After seeing major growth in 2020 (31.8%) and 2021 (16.2%), online sales are expected to experience double digit increases again in 2022. Clearly, online shopping is here to stay.
Consumers who were previously averse to online shopping suddenly embraced it during the pandemic, and many don’t plan to return to their old behaviors. Today, 37% are shopping online for products they previously bought in stores.
However, the great migration to digital shopping exposed existing shortcomings and created new problems in the customer service approach for many retailers:
-
Inability to ramp up quickly: While the perennial problem of ramping up for seasonal spikes hasn’t changed, supply and demand of workers has. It’s more critical than ever for contact centers to have the ability to ramp up quickly, with shorter training time and faster time to agent proficiency.
-
Unmanageably high call volumes: Many retailers could not handle skyrocketing customer service volume as stores were closed during shutdowns or as consumers new to click-and-collect (purchasing online and picking up either curbside or in-store) encountered issues during the process.
-
Low conversion rates and missed upselling and cross-selling opportunities: Consumers new to online shopping need assistance to find and purchase what they need, yet many experience such long waits for help that they abandon the call and their shopping cart.
-
Agent dissatisfaction and stress leading to high attrition rates: High call volumes and unhappy customers are stressful and frustrating for agents. The average customer-service representative between the age of 20 and 34 stays on the job for just over one year, according to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics.
-
Customer dissatisfaction and churn: Questions and problems occurring during online shopping and returns turned into frustratingly long waits to get assistance. In an online shopping survey, 75% of respondents said their customer service experiences had worsened during the pandemic, citing an inability to connect with agents, emails not being answered, and multiple attempts to address a single question or issue.
Transforming Retail CX With Conversational AI
Overcoming these and other challenges will require retailers to rethink their customer experience strategy. They must be prepared to invest in new technology platforms that remove the points of friction in the customer journey and optimize the customer service experience.
That’s exactly what savvy retailers are doing by embracing conversational artificial intelligence (AI). With a sophisticated conversational AI platform, retailers can automate end-to-end customer journeys, augment agents to help them deliver more efficient and empathetic service, and uncover hidden insights into the voice of the customer.
Ready to learn more about how retailers can use conversational AI to understand and optimize every conversation before, during, and after a customer interaction — from self-service to agent assistance to after-call follow-up and fulfilling promises made during the call?
Download our retail ebook to read about five AI-powered strategies that contact centers in the retail industry can use to accelerate ramp-up, reduce agent attrition, increase revenue, and improve customer satisfaction and loyalty.
