4 ways AI is changing CX in ecommerce

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been changing what is possible in CX for a number of years, but as capabilities and deployments become more sophisticated, more and more organizations are pushing the boundaries of what is possible.

CX Network sat down with advisory board member, former telco VP and ecommerce director Gautaam Borah to find out how CX practitioners can deliver AI projects with value while building a culture of innovation and avoiding Digital Darwinism.

CX Network: How and where should AI be applied to the customer experience for the greatest impact?

Gautaam Borah: While artificial intelligence (AI) can be the trendsetter and is on the verge of creating an inflection point in CX, an integrated and ubiquitous model is still a little way away. The present applications across the customer lifecycle are discrete, but research indicates a higher frequency of application in a few domains:

Personalization: Product recommendations based on patterns of usage, for example how Netflix recommends new shows to watch.

Support and complaint resolution: This is an area where chatbots are taking query resolution beyond its traditional boundaries. Recently, I have changed my flight schedule with the interface of a virtual chatbot in an airline’s online portal.

Emotion analysis: This is one area many organizations are using to assess and understand customer perceptions as revealed in their interactions across social media, phone calls and other touch points. This is a particularly popular method in the telco space where the volume of inbound calls is high.

CX Network: As the director of an ecommerce start-up, what are some of the best AI deployments you have seen in the sector?

Gautaam Borah: In ecommerce, CX converges to a point; product search, decision and checking out happens almost at the same moment of time and hence requires a faster turnaround time to address customer needs.

Ecommerce has seen many applications of AI for enhancing CX. A few examples include:

• Recommendation engines like Fashion AI of Alibaba for suggesting products based on customer insight from the ecosystem.
• Chatbots for complaint resolution and product recommendations has been a common usage of AI in ecommerce.
• Virtual AI 3D modelling for product images as well as for product trials is another AI usage in ecommerce. Lenskart in India uses image captures of customers for suggesting the right spectacle frame based on the facial features.
• Other noteworthy AI applications are the use of heatmaps that can indicate the click concentrations in the portal and screen recordings like Microsoft clarity which is the browsing journey mapping of customers.

CX Network: When it comes to explaining and measuring the impact of an AI deployment, what do practitioners need to do to ensure their AI projects are delivering value?

Gautaam Borah: I am a strong proponent of the fact that impact of any CX initiative including AI should always be measured in terms of revenue generation, cost reduction and customer experience. It can be one of these or a combination.

For example, while it is a common notion to express churn in terms of retention percentage, it would be prudent to express churn as a revenue metric showing the lost revenue due to a customer leaving.

CX Network: Many vendors are already integrating AI in their products and solutions, particularly for chat, sales and service. But what integrations do you believe CX needs next?

Gautaam Borah: One can see a disproportionate investment of resources to deploy and integrate AI across many domains. However, we need to understand that, here, we are just at the fermentation stage of the S-curve of AI and CX integration.

Based on my research and practice in the area, I would like to see the following path going forward how AI integrations in CX will shape up:

Current to one year: Seamless and more natural interaction with customers with the advancements of voice recognition, Natural Language Processing etc. More personalization of responses will be possible with the use of AI in understanding voice, tone and facial expression of customers.

Two to three years: AI algorithms will develop capabilities to precisely map and overlay virtual objects providing more interactive and immersive buying experience. Hyper personalization will be the buzzword to improve customer loyalty.

Four to five years: AI integration will converge to create a cohesive omnichannel experience similar to a single instance CRM across devices and touchpoints. This is when I expect the AI to move to platform level solutions from the status of discrete tools.

CX Network: How do you believe CX leaders and practitioners can foster the culture of innovation that such deployments and integrations require?

Gautaam Borah: Fostering a culture of innovation is essential for organizations, regardless of whether they embrace AI or not, as it ensures their long-term adaptability in the face of digital disruption.

It is not uncommon, however, to see large organizations including industry giants, succumb to digital Darwinism. The key solution lies in establishing a system that nurtures innovation from within.