Natural Language Processing is Now in Every Retailer's Cart
Alan Turning once famously said, ‘Instead of trying to produce a program that simulates the adult mind, why not rather try to produce one that simulates a child’s?’ This could not be truer for any industry as it is for retail. Since the very dawn of this industry, innovators, retailers, and entrepreneurs have pushed the envelope to raise the bar on customer experience and satisfaction and prove that we are all children trapped in adult bodies.?
From the historic Sears catalog and pathbreaking concepts like the ‘Gruen Transfer’ that pushed us to act on impulse rather than rational thought to the Big Box stores and e-commerce that convinced us that big wants could be fulfilled at breakneck speed with a bottom dollar, the business of retail has endeavored to make our wildest dreams come true. And as large language models take center stage in solving challenges for businesses, customers are poised to reap even more benefits and continue to be the undisputed sovereign.?
Natural language processing (NLP) is quickly becoming increasingly crucial in retail. Its ability to interpret human language enables machines to perform and accelerate tasks like responding to customer service inquiries and executing highly targeted marketing strategies. Its ability to process enormous amounts of text data, including colloquialisms, into a purposeful array of insights and instructions has opened several avenues to improve the customer experience. As brands compete aggressively for customer loyalty and share of wallet, NLP is, without a doubt, moving from every retailer’s wish list to their cart.?
Brendan Witcher, Vice President, and Principal Analyst at Forrester believes that in 2023, AI will be the savior for continued retail labor shortages. As an industry recovering from ‘The Great Resignation,’ GPT-powered chatbots and virtual assistants can understand natural language and provide personalized responses, making the customer experience more seamless with minimal human intervention. GPT-powered solutions can help reduce the number of calls and emails to customer service departments and improve the efficiency of the customer service process. Additionally, GPT can generate product descriptions, FAQs, and other content to help customers make informed purchase decisions.?
NLP is making a notable impact, especially in eCommerce product search, and recommendations. Companies use NLP to understand customer search queries and provide more accurate search results. Be it semantic searches, intelligent searches, or smarter recommendations, NLP leverages deep learning to provide a more seamless and fulfilling experience. Moreover, benefits such as text summarization can expedite the consumer buying journey by translating thousands of reviews into a coherent, concise, easy-to-read piece of content. This ability makes NLP crucial in determining customer sentiment, filtering important reviews, and providing timely feedback. But that is not all. NLP can also be used to detect fraudulent activity and analyze customer reviews to detect fraudulent reviews that are posted to promote or demote a product or service. It also helps segment customers based on preferences, buying patterns, and demographics, tailor marketing efforts for specific groups and develop voice-enabled shopping that allows customers to shop hands-free. Moreover, it can also analyze the language used in customer feedback and chat logs to identify anomalies such as suspicious transactions and requests for sensitive information.?
领英推荐
There are many potential use cases for NLP in supply chain management too. NLP can improve supply chain efficiencies by reducing wastage, mitigating risks, and ensuring more robust upstream and downstream compliance. NLP can be extremely helpful in lowering the administrative workload associated with cross-border commerce by automating tasks such as converting handwritten purchase orders and invoices into machine-readable text, accelerating customs clearance, and increasing trade compliance. Furthermore, the translation capabilities make it easier to understand local and global news and regulations, making it easier to query a global supply chain and forge stronger supplier relationships.?
A report from Juniper Research estimates that by 2023, over 70% of chatbots accessed will be retail-based and that businesses and customers could save up to 2.5 billion customer service hours by 2023. With such forecasts in tow, natural language processing is poised to revolutionize the retail industry by helping tap into vast pools, distill crucial insights, and shoulder a large chunk of the work required to understand and engage effectively with customers. Businesses that invest in NLP now will be well-positioned to capitalize on the opportunities and stay ahead of the competition in the future.?