Improve Brand Loyalty with Artificial Intelligence

Over a billion pounds was invested by start up companies in the first part of 2016 on AI.  Most of those companies were e-commerce and digital shopping, catering to retailers that are using AI to improve customer shopping experiences. While retail applications of AI might not grab the headlines like self driving cars, it will be just as impactful, affecting almost every retail purchase decision that a consumer makes.

AI will allow retailers to build an incredible level of customer loyalty. The three most common ways will be through individual segmentation, real time communication, and personalisation. Used tactfully, these techniques can help brands transform shoppers into lifetime consumers.

Individual Segmentation

Amazon and Google use a simple form of AI to curate product recommendations without needing human intervention. This is called collaborative filtering. A more advanced form of this is individual segmentation, where brands create profiles based off of behavioural shopping habits that can be maintained at scale.

Here a brand will use AI to collect and maintain the data from customer decisions over the span of a few years and make recommendations based on that information. The more data a brand has on a customer, the better it can predict his or her wants and needs. Over time, brands using this AI will have so much information about a customer, their recommendations will be nearly perfect.

Kevin Kelly, Author of The Inevitable, writes on the above topic, stating: “The longer you are with a service, the better a brand gets to know you; and the better it knows you, the harder it is to leave and start over again. It’s like being in a committed relationship. Naturally, the producer strives for this kind of loyalty, but the customer gets many advantages for continuing as well: uninterrupted quality, continuous improvements, and attentive personalization”.

Real Time Communication

Brands will use AI to communicate with customers in real time. Our appetite for speed is insatiable. The cost of real-time engagement requires massive coordination and degrees of collaboration that were impossible a few years ago. Now that most people are equipped with a smart phone, entirely new economic forces are being unleashed.

Many companies are planning to use geolocation services that will alert customers, inside or nearby a store, about sales or discounts on products based on previous shopping decisions. This real time outreach could help guide customers throughout the shopping journey, making a store visit highly personalised.

Some large stores in America have already experimented with real time in-store communication.  Opening text services where customers can ask an AI bot questions while they shop. The bot can tell you where the closest restroom is or what floor a certain department is on, making it easier for customers to find products and navigate their way through a store.

Personalisation

Brands intend to use AI to help personalise the shopping experience for customers online and in store. Because AI is great at collecting data and working in real time, it will soon be possible for a completely personalised, connected shopping experience.

Online retailers that sell many products will be able to identify what a shopper is looking for and tailor the website to fit his or her needs. The online store will constantly adapt, making the shopping experience near effortless.

The North Face is already using this technology. Powered by IBM’s Watson, the expert shopper prompts you to answer questions about an article of clothing like “where and when will you be using the jacket?”. After answering a few questions, the AI program makes smart suggestions based off the information you submitted.

The ability for a brand to narrow down product options to customers in an intelligent way could help improve brand loyalty. Often, the the biggest obstacle in purchasing something is having too many options. If AI can alleviate burdensome decision making, both the customers and brands win.

Embrace Change

It seems the future vitality of brands will weigh heavily on a company’s willingness to adopt AI. Used creatively, AI can win loyal customers, track their data, and personalise their shopping. These benefits, combined with human guidance, could make the difference between a timeless brand, and a one hit wonder.

Design trends in ecommerce for 2016

ECommerce is now a daily part of our on-line lives.  During 2016 we predict to see an increase in eCommerce and on-line sales across mobile devices while people move away from traditional desktop and laptop PC's.

Some of these design trends include:

1. Material Design
Now being adopted by eCommerce companies, the vibrant and content focused design style continues to make waves since its launch in 2014.  It's unified experience across platforms makes it a great for developing an engaging eCommerce.  This has been utilised very well by sites such as PA Design and Bewakoof.

2. Hidden Menus
Popular for cleaning up cluttered eCommerce designs, these menus used to be used mainly on mobile versions of sites where space was limited, however are now making their way into desktop sites to allow a bigger canvas for more creativity.  These are in use on many desktop sites and should continue well into 2016, on sites such as House of Fraser.

3.  Upwardly Responsive
Responsive sites are all the rage these days, with everyone thinking about their site being usable on mobile devices.  It is worth bearing in mind upwardly responsiveness though, as going through 2016, more and more customers will use TV's and larger devices for browsing the web and eCommerce purchases. An example is Firebox.

4. Rich Animations
These are a great way to engage customers and make them feel confident about your brand.  Animations at the right time can make your customers feel like you care and add some play-ability and enjoy-ability to a design.

5. Storytelling
In an every growing competitive arena of on-line retailers, it is important to capture your visitors attention. Telling the story of your brand or products is a great way to do this.  Story telling can bring your brand to life and build loyalty with customers.



http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2016/01/9-ecommerce-design-trends-to-embrace-in-2016/

Mixed reactions on Facebook today

Just in case you haven't noticed.  Facebook are rolling out a new feature across their platform called Reactions.

This appears to be off the back of the community requesting for a long time a Dislike button on posts.  It is clear to see however this is having mixed... well, reactions across the globe.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg posted:

Today is our worldwide launch of Reactions -- the new Like button with more ways to express yourself.

Not every moment you want to share is happy. Sometimes you want to share something sad or frustrating. Our community has been asking for a dislike button for years, but not because people want to tell friends they don't like their posts. People wanted to express empathy and make it comfortable to share a wider range of emotions.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about the right way to do this with our team. One of my goals was to make it as simple as pressing and holding the Like button.

The result is Reactions, which allow you to express love, laughter, surprise, sadness or anger.

Love is the most popular reaction so far, which feels about right to me!

Try them out, by hovering over the Like button the desktop, or by holding down the Like button on your mobile to express your reactions to your friends posts and updates.  It is worth noting Facebook are doing a phased roll out over a short period of time, so it is likely you will see this already, but if not, check back in a few hours as may be it's not got your part of the world yet.

The Pros and Cons of One-Page Checkout

Shopping cart abandonment is an epidemic in online retailing, with some companies reporting that more than 60% of checkouts end without a conversion.

Preventing even a relatively small percentage of these abandoned carts would significantly improve revenues and profits.

While purchase price and shipping costs are the leading reported causes of shopping cart abandonment, ease of use is close behind.

One increasingly popular method used to slash cart abandonment rates is to introduce single-page, Ajax-driven checkout forms that combine the convenience of a single page format with asynchronous form validation.

Single-page checkout is faster and easier so that more customers convert.

When you’re trying to decide if your checkout process should be a single page or several pages, consider the analogy of a supermarket. When shopping, consumers always gravitate towards the shortest checkout lanes or fastest cashiers. By definition, a single-page checkout is faster than a multi-page checkout if for no reason other than there are no additional pages to load.

Single-page checkout forms, particularly those that use javascript to march shoppers through the process, also provide better step-by-step visibility. Shoppers know what they must do and where they are in the process.

If you have ever filled out a long online form, clicked submit, and then had the form erase everything they input and return a message like “address not valid,” “passwords don’t match,” or “please answer question #2,” you will understand the value of AJAX.

AJAX addresses this issue by validating the form while the shopper fills it out. Server calls - if needed - are made asynchronously without reloading the page or potentially erasing the form. Users get feedback as soon as a form field is complete (when they click into the next field), not once the form is submitted. In some cases, the javascript might be able to do the form validation without connecting to the server at all.


The PROS of Using a Single Page, AJAX Checkout Process

• More conversions - Single-page checkouts have been proven to significantly improve sales conversions, boosting a merchant’s bottom line.
• Better page performance - While dozens of factors contribute to page load times, using a single, AJAX-powered checkout form should improve user experience. This is important since many studies suggest consumers won’t tolerate slow loading pages.
• Better customer satisfaction - With better performance and no annoying form validation issues, customers should enjoy a better overall shopping experience.
• Advanced Interactivity  - Once a merchant has decided to add AJAX, it’s possible to make the page more interactive, which again, may improve customer experience.

The PROS to using an AJAX, one-page checkout process tend to focus on customers and profits. By contrast, the CONS tend to be development related.

The CONS of Using a Single-Page, Ajax Checkout Process
While there is generally no reason to use a multi-page checkout, there are things to consider when using Ajax.

• It won’t work without javascript - AJAX depends on javascript, if a user has javascript disabled, the page will revert to server-side validation.
• Some browser functions won’t necessarily behave as expected - Because AJAX does not reload a page to update content the browser's back button will not bring the user back to an early step in the checkout as might be expected. There is a work around, but it requires more development time.
• AJAX requires more upfront investment - Because AJAX will increase development time, merchants may have to pay a little more or use more development hours.