A few years ago, cloud computing transformed customer management, giving every small and medium-sized enterprise access to unified data and communications platforms without the need for large investments in infrastructure and IT staff.
Now the next revolution in consumer experience space is being driven by Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms that help companies automate customer reach and make optimal use of data.
There is more and more information and data than human resources and tools to manage them, and Artificial Intelligence is increasingly shown to make sense of both structured and unstructured data.
AI tools are now helping sales teams, collecting useful data patterns, finding successful courses of action, and taking care of the most valuable part of the work by meeting customer needs and complaints.
AI gains speed in retail
The use of Artificial Intelligence is expanding across industries. Forrester predicted that this year there will be a 300% increase in investment in Artificial Intelligence. Companies around the world are starting to use the power of AI to improve their capabilities and deliver better customer experiences.
Retail ing is an industry where the use of AI is relatively new, but is gaining speed due to customer interest, and it is becoming increasingly apparent that buyers are interested in using this technology during their customer experience buy, so now is the time for retailers to start working with this technology.
Implementing new technologies may seem daunting and costly, but AI software can save retailers time and resources.
How can AI help?
There are many ways for consumers and retailers alike to benefit from AI technology. On the one hand, AI chatbots can help consumers find the information they need in real time. And also, according to Gartner, by 2018, digital assistants will be able to “imitate human conversations” and interact with customers as if they were a friend, rather than a computer. According to Gartner, Artificial Intelligence robots will drive 85% of all customer service interactions by 2020.
For the retailer, this would save time and resources, because instead of hiring an entire customer service team, they can use this technology instead.
Virtual assistants and in-store virtual employees can help personalize the shopping experience, which is what customers demand most. The customer can enjoy an omnichannel experience while in the store, can talk to the virtual seller and then place the order online with a virtual assistant, who has all their information. This personalized experience is only available through AI technology.
In addition, retailers will have access to a large amount of user data, which can be used to predict future purchasing trends.
Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality can also help to attract more customer attention. Both use AI technology to bring together the online experience and offline experience for retailers.
And some retailers are already experimenting with VR experiences for shoppers, for example Lowe’s created an app called Holoroom, where customers can design a kitchen or bathroom, which will then become a 360º YouTube video. And in certain stores, customers can use Oculus Rift or Google Cardboard to view their rooms through virtual reality.
AI in the commercial space
Customers are looking for a unique experience when it comes to shopping, whether they do it online or offline. Retailers that use AI technology to deliver these experiences will thrive, outperforming the competition.
And it’s not just the big companies that can use this technology, because often the largest companies are trapped in legacy systems and red tape that blocks innovation, which means that smaller retailers can take advantage of that advantage and use AI technology to grow in the market.
Customers are starting to demand better, faster customer service and a personalized experience, meaning retailers need to fight to meet this demand.
AI technology can help. While VR and AR are not yet quite ordinary, this trend is gaining traction and delighting users. You need to invest in AI technology to meet customer demands, create unique experiences, and put your brand ahead of the rest.
Oracle’s Adaptative Intelligent Apps
There are many Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution providers who are starting to use and see the value of AI. Oracle is one of them, and has announced new customer experience applications based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) that enable commerce, marketing, sales and service professionals to deliver better real-time customer experiences to the customer.
The new Adaptive Intelligent Apps for CX combines proprietary and third-party data with sophisticated decision-making science and machine learning to provide the industry with the best AI-based customer experience solutions. Adaptive Intelligent Apps for CX is designed to help improve existing commerce, marketing, sales, and customer support applications within the Oracle CX Cloud Suite.
Adaptive Intelligent applications use the knowledge of Oracle Data Cloud, which is the world’s largest data marketplace, with over 5 billion consumer and business IDs globally and more than 7.5 billion data collected each month.
By applying advanced data science and machine learning to Oracle’s web data and an organization’s own data, the new Adaptive Intelligent Apps for CX can have an unprecedented ability to react, learn, and adapt in real time based on reacting, learning, and adapting based on the recourse historical and dynamic customer data, such as their click stream and social media activity, as well as other information such as weather, similar audiences, and Internet of Things (IoT) data.
Thus, the new Adaptive Intelligence Apps for CX helps deliver personalized information that improves with every customer interaction and includes innovative applications designed for B2B customers and professionals.
“Oracle is uniquely positioned to deliver on the promise of AI-based enterprise applications, and is delivering the future of these applications today,” says Clive Swan, SVP Applications Development, Oracle Adaptive Intelligence. “Combining proprietary and third-party data with advanced machine learning and the industry’s most comprehensive suite of cloud applications, Oracle offers a complete package that helps eliminate the need for more integrations or other expensive, time-consuming processes. This allows our customers to achieve value immediately and have a smarter approach to business transformation.”
