Step Up Your Digital CX This Holiday Season

Retailers are preparing for their busiest time of the year. And they have their work cut out for them in the 2022 holiday season, thanks to rising costs, persisting issues with the supply chain, and staffing shortages. To get ahead of any potential problems and keep customers satisfied, retailers must put extra focus on the experience – whether that’s in person or online.

Today we’re speaking to Tony Lorentzen, senior vice-president of intelligent engagement solutions, Enterprise Division at Nuance Communications, a Microsoft company, a technology leader focused on helping businesses apply conversational AI to create exceptional omnichannel experiences. At Nuance, Tony blends his in-depth knowledge of business management and technology with vertical domain expertise to bring Nuance’s solutions to global organizations, including retail brands, partnering with customers to ensure implementations drive value.

Gary Drenik: It's nice to chat with you today, Tony

Tony Lorentzen: Thanks for having me – I’m looking forward to the conversation.

Drenik: As am I, so let’s get right into it. Obviously, the holiday shopping season is a notoriously busy time for retailers, but what are consumers expecting when they go shopping in the coming weeks? How have these expectations changed over time?

Lorentzen: Even before the pandemic, consumers were shifting to do at least some of their holiday shopping online and order to pick up curbside. Obviously, the pandemic only accelerated this trend. According to a recent Prosper Insights & Analytics survey, the majority of respondents across age groups shared that they would be doing at least some of their 2022 holiday shopping online. Additionally, the data also showed that almost half of Gen-Xers (46.9%) and more than half of Gen-Zers (50.8%) and Millennials (52.5%) plan to make purchases via smartphones or tablets this holiday season.

This proves a clear preference towards online and digital channels for holiday shopping going forward. As a result, brands really need to think about how they interact with consumers through these channels and invest in technologies that provide helpful, seamless, and personalized customer experiences – meeting the customer where they are.

Drenik: It’s so important to take advantage of those customer touchpoints – especially if brands want to be remembered. But too often that doesn’t happen. Based on what you’ve seen throughout your career, where do most retailers fail when it comes to providing a good customer experience – especially during a high-volume time?

Lorentzen: There are three main problems that companies tend to run into: not being predictive, proactive, and not thinking about the customer journey holistically.

Customers want to be recognized and expect that retailers, especially ones that they frequently do business with, to know them – their recent transactions, history, and patterns. Leveraging this information to streamline interactions – even if it’s as simple as using automated systems use their first name. Retailers must also take steps to anticipate and address potential road bumps before they become a bigger problem – especially during a high-volume time like the holidays when shipping delays are also unfortunately frequent. Whether it’s letting someone know the item they are searching for is out of stock via an intelligent virtual assistant on a website or proactively sending a text to notify them about the status of their delivery, these seemingly small things can go a long way. In addition to the text notification, companies could use intelligent software to provide the consumer with options of next steps (for example, the offer to cancel the order so they can buy something similar, or a suggestion of an in-person location that carries this particular item) to anticipate the next step in their journey.

And that brings me to my next point: the customer journey consists of multiple steps that retailers need to think about from beginning to end, not just channel by channel. For instance, say a customer asks an intelligent virtual assistant a question on the retailer’s website and the virtual assistant doesn’t know the answer. In instances where retailers have a holistic approach to customer experiences, that virtual assistant would then acknowledge the question and ask if the customer would like to live chat with a human agent. That human agent then already has all the information from the online interaction so they can pick up right where the virtual assistant left off to resolve the problem quickly and without creating extra pain points or steps for the consumer.

Whatever the interaction is, there’s usually a next step afterward, and transitioning between these different touchpoints must be seamless. Otherwise, brands risk losing that individual’s business.

Drenik: That’s definitely something to consider as retailers think about what it takes to go the extra mile this holiday season. I know you just gave some examples, but how can technology play a role in making these experiences smoother for both retailers and consumers?

Lorentzen: Conversational AI can be used in so many ways to make experiences smoother for everyone. Intelligent chatbots and virtual assistants have come a long way from the glorified FAQ bots they were once considered; today enabling conversational dialogs that allows a consumer to complete a transaction. From bridging online to SMS or phone interactions like I just shared, to proactively making personalized suggestions based on consumer preferences, these tools can help create customized interactions that leave the consumer feeling like they just interacted with a personal shopping assistant rather than a mindless robot.

Technology can help blend online and in-person experiences to make them seamless as well. For example, according to the Prosper Insights & Analytics survey I mentioned earlier, over half of Gen-Zers (54.1%) and Millennials (56.4%) plan to buy products online to then pick them up in-store. With the right tools in place, a retailer could text the consumer when the product arrives, the consumer could then drive to the store and text back, “Great, I’m in the parking lot in pickup spot number 4,” and then a worker would bring out that package. But what if there’s something wrong with the package? The customer could then use the platform to inform the retailer through that same text interaction to get the issue resolved – whether that’s returning it to the store, having the retailer issue a refund, or offering to send the consumer a new product.

Drenik: That’s so interesting and using technology to build those more hybrid interactions is a great idea. It sounds like Nuance is doing some really great work – can you share any retailers you work with that offer exceptional experiences?

Lorentzen: H&M immediately comes to mind for me. We’ve been working with them since 2018, and in 2020 we helped integrate their chat features with Google Maps and Google Search. This allows H&M customers to get answers to their questions directly from Google Search without needing to leave the web browser. It’s pretty cool.

Drenik: That is pretty cool! Well, that’s all we have time for today. Thanks so much for the time, Tony – your insights on what consumers are looking for this holiday season and how retailers can step up to deliver on those expectations was incredibly insightful.