Having an eCommerce platform for your business means competing with the giant online retailers in the marketplace. While you may not have their resources, you can use similar technologies to make your company efficient and highly visible in a very crowded playing field. And the way to do it is by using artificial intelligence or AI — delivered through the cloud.
The great thing about AI is it has become integral in the way many businesses operate and the way consumers interact with digital touch points. And according to HubSpot, 63 percent of customers don’t even know they have been using AI technologies. What this means for your eCommerce site is you can deploy AI and it will start improving operations on the business side and deliver better engagement and services on the consumer side.
Here are 10 ways AI can benefit your eCommerce business today.
Virtual Personal Assistant
Starting with a virtual personal assistant (VPA) may not seem obvious, but it is invaluable for anyone with a business. Running a business is all consuming, and using a VPA is like hiring someone that never sleeps and keeps you updated on what is taking place with your company.
The power of this technology is so significant, 31 percent of business executives told PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the impact is more than all other AI-powered solutions. The free time you gain can be used for self-reflection, coming up with new ideas, and much more.
Predictive Marketing
If you want to have a better idea of what your customers will buy next and when they are more likely to buy it, predictive marketing uses machine learning, which is part of AI, to make it possible.
With predictive marketing, your eCommerce site will be optimized to show what your customers want to see, how they see it, and even suggest price points for the products you sell. These calculations are based on the data you provide, so the more data you aggregate through your website, social media, email and other channels of interaction with your customers, the better the predictions.
Personalization
Using AI, you can start personalizing marketing campaigns as well as how you interact with your customers. Personalized intelligent automation services can respond based on the customer’s needs, history and specific tasks.
You will be able to make product recommendations, send targeted emails, set prices, deliver personalized ads and create or recommend content for them.
Customer Service
Juniper Research says chatbots will save more than $8 billion annually by 2022. This savings will also extend to your eCommerce business by using chatbots to communicate with your customers. Chatbots will save you all the associated costs of call center services, in house customer representatives, and answering the phone tens or even hundreds of times a day.
Business Insider has reported 67 percent of consumers around the world have used chatbots for customer support in the past year, so it is a proven technology you can deploy right away to reap the benefits.
Optimized Search
Integrating AI into your search capability for your eCommerce site can help your store remember the way each user searches along with their preferences and needs. The technology can also predict and understand what your customers want right away by recognizing the individual characteristics of users and making each visit unique with intelligent searches.
Social Listening
Being able to track conversations in social media networks for keywords, phrases or brands explains what social listening entails. This is not monitoring. With AI enabled social listening, you can gain valuable insight that is more powerful than ordinary notifications. You can then use the data to discover new opportunities, improve your customer experience, and make more informed strategic product decisions.
Fraud Detection and Prevention
The Global Fraud Index for October 2017 revealed the cost of potential fraud at $57.8 billion, and there was an increase of 45 percent in account takeovers in Q2 2017.
Machine learning can help your site make real-time decisions with risk scoring by detecting very subtle patterns and variations that can easily escape human notice. And because it has a continuous learning cycle, the technology is always analyzing transactions to ensure the right person is making purchases on your site.
Automation
When your eCommerce business starts growing, the number of repetitive tasks grow with it. Automation takes over and performs these repetitive tasks and it simplifies front and backend workflows.
Everything from publishing new products on multiple channels to scheduling sales, applying discounts to loyal customers, identify high risk purchases, and more can be automated.
Location Based Intelligence
Using customer data and AI you can gain unprecedented location based intelligence so you can make site specific decisions and forecasts. The technology can be further used for augmented advertising, personalized location-based offers with predictive analysis, and even drive customers to brick and mortar stores.
Dynamic Pricing
Whether you have 100 or 1,000 products, manually changing prices can be a full-time job. Dynamic pricing uses AI to adjust the price of your inventory based on multiple data points.
Your inventory, capacity, market conditions as well as customer behavior and demand can all be used to automatically set prices in real-time as customers are visiting your site.
Conclusion
Artificial intelligence is a must have tool for eCommerce businesses because of the many ways it can optimize the platform as a whole and the individual segments within it. Whether you choose to address marketing, customer service or everything you do, check with your cloud deliver to discuss how to deliver this technology efficiently. For more on cloud services, contact Meylah.
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