Prologue
No, e-commerce is not “intelligent” because the principle of “customers also bought” or “just because I once bought a blue sweater, blue sweaters are now always suggested to me” is simply not intelligent. Yes, okay, of course you can call it “intelligent”, but this principle does not lead to inspiration for (unknown) customers. They will probably still buy from you, but that is due to the aggressive discount battle that still exists, or as e-commerce likes to call it, a strategy. This won’t last much longer and is confirmation of a very “uninspiring” industry, even though it could be so inspiring. That sounds harsh, but it is, and it certainly doesn’t apply to all e-commerce companies. Nonetheless, the market needs to do something to inspire (unknown) customers before we see them all migrate to junk platforms like TEMU, Shein and the like.
By the way: The (unknown) customers are new and existing customers that we either already know or just don’t know yet.
"Digitization of intelligence"
But what does “intelligence” mean?
Certainly not always offering the supposedly right “products” for cross-selling and up-selling.
When we think back to a really good and inspiring visit to a bricks-and-mortar store, which unfortunately was probably ages ago, there were so many facets of “inspiration”: being able to browse in peace, being offered a coffee, getting help if you wanted it, being suggested products and their combinations that you didn’t know before, help with decision-making and so on.
At least that’s how many people felt.
And this principle needs to be projected into the digital world: to digitize “human intelligence” in order to accompany the customer’s journey along their shopping or inspiration process and to support them in the best possible way, to satisfy their existing needs or even to awaken needs that they were not yet aware of at the time.
This “digitalization of intelligence” is based, on the one hand, on a full understanding of the data that can be collected digitally and the ability to interpret it.
On the other hand, it is also based on the creativity of the e-commerce employee to create sources of inspiration along the customer journey, test them and interpret the evaluation data to determine whether they were successful or not.
E-commerce requires a dynamic and creative mindset, both organizationally and technologically, in order to continuously improve the customer journey.
And by the way, we always talk about omnichannel, but we are responsible for that ourselves.
(Unknown) customers won’t switch channels on their own, we have to actively support them.
The basis of intelligence
Intelligence is a multi-layered term that encompasses various aspects of a person’s mental abilities and cognitive performance – which now need to be “digitized” in order to make e-commerce truly “intelligent”: not so easy!
However, to get closer, “intelligence” could perhaps also be approached in this way: by interacting with (unknown) customers, learning how they react to a creative action for possible inspiration and interpreting this feedback into a strategy.
This means that we communicate with (unknown) customers in a certain way, as they communicate with us what they like or don’t like – everything is recorded in the form of data.
That’s why it’s so important to have your data under control.
Intelligent review management can also be used to derive comments and star intelligence, as they directly reflect the feedback.
As we can see, we need to replicate communication with (unknown) customers via the various types of digital world, because feedback on actions in the real world also makes us more intelligent.
Unfortunately, we have forgotten how to communicate digitally and have therefore moved further and further away from genuine customer orientation.
It has supposedly become more convenient, but if we are honest, not more customer-oriented.
Do we therefore need a new era in e-commerce that brings us closer to our target group again?
It’s already here: Conversational Commerce!
New era: "Conversational Commerce"
If we take a brief and very rough look at the eras, we come from the so-called stationary trade (trade), which was very customer-oriented because the intelligence of people described above was used; of course only if the people in the stores were also given the chance to be good. Unfortunately, this commerce was not always convenient because we had to drive into the city center or to the outskirts to get to the physical store. This didn’t or won’t get any better if the city centers don’t do anything, but that’s a whole other topic. Then with the internet came e-commerce, which changed everything, because suddenly we can store very conveniently at any time. However, we’ve become more stupid, according to this version, because they haven’t managed to do it yet – oh, you know. By the way, there was mail order before the Internet, the same model as e-commerce, only analog.
Another interesting aspect of our current era of e-commerce is that we have completely transferred the work to the (unknown) customers. In the physical store, we had someone bringing us things, suggesting things, etc. pp. Online, we do everything ourselves and waste an incredible amount of time trying to make a decision, which is really frustrating. How can we change this, perhaps with this conversational commerce, where we get our needs met via messengers and through communication and interaction via messengers such as WhatsApp & Co. Imagine going to a retailer on WhatsApp and communicating because we have a need – and then receiving curated suggestions and being able to buy directly. Great, isn’t it? The inspiration comes from social media or the store. Simply another channel that gives us the opportunity to be convenient and customer-oriented. That could be another building block to get people excited about our service.
However, we need to start getting smarter, no matter what.
Outro
When asked “Does this all make sense and is it a good storyline? ChatGPT answered as follows:
Yes, the text makes sense and has a clear storyline. The author discusses the challenges of current e-commerce, particularly with regard to the lack of intelligence in the customer approach. The idea of “conversational” commerce is presented as a possible way to inspire and orient customers. The text then goes on to emphasize the importance of digitizing intelligence and how this can be applied to the customer journey. The transition to the new era of conversational commerce is also well introduced and discussed. The argumentation is clear and supported by examples and considerations. Overall, the text is well structured and gets the message across effectively.
Best regards
Your Benjamin (Ferreau)
Benjamin Ferreau is a proven transformation and AI expert, Director AI, entrepreneur and three-time lecturer in the fields of "e-commerce", "customer experience" and "robotics/AI". He had an AI start-up for e-commerce, which was already working on the digitalization of intelligence before the time of ChatGPT & Co. He believes in the symbiosis between people and technology and that this symbiosis will be a competitive advantage for companies. In addition, he has shaped the new dimension of e-commerce in the sense of Everywhere Commerce, as he also believes in the symbiosis of physical and digital.