Top retail customer experience trends and innovations in 2024

Technology is currently playing a significant role in the industry, with main trends focusing on leveraging communications automation with generative AI (GenAI) to improve retail customer experience. In 2024, companies are increasingly catering to the needs of highly discerning consumers who frequently switch between purchase channels, look for personalized interactions, and prefer self-service platforms.

The higher customer expectations are triggering fast and profound digital transformation. Amidst the rapid expansion of the retail industry and the progress of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in businesses, the following trends are particularly noteworthy.

Trend 1: higher retail customer experience

The top trend is the significant increase in retail customers’ demand for innovative purchasing channels, and hyper-personalized purchasing and support experiences. In contrast to other industries that prioritize profitability, the retail industry is mostly focused on offering customers exactly what they want.

Customers make frequent jumps between digital platforms such as apps, websites, and social media to investigate products and make purchases. This trend transforms the act of shopping into an all-encompassing and engaging experience. In this regard, retailers must carefully strategize their approach to retail consumer engagement as the line between commerce and content becomes less distinct.

Trend 2: Leveraging data for rich customer profiles

To provide unique, personalized experiences through targeted offers and recommendations, AI in retail collects and analyzes customer data from several touchpoints. This allows retailers to create cohesive customer profiles enabling greater personalization for greater revenue opportunities.

Creating comprehensive customer profiles is at the heart of effective personalization. To achieve this, retailers can leverage communications automation with GenAI to aggregate data from multiple sources including critical information such as demographics, purchase history, browsing patterns, and even sentiment towards products or services based on customer feedback.

Retailers can then use the technology to gain a comprehensive view on each customer to tailor and deliver omnichannel communications, offers, and recommendations to match individual preferences. Doing this can derives significant revenue growth.

Trend 3: Utilizing Machine Learning (ML) for demand prediction

To achieve efficient supply chain operations planning, it is critical to predict customer demand. Doing so enables companies to anticipate stock levels and allocate resources effectively, to mitigate risks and improve sales and revenue. With Machine Learning, retailers can collect real-time and historical data from sources like market trends, sales records, and customer interactions.

Through ML, AI in retail identifies unique patterns by drawing correlations and trends, uncovering the critical factors for demand fluctuation. This allows retailers to identify products that sell well during specific seasons or after targeted marketing campaigns. By applying the learned patterns to new data, ML models fed with data can forecast future demand.

Trend 4: Automation of retail operations

AI in retail operations has become crucial in 2024. On the lookout for higher customer satisfaction, more efficiency, and streamlined communication, retailers are turning to communications automation with GenAI solutions to deliver powerful technology.

Leveraging communications automation in customer service allows companies to provide faster responses to customer inquiries while reducing wait times. The technology’s unique data analysis capabilities enable the understanding of consumer preferences and behavior to generate personalized marketing campaigns and promotions.

Through communications automation with GenAI solutions, retailers are now able to automate order confirmations, shipping notifications, and delivery updates to build trust among consumers while keeping them informed. Retailers can also predict delivery times more accurately, keeping customer inquiries low and satisfied.

The growth of communications automation with GenAI solutions

Communications automation with GenAI solutions that offer omnichannel experiences through automated channels are in the best position to enhance retail customer engagement and satisfaction. E-commerce companies are leveraging the capabilities of these solutions to automate critical workflows and gain data-driven insights in ways never seen before.

Today, communications automation with GenAI solutions can automate a variety of customer service tasks such as ticket routing, email notifications, surveys, and much more. They offer personalized, omnichannel communication, catering to retail customers who expect to communicate through their preferred channel.

These systems can also deal with many requests simultaneously, allowing organizations to serve a growing number of customers using AI agents. Retailers can avoid increasing staff while allowing staff to focus on critical tasks.

Communications automation with GenAI solutions empower customers with more self-service abilities, allowing them to perform simple tasks on their own, eliminating the go-between and resolving issues on their own time. This is significant as, according to statistics, around 88%¹ of customers say they prefer a self-service portal when shopping online.

Deploy AI in retail to optimize your sales process and customer service today!