If you are in retail, you’d know that 2025 feels very different from the previous years.
Today, customers want you to read their minds before they even click “add to cart.” And the truth is, they expect that now.
Consumers have become sharper, and their expectations are sky-high. If you are not on top of your tech game, you’re left scrambling.
So, what’s changed in retail?
Three things have completely changed the way retailers look at CX:
- Retailers have started using customer data properly to benefit the customers as well as their business.
- AI has become a core part of retail strategy, and it is not a buzzword anymore.
- Omnichannel is not a nice-to-have strategy but an essential one for survival.
Let me walk you through what I have seen, what’s working, and how smart moves like AI, data, and omnichannel are making a real difference to retail success.
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Personalization at its best
How much data did we always have in retail?
Tons, if I am not wrong.
Most retailers, however, have never put them to use, but that has changed considerably now. Every data point is looked at closely to ensure hyper-personalization for the customers.
Recently, I received a text from a high-end store that I visit every year before my birthday.
We noticed that you usually buy our wrinkle-free formal shirts around this time every year. This year, we are pairing those shirts with ties at 50% off. Would you like to try them?
This is how personalized things have become.
Let me give you another example.
I regularly buy Amrut Fusion from a shop near my office, as I love the touch of smoke.
The last time I went there, the guy at the counter checked with me about the reason why I always buy Fusion.
When I mentioned the smoky feeling, he suggested that I should give their peated single malt a try, as that would take the smoky element up a notch, with full-on smoky notes balanced by Amrut’s trademark tropical fruitiness.
I picked up the peated single malt, and since then, I have been buying both from there. The guy at the counter acted like my personal Whisky guru.
AI in retail contact centers
In the initial days when I heard about AI in retail contact centers, I was more than skeptical.
This was partly because I had used a lot of rule-based engines as a part of my customer experience, and invariably, they got stuck with anything nuanced, complex, or intelligent.
I was expecting a similar experience, but AI in contact centers is hardly that anymore.
Today, we use AI to run most transactional things intelligently:
- Run chatbots that can pull up your last order, track your package, and even offer a refund, all without breaking a sweat.
- Assist human agents in real-time. Let us assume you are calling customer care about a delayed shipment, and the agent gets a prompt from the AI engine stating that the customer had a bad experience last month as well.
Based on this, the agent empathizes with you and promises to look into the issue immediately. The agent also offers a discount coupon for you to use the next time.
- Transcribe calls and detect sentiment, misselling, and compliance issues. So, if a customer is clearly upset, supervisors get alerted in real-time.
With AI, the customer service or support teams can breathe easier. AI takes care of the repetitive and transactional stuff, which allows your agents to focus on trickier and more emotional conversations.
With AI, humans end up doing only stuff that requires a human touch.
Omnichannel is finally real
If I had a rupee for every time someone said “omnichannel” in the past five years, I’d be filthy rich and would have retired.
The thing is, omnichannel is real now.
When was the last time you remember picking up the phone to call someone at customer care?
I rarely do them nowadays. Instead, I send them emails, visit their website to register a complaint or use their mobile app to register complaints instantly. With some brands, I have even DMed them on Instagram and other social channels.
It doesn’t matter which channel you use contact center with omnichannel capabilities ensure any agent handling my query has full context, as they can access my entire interaction history across channels through a single, unified view
This works so very well in retail.
Recently, I tried buying a jogger from a brand online. I chose the color and size and added it to the cart. I was about to pay, and that’s when I realized that I had never used that brand before. So, I wanted to try their fit before making the purchase.
I didn’t check out from my cart. I decided to visit their offline store, and I told them that I wanted to check out the jogger before making the purchase.
They took my mobile number, and immediately they knew the model and the color that I had chosen. They gave me the one I chose for me to try out. It fitted perfectly, and I bought that jogger and left the shop.
This experience was seamless.
That word “seamless” is what we’re all aiming for as a retail brand.
Where do you start?
As a retail brand, you’d certainly want to make use of AI, data, and omnichannel to improve your customer experience and, thereby, your business.
However, you don’t have to do it alone.
You have brands like ClearTouch that can help you in your retail customer experience journey.
Here is what a retail customer of ours has to say about our platform.
ClearTouch Operator is an advanced cloud-based contact center software that offers you AI tools, voice analytics, and omnichannel support on a pay-as-you-go model.
All of our channels, which include phone, chat, email, and social, are tightly integrated, which provides a single view of our customers to our agents, irrespective of what channel the customers use.
Besides, they had pre-built integrations with multiple CRMs, one of which is the CRM that we use, Salesforce. They also make integration with your other systems painless using their APIs.
With ClearTouch, we improved the customer satisfaction scores and improved specific campaign scores, and they helped us make smarter decisions.
It is one of those partnerships that made our lives easier.
Do you really think that retail has changed as much as it seems?
I’d say no.
You are still dependent on the following:
Know your customer
Be present when they need you
Make every interaction feel effortless and frictionless
However, the difference today is that we have tools like AI, data, and omnichannel capabilities to make customer experience better.
The question is whether we are using them the right way.
The magic is in making the technology disappear in the background. Ensure that your customers feel seen and your agents feel empowered.
This would make your customer interactions seamless, and with technology, it is within reach.
Take that leap of faith.
