The rise of artificial intelligence (AI), particularly for the home furnishing and appliance retail sector, has rightly been acknowledged as a sophisticated tool that can radically enhance various aspects of the customer journey and logistical operations. As this ground-breaking technology continues to evolve, retail organizations are increasingly looking to understand the benefits of AI and how they can utilize it to reshape their operations.
A True Game Changer for Furniture and Appliance Retailers
AI was always seen as a game changer by Package.ai. Our vision from the getgo was to use this advanced technology as a tool to reimagine the customer journey. We wanted to use AI to enable furniture and appliance retailers to become truly customer-centric, break team silos between delivery management and customer engagement, and effectively forge and monetize long-lasting customer relationships.
To achieve this, we created the complete customer engagement platform powered to deliver everything high-value retail and home service brands need to effectively forge, nurture, and monetize meaningful relationships with their customers. So, let’s take a look at how.
1. Using AI to Give Your Customers a Voice Through Every Step of the Purchase Journey
Customers of home furnishing and appliance retailers need to feel seen and cared for. Jenny, Package.ai’s AI-powered virtual assistant, achieves this by offering them instant, efficient and highly effective customer support throughout their journey, addressing queries, providing product information, and assisting them with purchases and deliveries. This continuously-connected support makes each customer feel heard by placing them in the center of the customer journey.
And because Jenny simulates human-like conversations, customers treat and respect her like another member of staff. Jenny also works hard, offering personalized assistance 24/7, resulting in improved support and reduced response times.
By using Jenny to enable two-way conversations, to give customers a powerful voice during the delivery process, retailers will experience an immediate boost to delivery confirmations and a reduction in failed deliveries. This allows them to provide best in class customer experience and decrease operational costs at the same time. Some of our clients increased their delivery volume by 35% without adding staff due to almost absolute automation. Jenny also automatically prompts customers for feedback once a delivery has been made and will either flag any issues with customer service for them to be resolved or will prompt customers who have had a positive experience to leave a review.
2. Uncovering Repeat Sales and Marketing Opportunities with AI
Understanding, categorizing and centralizing customer information, allows AI to reveal sales and marketing opportunities that can be automatically acted upon. Because Package.ai knows when and what your customers bought, how much money they spent and how they felt about it, AI is able to create personalized campaigns that target their individual preferences. For example, a retailer can automate campaigns to target individuals that recently purchased a high-value item to offer them an upsell, such as a warranty. This allows you to increase your revenue without adding staff by boosting repeat purchases, product upgrades and the sale of associated products.
3. Using AI to Place All Customer Information at Your Fingertips
Package.ai gives a complete and centralized view of all customer interactions using its AI algorithms to capture, analyze, categorize and link all relevant information. Having all this data available through the Package.ai dashboard, which is fully customizable using tags and filters, breaks team silos by enabling full visibility across all departments and the buyer journey: from pre-purchase customer care, fulfillment operations, marketing and sales workflows. This makes the entire spectrum of customer interactions instantly available for humans to see and for AI to base decisions on. So when a customer makes contact, regardless of the channel, AI helps streamline the process by capturing and making every relevant detail available on screen to personalize their experience and promptly assist them in an instant.
4. How AI Ensures Efficient last-mile logistics
Rather than leaving routing up to the whim of drivers, artificial intelligence is used to calculate the most effective route to minimize delivery time and fuel consumption, while ensuring trucks are optimally loaded for each journey they take. This AI-powered automation not only reduces costs by saving time and dollars (compared to manual routing), but also frees up employees to focus on higher-level tasks. Package.ai ensures customers also benefit as they can track their driver and can communicate in real-time if they need to change arrangements. Automated routing also provides order summaries with photos, proof of delivery, signed forms and waivers, and much more. And because Jenny the chatbot uses AI to handle more than 80% of all delivery-related communications, your employees need only step in when it matters the most.
5. Our AI-based Tech Provides Complete Personalized Engagement
Consumers today expect personalized interactions with retailers and 80% are more likely to buy from companies that offer a personalized experience, according to a research report by McKinsey. Package.ai’s AI algorithms analyze customer data, including purchase behavior and preferences, to ensure every engagement is highly personalized. This makes each interaction with customers — from the first website chat, to last mile delivery, on to the upsell and next sale and everything in between — feel natural because it’s with someone who actually knows them.
Using AI to Transform Customers into Loyal, Highly Engaged Advocates and Repeat Buyers
Furniture and appliance retailers using Package.ai’s single customer engagement platform will experience the optimum benefits from artificial intelligence. With all customer data and interactions stored centrally, and the delivery process enhanced using automation, the cost efficiencies, customer knowledge and ability to provide a deep personalized service will give them a competitive advantage other retailers will find impossible to match. The end result? Customers will not only be highly engaged but transformed into enthusiastic brand advocates and loyal repeat buyers.
Discover how the power of AI can help your retail business forge, nurture, and monetize meaningful relationships with your customers. Book a demo here.