is also changing. Even though these trends started to emerge before the global pandemic, they're now playing out on an accelerated timeline and putting retailers…

In times such as these, when we're asked to stay at home and do our part to #flattenthecurve and help combat the COVID-19 pandemic, retail businesses around the world are experiencing changes in their usual ways of doing business. With more and more cases of coronavirus reported on a daily basis, people are reluctant to…

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, retailers worldwide have been forced to shutter their brick-and-mortar locations and rely on online sales. For many, this quick transition has highlighted the crucial need to advance their online customer experience (CX) capabilities — and in some cases, start them from scratch. While the usual, employee-driven customer service…

As with telemedicine for healthcare and online learning for education, digital customer experience (CX) for retail is now a mission-critical path for operational continuity amid the global pandemic. Companies dependent on physical locations that didn't successfully transform their business model for digital are particularly vulnerable to worsening economic forecasts. Among other shortcomings that amassed nearly $1.7 billion…

Retail has had to evolve quickly to keep up with the rise of e-commerce. It hasn’t been the smoothest transition. Foot traffic in malls has halted, department stores have closed up shop, and many smaller stores, once anchored by larger establishments, have been left without a safety net. How can retailers succeed in this environment?…

Chatbots and other artificial intelligence-assisted customer service tools continue to grow exponentially as retailers look to improve efficiencies. The benefits of chatbots and electronic systems for businesses are relatively straightforward: less time spent monitoring communication channels, less expensive customer service solutions, and even the ability to grow by converting potential customers. Some analysts believe chatbots…

Customers love voice and chat assistants, the conversational interfaces that turn on the lights, help home chefs cook an egg to perfection, and make it easy for consumers to research and buy goods online. However, while customers are already building strong relationships with these conversational assistants, retailers are still learning how to best use conversational…

Over the past few years we've witnessed customer experience undergo a complete digital transformation. The modern consumer is more demanding than ever, and technological advancements are coming thick and fast. Creating a coherent strategy can seem overwhelming, particularly when you consider that 83 percent of consumers have higher digital care expectations today than they did just…

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…

Analysts predict that spending on artificial intelligence (AI) in the retail sector will reach $7.3 billion by 2022, a majority of which will be poured into customer-facing conversational solutions like voice assistants and chatbots. That’s not surprising, given how the power of conversation is poised to fundamentally transform customer experiences across industries. The use of…