It is clear the traditional brick and mortar business model is insufficient for brands to remain successful and relevant in the minds of consumers in today’s digital-first world. With the ever-changing retail landscape, companies are struggling with movements towards the online world – a space where simply having a brand presence is not sufficient enough to sustain any retail brand or business. At the same time, what these companies need to keep mind is an ongoing importance to be able to deliver and meet the expectations of different generations of consumers, and what each segment craves for. Therefore, having an integrated, new and enhanced online platform creates a consistent strategy and is key for any brand equity and commercial sustainability.
Mobile and smart devices now play a significant role in these online developments. The average consumer today interacts with brands twice more through the mobile platform more so than any other channel(s) available for him or her. With relative ease, straight-forward and well-developed apps will have enormous impact on any retailer’s revenue.
Companies that possess the right technologies, capabilities and features can increase the engagement rates and at the same time, reduce costs such as paper-products.
According to an article written by Brielle Jaekel, “Smartphones Influence 84% of Millennials Shopping In Stores: report”, Millennials are shifting the way retailers need to think of the customer journey, as 63% of them claim to shop on their phones every day.
According to Statista, there are
- 2.1 million apps on Google play store available for download
- 2 million apps on Apple Appstore available for download
Millennials are impacting with the way they shop
- 34% leverages devices in store for product information
- 63% shops on their phones daily
- 84% of millennials use smartphones in store while they are shopping
The power of consumers has grown significantly greater as compared to past years.
- 90% of consumers read online reviews before visiting a business
- 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations
With the evolution of technology, information is now accessible to anyone with the touch of a fingertip. Consumers can dig out reviews on products, customer service levels and every other aspect of every business that directly affects the purchase decisions. The online and offline behaviours of other like-minded customers are shared on ubiquitous social media. We cannot but acknowledge that in the long run, consumer reviews can help to improve consumer experience, increase engagement and build the trust between brands and consumers. This is a crucial factor never to be left out as it provides consumers with the desired information they seek.
The Success Cases of Smarter Retailing Using Artificial Intelligence
The retail sector has undergone tremendous changes – from years of traditional retail businesses slowing down, to brands making the leap to digital platforms, and now, to a tendency to find a definitive brick and mortar presence in the consumer retail markets. With new retailing technologies on the rise and quite a few touting AI-centric or smart solutions, we’d like to share a few points as to how AIQ’s computer vision technology, and other applications of AI, can make a difference.
The Power of Relevant Recommendations
With a staggering number of apps vying for consumer attention out there, a stand out app can indeed have the upper hand and it will go a long way towards attracting consumers and increasing their attention span, including app usage. Visual recommendation features powered by AI can be the eye-catching features that trumps the other apps. AI solutions based on image recognition that provides recommendation based on related products can assist consumers in searching for the product/s they are looking for.
Recommendation engines which typically use artificial intelligence become powerful personalisation tools because the engines provide a great way to ‘discover’ more! The commercial aim is basically to show or reveal to regular customers, or registered users, more online items that they would probably like but are unlikely to spend time ‘discovering’. Such recommendations will, over the longer term, improve a visitor’s experience since these AI-powered e-commerce platforms usually offer relevant items at the right time, on the section or page. In the words of Steve Jobs: “…a lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them…”.
Even Netflix, the world’s leading internet entertainment service, is widely known for its being adept in recommending highly relevant documentaries, drama series or variety programmes for each one of its 148 million (and growing!) paid members in over 190 countries. Truly, artificial intelligence is one key success factor for Netflix.
Why Personalisation IS Important
Personalisation is a key aspect of positive customer experiences. Marketers who use data intelligently can create relevant, unique and personalised experiences that capture the attention for long time span and generate loyalty in the long-run. This strategy allows organisations to consider factors from social influence(s), brand advocacy, app usage, engagement, awareness, purchasing behaviour and so on, to be able to personalise and reward them accordingly.
According to Econsultancy.com on average, 36% of consumers expressed an interest in purchasing products or services that carries the personalisation factor. On the other hand, 48% of consumers were willing to wait longer for any personalised products and services.
The Power of AIQ’s Computer Visual AI Technology
The power of visuals can never be under estimated. In today’s competitive global marketplace, AI, image recognition and even video searches are fast gaining importance. At AIQ, we have a proprietary computer vision AI technology that renders high quality video and image recognition, as well as optical character recognition. These would enable brands and businesses to engage their customers better while improving outreach. For a list of possible benefits and outcomes, click here
To add to these abilities, a chatbot can also be made available to companies and brands hoping to offer more personalised customer interactions along with streamlined processes.
How AIQ Technology Impacts Businesses
At AIQ, we have developed brand-centric apps for customer acquisition to gamification apps which can be useful for lead generation. Our multi-channel solution is set to revitalise how brands and businesses have the connection and interact with various customer segments, transforming the effectiveness of the traditional media landscape.
This enables seamless integration across organisations offline to online (O2O) platforms. With using AIQ’s technology, it provides organization with suitable solutions to convert traffic generated from out-of-home media, or marketing collateral into real time conversions and brand engagement opportunities. For details or more Case Studies, do click here.
In doing so, AIQ empowers brands and businesses to convert traffic generated from any physical, out-of-home media or marketing collateral into real time conversions and customer engagement opportunities. Brand marketers can also choose to create experiential customer journeys or enhance brand loyalty with our solution that connects physical media to digital assets.
Brands and businesses are able to view and measure a full range of online data via a Client Dashboard displaying real-time customer interactions with offline/OOH assets to understand customer preferences within a single dashboard, enabling brand managers to select the most effective channels to engage clients or retain loyal customers.
If you’re interested to learn more, you can request for a FREE demo here today!
