Hype actions have become a constant when the goal is to take advantage of a trending topic on social media to be capitalized as a marketing strategy. Indeed, it is not possible to give up this movement; however, the available technological solutions can and should be much better utilized to attract consumers, turn them into engaged and loyal customers.
The big leap of the moment, necessary for online businesses, is to embrace innovations to promote personalization in customer relationships. The fact that it is an e-commerce does not mean that the consumer is willing to engage in mechanized, robotic, cold interactions.
None of that. Centralization and automation of contact channels cannot be synonymous with impersonal communication. The advantage today is that the available artificial intelligence resources already enable the development of solutions that personalize the relationships between company and consumer, promoting a complete and accurate customer journey.
It's not about the famous technophobia of "machines will replace people." Robots can and should replace operational work, freeing human intelligence for strategic, creative, and truly intelligent tasks. But robots can and should be designed for an interaction with consumers that captures and responds to each consumer's specificities.
An example of personalization in service, enabled by artificial intelligence, is what can reconfigure the concept of a store. Whether physical or virtual, standardized service will give way to personalized relationships, enabled by increasingly deep and rapid algorithms and data analysis, virtually in real time.
Purchase history, social media interactions, the words used by the consumer both in speech and searches, how this consumer behaves in the store – all of this provides information for the technology to deliver responses that align with their personal and specific preferences, in order to satisfy their hopes and desires.
In this way, retail will be able not only to meet what the consumer demands but, most importantly, to anticipate that demand and need. The collection, storage, and analysis of data through artificial intelligence are expanding exponentially; the technology's generative capacity enables segmented, personalized, and tailored responses.
The trend is that, in the not-too-distant future, retail stores will become as personalized as user profiles are today on streaming or music platforms, for example, which already offer these consumers movie and music menus that not only meet their preferences but also keep these users connected and loyal.
In this sense, the presentation of launches, discounts, and promotions can be tailored to each customer. The customer's behavior at each moment can also be understood.
In other words, despite the search, purchase, and viewing history, artificial intelligence monitors potential changes in taste or even the consumer's sentiment at that moment of interaction. In this way, an artificial intelligence chatbot detects some variation in mood in response to frustration from unmet needs, for example.
Investing in technology providers that offer an ecosystem of solutions (management, customer service, sales) is therefore essential for retailers to achieve full digital transformation. After all, targeted and personalized actions are useless if, when the customer needs to continue their journey, the system is not structurally prepared to handle demands and flows.
By César Baleco, founder and CEO of Grupo Irrah*, a technology hub for business management and communication
