AI is all around us – and we see it in everyday life in our supermarkets. Large retailers like Coles and Woolies have been building AI into their operations for years, and show what’s possible when you apply AI to enhance the customer experience. If you’re exploring AI for your own organisation, use these examples to learn how to deliver faster, smarter, and yes, even a more human service.
Customer experience – or CX – matters. In fact, according to Salesforce, an astounding 80% of customers say the experience they have working with a business is just as important as the products and services they buy. So your CX makes a huge difference to whether they buy – and, just as importantly, whether they’ll buy again.
And many businesses now are using AI to improve their customer experience.
You might not be doing it in your own business, but you probably experience it yourself in your life.
Take supermarket shopping, where the big retailers like Coles, Woolworths, and Aldi have been using AI for years.
For instance, if you shop at Coles or Woolies and use your FlyBuys card or Everyday Rewards card, you scan the card to earn points, discounts, and other rewards. In return, these companies collect vast amounts of data about you, your behaviour, and your habits. They then use AI to process this data to send you personalised emails tailored to that behaviour – and even your likely future behaviour.
This is one simple example of AI enhancing the customer experience. The AI itself is complex, but the outcome is simple.
Another example is with self-service checkouts, where overhead cameras watch you putting items on the scale, identify the products, and use AI to assist in the next steps. For example, it can detect fruit or vegetables, which don’t have barcodes, and automatically suggest that first when asking you to tell the checkout what it is. It can also detect potential fraud if a customer tries to record it as a cheaper product!
Another example, which is less well-known because it’s not immediately visible to customers, is the way Coles uses cameras at the deli counters.
Coles research shows that when people are waiting to be served at the deli counter, they will wait on average 30-40 seconds before being impatient and giving up – which means less income for Coles. So they use cameras and AI to watch the deli counter, detect when customers are approaching, and alert a team member so they can serve that customer promptly.
These are just a few examples of AI being used to enhance the supermarket customer’s experience.
What about YOU? How are you using AI in your business to enhance the experience with your customers, clients, or patients?
Think about these three areas:
- Understand your customer: Know their customer journey, review each touchpoint in turn, and identify how you could use to improve that touchpoint.
- See into the future: Use AI to analyse data about a customer to predict their future intentions, so you can be there ahead of them to give them a better experience.
- Build trust: Many customers will happily share their data with you in order to get a better experience, but only if you reassure them about privacy, security, and confidentiality.
If you would like to know more about AI and CX, join my online presentation soon. I’ll share the latest research, give you more examples of businesses doing it already, and alert you to the traps and pitfalls to avoid when you’re applying AI to your customer experience. It’s a free, public, online presentation, so register here and invite others in your team and your network as well.
