AI-Based Personalization in the Age of Rising Consumer Expectations

Personalization is a crucial weapon in a marketer’s arsenal in delivering a world-class experience for its customers and bringing value to an organization. According to a recent Salesforce study, 76% of today’s consumers expect companies to know and understand them.

As the digital world is now often exceeding television transmission speeds consumers are also demanding a better than real-time experience. To deliver such an experience, and engage instantly with the customer “in-the-moment” (widely considered the “Holy Grail of Marketing) requires a modern approach. 

In order to capture customer engagement, retailers need to create an authentic, relevant, and personal connection with every customer. Leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) correctly, marketers can now engage with every customer on a 1:1 basis, in-the-moment, with relevant offers across channels, at scale. 

In-The-Moment

Real-time, which often takes up to 5 seconds is no longer good enough for today’s online shopper. In those 5 seconds, the consumer can become distracted, disappointed or confused as to what is and isn’t available.

By allowing for ‘shopper doubt’ online retailers are opening the door for the consumer to abandon the purchase. In order to create an in-the-moment experience, online retailers must gather data and respond to consumers in a fraction of a second with relevant contextual content to convert sales.

Relevant Contextual Content

Today’s consumer is incredibly discerning while making purchases in a hyper-stimulated shopping environment. If you offer them the wrong item in the wrong place at the wrong time you will lose them. Lose them often enough and your brand suffers. ZineOne’s Innovation Lab builds highly-accurate, unique ML models for each brand they work with, e.g. Walmart targets discount shoppers while Williams Sonoma targets higher-end shoppers, each brand has its own ML model.

Within this framework, you must learn the contextual situation of the consumer. Let’s say its January in Houston and its 65F, modern online retailers would offer the consumer a warm drink because that is chilly for Houston. But if the consumer is in Chicago in January and its 65F, the consumer is offered a cold drink because that is warm for Chicago. 

Create a Channel-Less, Unified Customer View

From laptops to mobile phones, to notebooks and iPads, today’s consumer moves quickly and often. It’s imperative to create a channel-less shopping experience to influence customer action at just the right moment. The modern online retailer must discover points of influence in the customer journey where certain engagements will yield the best possible results. This is achieved by interweaving digital and physical channels to maximize experience and convenience for customers.

As a result, you will deepen your relationship with customers by delivering increasingly relevant, engaging, in-the-moment messages that drive loyalty and sales across a multitude of channels.

Deliver Individualized Customer Experience at Enterprise Scale

It’s the web and that means traffic spikes. It’s imperative you deliver the same 1:1 personalized shopping experience on Cyber Monday as you do during the dog days of August. According to McKinsey & Company’s  A Technology Blueprint for Personalization at Scale, personalization at scale has the potential to create between $1.7 to $3.0 trillion in new value across multiple industries from retail, and consumer packaged goods to travel and banking. 

It’s clear that enterprises require a modern approach to customer engagement. One that is intelligent, personalized, and scalable. You must be able to combine and process an unprecedented amount of past and present customer data points, then leverage AI and ML to react to customer triggers in-the-moment and on any channel, engaging each customer at the right time, in the right place, with the right message.

Read more: Why CMOs Are Blind to 90% of Their Content Experience