Ecommerce has experienced significant growth during the pandemic and continues to advance at a dizzying pace. In the same way that the retail sector has grown by 36% during the health crisis, sustaining the business in most cases, thanks to the digital area.
This online channel has been reinforced by being a large number of brands, which have been faced with the need to create their ecommerce in record time, in order to continue obtaining the benefits that physical stores could not provide them.
Industry competition and the immense pressure to offer customers the individualized attention they require has been a challenge for all of these companies. And for this reason, in order to differentiate themselves from their competitors, many bet on offering personalized services, getting people who “search” to become loyal buyers, orderly handling doubts and requests, as well as offering customer service in various Languages.
All this, which at first glance is clear, for many brands is a very difficult challenge to carry out. It is at that precise moment where artificial intelligence and the use of automatic and self-service systems intervene, such as semantic search engines and / or chatbots , in order to offer an optimal and immediate customer shopping experience. In fact, after the pandemic, we have seen how 76% of retailers have increased their investment in technology exponentially.
Why and for what? Because precisely the use of these automatic systems based on AI can clearly help to solve the great challenges that the Retail sector faces, such as: Personalization. Convert people who “search” into “buyers”. Loyalty. Handle large number of repetitive support requests / questions. Offer care in multiple languages ?? And / or assume high volumes of seasonal or occasional support, such as sales, which are just around the corner.
An example of this is Naturgy , which opted for its virtual assistant Pepe. This chatbot has attended more than 90,000 queries in the last year without the need for human intervention, that is, without the problem having to be referred to an agent. This confirms that this assistant has supported the company, being able to solve different situations, without problems or help from third parties.
Another example is Laura, a virtual assistant at Travel Club, who is in charge of solving FAQs or frequently asked questions. In addition, it also processes card duplicates, makes transactions, recovers passwords, and even indexes the gift catalog to offer products. In addition, in this specific case, technology has been of great help in offering citizen information about Covid-19.
In short, after any problem or crisis, it is practically mandatory to reinvent yourself and adapt in record time. Technology, and now specifically symbolic artificial intelligence , is the tool that pleasantly helps with any possible stumbling block. During the Covid, chatbots have presented their ability to offer citizen information about the pandemic, which has undoubtedly helped many people to understand it better and be able to solve all their doubts in this regard.
Does the relationship of symbolic artificial intelligence with the retail sector have a future? We have no doubts. A proactive chatbot that provides convenience, immediacy and personalization; for any company it is presented as a winning technological bet.