You could argue that customer experience in the online landscape has not fundamentally changed in recent years, despite the rise of new and recycled offerings, such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and a whole lot of other ‘virtual’ buzzwords.
Is this what customers want? And if so, how are these tools improving the overall experience?
By using technology to gain a better, more unified view of the customer, along with advanced customer behaviour analysis, retailers can vastly improve the overall customer experience.
What used to be called omni-channel is changing, as it becomes relevant in real-world scenarios and refined in practise.
Transactional channels (in-store and online) are becoming unified, providing a single view of customers, full-breadth of product range and improvements around returns, extended ranges, aisle functions and Click &- Collect capabilities.
As things continue to progress, there will be an emergence of ‘commerce systems’ to replace the current separate point of sale (POS) and e-commerce systems. Once these channels are unified, the buying history of online customers will be available for analysis, again influencing the future experience that shoppers will have.
It’s not the buzzword technologies that are the differentiator, it’s the application and combination of them that drives the next major changes to our in-store and online experiences.