Abstract: Siri and Alexa are now household names, and their users have grown accustomed to how easy it is for them to access information. These types of virtual assistants are primarily for personal use. Artificial Intelligence also presents huge opportunities for businesses, particularly in customer service. Some companies are already using artificial Intelligence (AI) to provide better, more efficient service, and this technology will likely play an increasingly significant role over the next few years.

Artificial Intelligence is still a relatively new concept for most businesses, but interest has increased dramatically over the past few years and shows no sign of slowing down. At this point, that interest has mostly been centred on marketing and has proven to be a valuable addition for many of the companies who have added it to their strategies. In fact, 80% of marketing executives believe that Artificial Intelligence technology will revolutionize the marketing industry by 2020. Automation already plays a role in many companies’ customer service processes, and many companies at the forefront of adopting new forms of technology are also incorporating artificial Intelligence. This shift has the potential to help all types of businesses better serve their customers but holds a few unique advantages for those within the retail industry.

I. INTRODUCTION

Artificial Intelligence is widely used and practically applied to help businesses make informed decisions and improve customer experience. Artificial Intelligence is about acting in similar ways, using algorithms as to what humans would do but in a much more controlled, efficient and faster manner. It can be defined as information derived by applying a set of algorithms with little or no human intervention. In general terms, Artificial Intelligence is the machine’s ability to think for itself. It aims to augment human capabilities and not replace them. It is about algorithms, processing data and recommendations to businesses to make decisions for very specific problems at a greater speed, scale and velocity than what a human can do.

Customers are the king of market. They are important part of any organization. It is very important for any business to understand the needs of their customers, satisfy that needs and retain them. Business can attract new customers and retain existing customers through bringing innovation in their product or services or making the after- sale service effective.

Nowadays, businesses are giving more focus on after-sale service than innovation because the Customers are not only interested in the products or services they are buying but also in the add-on elements they get. In future, customers will face any problem regarding products or services; they will connect with retailers again for solutions. So, every business tries to maintain good relations with customers after sales by making customer service strong. Customer service is the process of providing assistance and advice by Retailer to customers who buy and use its products and services.

The Indian retail industry has emerged as one of the most dynamic and fast-paced industries due to the entry of many new players. India is Asia’s third-largest retail market and the world’s fourth-largest after the US, China and Japan. In the retail market of India, Food and grocery accounts for the majority shares, followed by apparel and footwear, consumer durables and IT segments.

Growth of the Indian Retail Industry

The above graph shows the growth of the Indian Retail Industry. In 2011, the growth of the Indian retail industry was US$365 and then it was increased to US$795 in 2017. The growth of the industry will continue to increase in the future by US$1200 and US$1750 in 2021, 2026 respectively.

Use of Artificial Intelligence in Different Activities of Retail

Based on the above data, artificial Intelligence is highly used in routing customer service requests, tracking packages, personalized product suggestions, handling returns and exchanges, answering pre-purchase questions, and marketing. Artificial Intelligence helps customer service by automatically tagging customer tickets, detecting urgency and prioritizing problems, customer data entry and their real-time insights by giving auto-responses to routine queries.

Capabilities of Artificial Intelligence

As the above data shows that, in today’s scenario, Artificial Intelligence has the capability of learning about 57%, 50% of solving problems, 37% of interpreting conversations of customers, 35% possibility to replicating human interaction, and can think logically around 51%. Artificial intelligence capabilities progressively increased in games by about 19%, by 18% in surveillance on people and by 31% in replacing human jobs. In the future, artificial Intelligence will be able to feel the emotions of humans by 14%, control the human mind by 8%, and possibly take over the world by 10%. So, the capability of Artificial Intelligence shows that it can handle some routine tasks of humans effectively.

• Chatbots

The chatbots help in automating customer service inquiries, transferring customer calls to the proper agent and routing prospects with buying intent directly to salespeople. This process happens automatically with 24*7 support to customers. Chatbots can help businesses to save on customer service costs by speeding up response times and answering up to 80% of routine questions.

DISCUSSION

• Artificial Intelligence helps customer service by automatically tagging customer tickets, by detecting urgency and prioritizing problems, customer data entry and their real time insights, by giving auto response to routine queries.
• Efficient customer service is a main focus area for retailers.
• Artificial Intelligence is mainly used in the retail industry for routing customer service requests.
• Customer experience directly impacts customer decisions.