Artificial Intelligence & Chatbots are the future of retail

More gold has indeed been mined from the mind of men than the earth itself! Really, is there still anything that couldn’t be achieved or at least be made better with AI? Well, your guess is as good as mine.

According to the latest estimate by Juniper Research; “Retail sales from chatbot-based interactions are forecast to almost double every year to $112 billion by 2023 from $7.3 billion this year.”

There’s never been a more perfect time for retail business owners to integrate AI in their business model than now.

Now let’s dissect this a little bit – shall we?

The Retail sales resulting from chatbot-based interaction in 2019 alone is $7.3 billion (that’s seven “billion” with a capital B), and it’s tipped to double every year; that’s more like moving in a sequential progression of $7.3B x 2 ($14.6 billion) by the year 2020, $28.12 billion by the year 2021. The firm also noted that chatbot interactions are set to abruptly upsurge from a forecasted 2.6 billion in 2019 to 22 billion in the same time frame. The Chatbot market itself it’s a booming market. The chatbot market is predicted to reach around 1.25 billion U.S. dollars in 2025, a great increase from the market size in 2016, which stood at $190.8 million U.S. dollars.

From the company-use point of view, a chatbot can help reduce workload, reduce cost, and speed up certain levels of ‘self-assistance’ through the automation Artificial Intelligence provides. As revealed by Juniper, retailers also will see significant cost savings by automating many of the customer interactions now handled by live customer service representatives (CSRs). Retailers can expect to cut costs by $439 billion a year in 2023, up from $7 million this year, as AI-powered chatbots get more sophisticated at responding to customers.

More so, results from customers surveyed by a location marketing firm called Uberall revealed that only 40% of consumers said they were interested in chatbot experiences from brands, including 20% who said they’re very interested in interacting with the AI technology. More than one-third (36%) of consumers said the technology needs to improve, and another 43% said chatbots need to improve understanding of questions and requests. The firm’s forecast, however, suggests that many consumers will overcome their resistance to interacting with chatbots as the technology improves.

See, Judge, ACT!

We often tend to act indifferently or refuse to believe what we don’t understand, but these numbers don’t lie! Again, there’s never been a more significant opportunity or a better time to learn how to leverage the use of chatbot in automating your sales than now. Success & Happiness is found in doing & implementing, not merely by possessing without innovating, so you need to ‘SEE,’ ‘JUDGE’ and then ‘ACT’ accordingly. And the best time to act is now.

Sequel to our previous article on Chatbot; The Future Of Automated Retail Sales, being pretty awful in tech isn’t a good enough excuse to procrastinate. If need be, hire some of the best minds, and experienced AI experts to build the ultimate chatbot that’ll propel the growth of your business stupendously.

Are there any implications for not using a Chatbot?

Retailers that don’t adopt chatbots will face intense challenges from more technologically adept disruptors that use chatbots as an extension of the omnichannel retail experience, Juniper warned as well.

Should this concern me?

Chatbot use by retailers will enable effective automated customer interactions for retailers. This can deliver high-quality user experiences in a low-resource way, boosting customer retention and satisfaction whilst also reducing operating costs.

The fact is, EVERY reasonable business owner, wants to stay attuned to the market trend to avoid getting trapped in the rat race of relegated business league where they do nothing but play the ‘catch-up’ sports.