71% of retailers using AI-powered customer service ahead of Christmas

By

Barbara Santamaria

Published
Dec 11, 2018

Nearly three quarters of UK retailers are using artificial intelligence to improve their customer service ahead of the busy Christmas period, new research has found.

Virtual call centre agents and chatbots are being embraced by retailers for their convenience and speed, offering smarter and more personalised interactions as more and more shoppers shift towards online shopping.

According to a survey conducted by Olive Communications, a managed cloud communications provider, 59% of retailers have invested in virtual call centre agents, which handle minor queries before passing to a human agent. 42% have live chats managed by a chatbot and 22% use a technology that can transfer an unresolved enquiry to a human agent with full context of the virtual agent conversation.

Virtual agents are also becoming smarter, leveraging the power of natural language processing to understand what customers are texting or saying without requiring specific phrasing.

The technologies, which save over 1 in 3 retailers £100,000 or more a year, are also prefered by consumers. The survey showed that 82% of shoppers like the speed of virtual customer service agents and 38% their convenience.

“With customer experience predicted to overtake price and product by 2020, retailers must be prepared to evolve to offer a more personalised experience, which our research has proved must be quick and convenient for the customer across all channels,” commented Martin Flick, CEO of Olive Communications.

“Customers get frustrated if they need to repeat their issues to multiple representatives. The latest advanced AI powered contact centre technology removes this frustration, empowers the agent and the retailer while delivering a seamless customer experience.”