To offer a more personalized and responsive support to their customers, many retail businesses have integrated automation into their objectives. More and more companies are implementing voice agents, or in other words, artificial intelligence-based virtual assistants, to help customers with their queries. In this article, we will look at 7 use cases of this innovative technology, particularly adapted to the retail sector, which can be implemented in your contact center in just a few days.
Since the outbreak of the health crisis in 2020, e-commerce figures have skyrocketed. Internet sales have increased by 8.5% in one year!
With the rise of e-commerce, the codes of retail have been turned upside down. In stores as well as online, competition is becoming fiercer to offer the best experience to prospects and customers. Consumers, ever more informed and demanding due to the emergence of social networks, expect a seamless and personalized experience.
To stand out from the crowd, brands must work harder and offer accessible, available and quality customer service! A single bad experience in store or at the delivery can be enough to drive consumers away from a brand.
As an intelligent assistant available 24 hours a day with no waiting time, the voice agent automates simple requests and communicates with callers using everyday words. These intelligent voice assistants are capable of calls routing and pre-qualification, as well as end-to-end call processing.
AI-powered voice agents can deliver significant productivity gains, especially when implemented on massive and repetitive call flows. Without further ado, here are some common examples of voice agents use cases to apply in your contact center!
1. Automate order management
After placing an order, many buyers contact customer service to specify or change their delivery address, cancel their order, or find out about product returns. These operations have very little to no added value for the customer service representatives. In order to increase efficiency and free up agents' time, a voice agent can be implemented on one or more products to handle the commercial relationship 24 hours a day and assist customers with their requests.
The AI-powered voice agent can identify the caller through his order number, understand the reason for the call, and assist him with his requests. If the voice agent realizes that the caller's request is more complex, it will register the key information of the caller's request, and then initiate the creation of a ticket according to the level of importance of the difficulty encountered. It then transfers the call to the relevant competence center.
2. Automate scheduling and delivery tracking by phone
AI-powered voice agents can go a step further by tracking packages or scheduling deliveries over the phone. Indeed, many customers contact their customer service to know the delivery time of their order or to inform that they will not be available at the time of delivery. The voice agent can be used to re-schedule at another time.
To do so, the conversational agent identifies the order thanks to a tracking number, gives the caller the requested information (the current location of the package, the day and time of delivery...) and assists them in finding a more convenient alternative solution.
Without taking up agent time, the voice agent provides a seamless experience for customers autonomously and immediately. If you want to know more about this use case, you can find our detailed case study on the voice agent implemented with La Poste Courrier here.
3. Manage product-related campaigns
From marketing to after-sales service, product-related operations can lead to large volumes of requests (for example, an advertising campaign to announce special offers). The voice agent can be used to streamline customer service operations by handling repetitive product-related requests.
It can also be mobilized to conduct outbound call campaigns to regular and loyal customers, to inform them about special offers or invite them to private sales.
4. Automate payment by phone
One out of every two customers hangs up when asked for their bank details over the phone. Cautious by nature when it comes to sensitive banking data, many consumers are reluctant to share these details with a telephone operator. But sending the customer an SMS or web link to make an online payment not only ends the communication with the advisor, but may also lead to an abandonment of the purchase.
To address obvious privacy concerns while ensuring a seamless payment experience, the voice agent can take over from the call center agent at the point of payment. The customer's data is immediately processed without being stored in the IS, allowing the robot to process the payment, before finalizing the transaction and either hanging up or forwarding the call to the call center agent.
5. Update a customer's profile
Offering a personalized and quality commercial relationship requires regular maintenance of CRM data. But regularly updating this data can be a tedious task, with a high risk of data entry errors.
Many customers may contact a brand to report a change of address or contact information. Similarly, many requests are related to the management of their customer area, for example in the case of lost logins or passwords.
In these cases, the voice agent can identify the callers and assist them in their daily operations, while ensuring the protection of their personal data.
6. Automate loyalty account requests
Building customer loyalty is a top priority for any company! For that, customer loyalty campaigns and operations are fundamental. It is possible to automate recurring operations related to these campaigns to scale up, for example by implementing a voice agent to activate a gift card, or check a loyalty points balance.
7. Streamline schedule requests or direct debit reminders
Informing a customer that a direct debit will be made from their bank account in the next few days is of no value to a business. For the customer, however, finding out that they have been charged when they weren't expecting it can lead to dissatisfaction, payment incidents and requests for deferrals.
The AI-powered voice agent can call the customer a few days in advance of a transaction to remind him or her that his or her account will soon be debited. The customer can then make arrangements, or contact the company in advance in case of payment issues.
And last but not least, here is a GIF representation of the automation matrix that our Product and Customer Success teams provide you with to identify the use cases to be automated as a priority following the diagnostic work of the contact center!
You now have a better idea of what voice agents can do for the retail sector! This list of use cases is of course not all-inclusive, and we frequently develop custom conversational agents tailored to our customers' use cases.
Looking for an automation solution? Contact us to find out if your use case can be automated.
Our teams can also perform a diagnosis of your contact center to help you design the AI-powered voice agent that best suits your needs.
