Role of Artificial Intelligence in E-Commerce Industry
Artificial Intelligence is now no longer an unheard concept. In fact, it is having a bearing on just about every conceivable thing. From smart homes to e-learning and even e-commerce there is hardly any domain untouched by the impact of E-Commerce.
In fact, AI is embedding itself in each and every aspect of our life. Now when you visit a mall you see several self-checkout cash counters. Even the airports are now being equipped with state of art advanced security check systems.
Simply stated, now machines are assisting us in which we would not have even thought about. And what’s more, they complete the tasks better than humans. Now people are making use of machines to do mundane tasks so that they can channelise energies on doing better things.
As we stay in a profit-driven global world where sales are happening regardless of time of the day, business needs to be available to the customers at all hours of the day.
AI in e-commerce helps to achieve this objective. It enables companies to gather as well as investigate data in real-time, thus facilitating more efficiency and competence in business.
The customers are provided with a personalized experience on of knowledge about their preferences.
Some examples of AI in E-Commerce
Chatbots
The e-commerce sites now offer 24/7 assistance and this is because of chatbots. Earlier these chatbots just offered customary replies, now they have turned into intelligent beings which understand all issues which the visitors have to deal with.
Several online shopping sites now have chatbots to help people make buying decisions. Even the applications like Facebook Messenger have chatbots via which potential customers can communicate with the vendor site and offer assistance in the buying process. These bots communicate by using either speech or text or both.
CRM
Gone are the days when a human resource was the base of Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Huge efforts were made to gather and evaluate data so as to offer superb services to the clients.
Now, AI can sift through vast volumes of data in order to predict exactly which clients will execute a buying decision, therefore, efforts are made to secure their engagement.
CRM pinpoints buying trends so that your actions are directed in a right way. With advanced CRM solutions, predictions are made with enhanced accuracy, thus the sales team can concentrate on building long-lasting associations with customers.
Sales representatives are relieved from the monotonous task of analyzing numbers. They can now just focus on their revenue goals. So, now AI has become the fulcrum of sales efforts.
Internet of Things
Cohesion leads to smoother operations, and this is what IoT intends to do-offering connectivity in all elements of our life.
From syncing different devices to programming your washing machine, lights, household appliances and even your car, IoT is simply everywhere. Internet of Things is having an impact on virtually everything in our lives. It even monitors the city’s traffic lights and quality of air.
Both B2B retailers and B2C retailers can benefit tremendously from the IoT revolution. IoT is basically an offshoot of AI and is changing the parameters of our life.
AI in achieving Sales goals
It is the sales which make the world go round; e-commerce is basically all about generating sales. AI can help in the entire customer journey process, from finding the prospective customer to rendering after sale services.
In fact, AI can be used to generate precise revenue forecasts at macro-level for sales managers by offering a clear insight into sales trends which are segmented by sales reps, sales organizations etc.
Due to this companies can optimize resource allocation to put together a healthy pipeline, examine team performance, and lead to cost-effective outcomes.
All thanks to prescriptive insight sales managers get an idea about reasons for sales trends, and what all action needs to be taken in order to augment sales.
Product content management
From handling the inventory to doing cataloging of the products, Artificial Intelligence enables businesses to offer flawless customer experience. All vital data is kept on track and organized to offer a superb outcome.
AI goes a long way to tender unique, yet reliable, customer experiences across each and every touch point. AI is actually leading to effective product content management (PCM).
Handling the complexity of a given product which is available across different regions needs to be done centrally and adapted locally so that customers get a steady experience, whether they are shopping that product in a store near them or anywhere in the world, or even online.
Customer Service
In any thriving economy, customer service is the key to success and AI enables you to tread the path of brilliant customer service with perfection.
AI enables brands as well as businesses to emphasize on what is pivotal: Satisfaction of the customers and responding to their needs, regardless of the time it arises.
Artificial Intelligence solutions help to present brilliant customer service. This ultimately gets converted in sales volume.
In a hybrid customer service environ a balance is struck between the man and the machine. Best of Artificial Intelligence options are leveraged while at the same time agent knowledge is used in preserving the customer context.
The chatbots and machine learning techniques are apt for Tier 1 service engagements as they answer the regular customer questions, but they are not good when it comes to complicated customer specific questions.
As the number of in-person interactions is going to fall in coming times, the significance of AI in e-commerce will rise tremendously.
A lot of routine tasks will be automated so that customer service agents converge their energies on doing what they deliver best: Offering value-added personal services to the customers.
Automation
Artificial Intelligence and machine learning do not connote that robots are taking over, even though some feel have these impressions.
AI is basically providing retailers with the opportunity to offer what exactly a customer desires, and that also regardless of any time constraint.
By making use of AI, sales representatives can connect customers in a better way. It also helps to save them time and do away with frustration involved in explaining a thing repeatedly and rehashing the minute details.
AI is everywhere-Some facts
It has been estimated that by 2020, 85% of the customer interactions will be handled without any human being. Several e-commerce businesses are making use of AI to understand their clients in a better way to create new leads and offer a seamless customer experience.
In the fast-changing world, it is an innovation which is constant. With changes happening in the world we see Artificial Intelligence in the business world like never before.
The manufacturers, retailers and even the digital start-ups are in constant competition to reach out to the customers. There is a chance of Fourth Revolution seeing the way things are moving.
Now, there is no need for a physical place for a brand to exist and be available to its target audience.
AI is working super fast in changing the retail game in the world. And if you fail to keep pace with AI it will bring about a fast decline in your business. So now because of AI, e-commerce has become an innovator’s game.
Ebay, ShopBot and Amazon Go, and there are so many more wonderful applications which offer endless opportunities to make easy the journey of their customers and these applications rely hugely on AI solutions.
Their sole aim is to offer a hugely stupendous shopping experience for their clients. Due to AI algorithms for personalized marketing in e-commerce has been developed.
There has been a rapid surge in the number of touch points for consumers-online stores, chatbots, websites, voice assistants etc and AI is offering personalized experiences at all ends.
It is anticipated that Artificial Intelligence is set to go into turbo drive in coming years with bigwigs like Google and Microsoft investing hugely into innovative AI initiatives.
Google recently bought DeepMind at a whopping price of £400m; this is an artificial intelligence company which specializes in algorithms in e-commerce.
Other leading tech firms like IBM, Facebook and Yahoo have publically expressed that they’ll be using Artificial Intelligence to source better revenues for their business.
Tangible benefits of AI in e-commerce
1. Using Artificial Intelligence for Sales Forecasting
A hugely significant use of AI is making sales forecasts. AI helps in analyzing big volumes of user data and on that basis it offers useful insights about consumer buying patterns.
Now if a human goes through analyzing such huge data it will take a lot of time. AI does all that for you and assists in securing sure shot sales. Now this use of AI can be seen in Netflix, which basically predicts what any viewer would want to see on basis of selections made by the user.
So the user has options before him before he actually ascertains the same. Therefore when it comes to informed predictions, AI goes long way doing the same for you.
2. Making use of AI to present superior services at affordable costs
AI helps to do away with redundancies. It automates routine processes thus offering personalized marketing options. For instance with Chatbots businesses can save tremendously on customer service costs.
This is done because :
- Chatbots increase response time
- Freeing agents to carry out other tough tasks
- Answering more than 80% of regular questions
So, now not only will this bring about cost minimization, it will also help in the development of a customer-centric approach.
3. Using AI to enhance customer satisfaction and promote sales
Besides offering superb customer service, AI also helps in conversational commerce. This is basically real-time, a human-like interaction between client and messenger, chatbot, or voice-chat.
This is done by making use of automated intelligent services; the user is asked questions to understand his or her intent, and then accordingly personalized recommendations are made.
All this leads to the elevated level of customer satisfaction and, as a result, higher sales are secured. For instance, Ebay’s ShopBot presents curated deals, on basis of information offered during the GIF-enhanced quizzes.
Starbucks’ chatbot, can be seen in the app of the company, this makes placing order so easy and convenient, you can go for voice commands or text messaging as per your wish. You will be told order details by the chatbot. The information when your order is ready will also be provided to you by the chatbot.
A similar kind of service is presented by Pizza Hut. It has come up with Facebook Messenger and Twitter app which taking orders from users and even tracks delivery. Users can also re-order pizzas, ask what all they want, and also see ongoing deals.
4. Use of Artificial Intelligence to receive personalized content
The Artificial technology offers any business a huge competitive edge regardless to its size of the operation. A very good example is a recent update of Pinterest for its Chrome extension.
It allows the users to pick up any item in any picture online, and then ask Pinterest to come up with similar things by making use of the image.
AI is basically making a foray into e-commerce with unparalleled energy. Companies such as Google, Pinterest have come up with visual search capabilities and giants like Amazon are now majorly into voice-activated systems such as Echo.
There is isn’t any sector which has remained untouched by vast possibilities offered by AI. The online retail industry is actually a tip of the iceberg.
5. Use of AI in marketing
Handling marketing budgets properly often necessitates complete domain expertise. This requires extra and so many times uncalled for costs for small business houses.
Luckily, in current times small business firms can use even modest budgets efficaciously due to AI solutions meant for marketing.
The small-scale firms can give their marketing campaigns to AI-powered platforms like Acquisio, which handles marketing operations across different channels (such as Bing, Adwords, Facebook), analyzing advertising performance and offering informed suggestions as regards most feasible budget distributions with reference to PPC i.e. pay per click.
By utilizing AI marketing solutions, companies can come up with the best marketing strategy and hugely minimize CPC (cost per click).
This is due to sentiment analysis algorithms which help analyze engagement of with reference to their marketing campaigns.
Automation of regular bids as well as efficacious budget monitoring also leads to saving of funds spent on hiring additional marketing as well as advertising staff.
So, these were some of the advantages of AI in e-commerce. The bearing of AI in businesses of all sizes is quite a bit. In fact, AI is changing the way businesses function in the current day.
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