While it's just the midpoint of 2023, it's pretty safe to predict this is the year ChatGPT arrived for the consumer given torrential mainstream news coverage.
But that doesn't mean consumers haven't been aware of AI tech playing a role in the retail customer experience.
More than two-thirds, 76%, know AI is being used to help them shop online and nearly half, 42%, have already used a chatbot or virtual assistant to make a purchase, according to a Smarty survey. But maybe most important, specifically for the retail industry, is that 72% view AI as technology that can help enhance the e-commerce experience.
That's because ChatGPT can get personal — much more personal than the chatbots that have been used for years for online support and customer service channels.
As Alan Finlay explained in a recent RetailCustomerExperience article, ChatGPT can really understand the context of a conversation.
"No one likes to feel like they're interacting with a pre-determined set of auto-responses," said the head of product at OvationCXM, which offers a customer experience management platform.
To delve deeper into how ChatGTP is grabbing traction within retail and playing a stronger role in developing a more robust customer experience, RetailCustomerExperience reached out to Matt McConnell, chairman and CEO of Intradiem, a provider of intelligent automation solutions for customer services teams. McConnell founded the company in 1995 with a vision of reinventing customer service using AI and automation. He's a graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology and holds a bachelor of science degree in industrial and systems engineering.
As he shared in an email interview, data, and the richness of data sets, will play a defining role in how ChatGTP integrates into the customer experience.
Q. What's the value of ChatGPT today to the retail customer experience strategy? Is it viable or too early?
A. It's definitely viable. Tools like ChatGPT will be as good or better than existing chatbots at managing simple customer requests (verifying if an item is in stock, checking on delivery status, processing returns, etc.). Can they go beyond chatbots and manage more complex requests? That will depend on the richness of the data sets they're trained on. The bottom line is this: retail businesses need to incorporate these new tools based on a clear view of what they are (prediction machines that process data far more efficiently than humans) and an equally clear view of what they're not (substitutes for the human capacity to perceive emotion and apply judgment).
Q. Do you expect many retailers to embrace ChatGPT? Why or why not?
A. I sure do. ChatGPT promises efficiency gains and cost-savings potential, and retailers will want to extend that value as far as possible. They may even be tempted to push it beyond its natural limits. But they should avoid repeating mistakes made with early chatbots, which were falsely presumed to be viable replacements for human customer service agents. Self-service options should enhance the customer experience, not become the customer experience. This is already happening and causing a predictable uptick in the age-old "people versus machines" conflict. Remember, the objective is still customer satisfaction; technology certainly contributes to that, thanks to its superior processing efficiency. But it can't replace the human touch that's always been the linchpin of customer service. As we all know, in many cases the only thing worse than an unhelpful agent is not being able to reach one at all.
Q. The chat experience in retail e-commerce still gets tons of complaints and is far from perfect. Will this latest tech approach replace chatbots? If so, how long will that take? If not, why not?
A. It's unfortunate that misuse of early chatbot technology produced a negative backlash. That's why it's so important to avoid repeating the same mistake today. New tools like ChatGPT will supersede existing chatbots just as soon as businesses can make it happen, and I think they'll produce better customer experiences. But retailers need to stay focused on overall quality, and that means achieving an optimal blend of technology and human customer service agents. New AI tools will manage all the "yes-no" and "this-not-that" types of customer inquiries better than old chatbots. But here's what's really new: Their ability to provide faster, more relevant support to live agents will bring greater efficiency to those complex interactions that still need to be handled by humans.
Q. Can you describe a perfect scenario in which ChatGPT can improve the retail customer experience?
A. ChatGPT is only the tip of the spear, and more specialized tools will follow to address and improve the customer experience along the entire breadth of the buyer's journey — from search to order, delivery and service. Speaking only to the customer service aspect, I would say a "perfect" scenario for leveraging technologies like ChatGPT is one that delegates more of the processing tasks to technology — both the stand-alone, transactional tasks as well as the backup/support tasks that make agents more efficient and, therefore, better at delivering the human experiences we all crave in high-stakes interactions.