Great Ways AI Can Positively Influence Your Retail Business
Artificial intelligence has made huge strides in the last decade, transforming almost every aspect of life. One area where artificial intelligence has helped add real value is the way businesses operate.
However, many business people are still skeptical about the role of AI in business, thus losing out on a resource that could make a big difference in their operations and profits. Others only embrace AI to some extent, losing out on its full potential.
If your lack of understanding of AI’s potential is why you are yet to embrace it in the day-to-day running of your business, this guide can be an eye-opener for you.
Ways You Can Use AI to Benefit Your Business
Content Creation
Creating quality content can be time-consuming and almost impossible to juggle with running a business. Often, businesses have to outsource content creation, which is way easier but can also be expensive.
The last few years have seen AI content creation make big strides and can help make creating content faster and cheaper, but you may still need to make some edits to improve the quality of your content. The best approach is to look at AI in content creation as a writing assistant rather than a tool to churn out information.
Personalized Marketing
Traditional marketing methods focus on putting your marketing materials out there and hoping your target audience gets the message. The problem with this approach is that most of your marketing revenue will go to waste, something AI eliminates through targeted marketing.
Targeted marketing is made possible by machine learning algorithms that analyze potential customer data. These include their browsing behavior, level of income, purchasing patterns, online interactions, and likes and dislikes.
By analyzing this data, AI helps retailers make personalized recommendations to potential customers, significantly increasing conversion rates and resulting in a better return on investment than traditional advertising options.
Managing Operations
Managing business operations, such as inventory and orders, can be a daunting task that usually takes a sizable chunk of a business’s resources. As a result, most businesses are turning to AI to help manage operations, saving thousands of dollars, which means they will have a competitive edge.
Competing with such businesses can leave you running into losses, so the only way out is adapting. There are AI tools for every process, from quality control, predictive maintenance, inventory management, process automation, and handling repetitive processes.
No matter what processes you want to streamline, picking an industry-specific software solution is critical. For instance, if you are in the brewing industry, a brewery management software solution would be an excellent upgrade from Google sheets or any manual methods you use to manage operations at your plant.
Handling Customer Service
In today’s competitive world, customer patience runs pretty thin, so the faster you can respond to a customer query, the better. However, it can become increasingly difficult to keep up with customer service as you scale. Thankfully, you can leverage the power of AI and machine learning (ML) to manage your customer service desk.
AI can help improve your customer service in several ways, such as AI-powered chatbots that provide answers to customers around the clock. You can also use AI for tasks that do not require human intervention, such as booking appointments, making reservations, providing product information, and self-service.
Fraud Detection
Fraud is a major problem in the retail industry, resulting in billions of dollars in losses for retailers each year. According to industry statistics, retailers lose over $50 billion each year due to fraud, with payment fraud being the most common.
If fraud is a huge problem in your business, you can leverage AI to prevent it. Many fraud detection apps leverage machine learning to analyze customer behavior and online activity for anything that indicates fraud, helping you catch fraud before it happens. You can also leverage AI for customer ID verification through facial recognition and scanning identification documents.
Reduce the Cost of Doing Business
The idea behind incorporating AI in business is to reduce spending and ultimately gain a competitive advantage. AI allows you to achieve more with fewer resources, which is what every business person dreams of.
While AI can be a game changer in your business, it can only work for you if you employ the right approach. Therefore, you may need to get professional help. Also, you do not want to go all in to avoid getting overwhelmed. The best approach is to take one step at a time.