AI in e-commerce: How it’s transforming CX

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly changing everything in our lives: It’s powering self-driving cars, answering search queries in an instant, and even overhauling e-commerce experiences—and consumers are seeing the difference. According to the Zendesk AI-Powered Customer Experience Trends Report 2024, 75 percent of consumers who have used AI believe it will completely change how they interact with companies in the next two years.

But this isn't some far-flung future state—AI is already changing everything about the shopping experience. E-commerce companies today are using it to provide 24/7 support, up-skill their employees, enhance the customer experience (CX), and drive upsells and cross-sells. Read on to discover how you can successfully implement AI into your operations.

More in this guide:

• Benefits of using AI in e-commerce
• Common AI use cases in e-commerce
• How to implement AI into your e-commerce business
• Frequently asked questions
• Revolutionise your e-commerce CX with Zendesk AI

Benefits of using AI in e-commerce

E-commerce businesses can realise several benefits when embracing AI. Here are a few of the most impactful.

Improved customer experience

There are endless ways in which artificial intelligence can maximise your e-commerce customer service and improve your CX. Digital autonomous AI agents can delight customers with 24/7 support, ensuring they can get help with orders and product information as soon as they need it. These bots can increase personalisation when connected to backend systems by offering tailored assistance and recommendations based on each customer's unique needs.

Beyond bots, AI can also equip your team with powerful insights to offer a better CX. For example, it can automatically capture and analyse customer intent so service agents better understand customer issues—something 70% of companies already invest in.

Heightened team productivity

Teams that perform every task by hand put themselves at a deep disadvantage in the marketplace. AI can guide support agents to the best course of action during customer interactions, enabling them to offer faster support. It can also provide outstanding customer service to complex issues all on its own, freeing agents up to focus on more important tasks.

Streamlined workflows

Artificial intelligence can give teams the flexibility to improve workflows, and one example is through ticket routing. With AI and automation, teams can combine intelligent routing and omnichannel routing to send customer tickets to the right agent based on customer sentiment, agent skill and availability, and other key factors. Processes like this create an environment of intelligent automation and can help organisations streamline workflows and business processes.

Boosted profitability

AI can boost profitability in several key areas, and the first is simple: Happy customers have higher customer lifetime value (CLV). By using AI to improve the CX, organisations entice consumers to make repeat purchases, thereby increasing customer loyalty and retention.

Not only that, but artificial intelligence can also drive upselling and cross-selling. When connected to e-commerce tools and other business systems, it can send personalised product recommendations to customers based on recent purchases or certain actions and behaviours.

Common AI use cases in e-commerce

Introducing AI in the workplace can help organisations achieve their goals and appeal to customers. Here are some common AI use cases you can get started with.

Delivering 24/7 customer support

AI agents are advanced bots that can deliver comprehensive, 24/7 support, ensuring e-commerce customers receive personalised assistance through convenient channels like Meta DMs, WhatsApp, and Instagram. For example, Zendesk AI agents are pre-trained on billions of real customer service interactions to automatically detect what customers want and respond as human agents would.

If you’re looking for a real-world application, look no further than the image and video hosting platform Photobucket. The company used Zendesk AI agents to deliver 24/7 member support, achieving a 96 per cent customer satisfaction (CSAT) score and a 30% decrease in annual tickets.

Offering greater personalisation

Combining AI and data analysis can help you provide personalised service and deliver an outstanding CX at scale. For example, generative AI tools can give support reps insight into customer intent and sentiment before an interaction begins. This allows agents to offer tailored support based on what each customer needs.

AI agents can deliver personalised recommendations based on shopping history for a more hands-off approach. Doing so ensures that your customers get high-quality personalised experiences, whether speaking with a human or virtual agent.

Processing invoices

Many organisations know that keeping track of invoices could almost be a full-time job in itself. When customers want a copy of their invoice, AI agents can step in and save the day. The technology does this by matching customer information with an organisation’s billing system or e-commerce tool, locating the invoice, and automatically sending it to the customer in a live chat, message, or email.

Merging and organising tickets

High volumes of duplicate tickets can disrupt a support team and frustrate customers and agents. AI can streamline this process by automatically identifying duplicate tickets and organising the backlog. It can also tag tickets by identifying the customer’s language, intent, and sentiment and get high-priority tickets where they need to be as soon as possible.

Communicating order statuses

Customers often reach out to get product updates after placing an order. Customers can flood support agents with time-consuming and repetitive tasks if you don't make this information readily available. Instead, AI agents can analyse information in the order management system and automatically update the consumer on their order status.

Issuing returns and refunds

Sometimes, a customer is unhappy with their order, and AI can mitigate the situation. AI agents can manage return and refund requests from start to finish, providing customers with instant, 24/7 support. They can also detect when a customer is at risk of churning or expressing high negative sentiment and escalate those cases to a human agent, allowing your team to take action and preserve the relationship.

How to implement AI into your e-commerce business

While AI is a powerful tool, you can’t just snap your fingers and transform your organisation into an automated powerhouse. Embracing artificial intelligence should be a well-thought-out process—consider our tips below.

1. Clearly define your long-term goals

AI is not a quick fix—it's a long-term strategy. Before implementing artificial intelligence, clearly define your goals and set expectations that key e-commerce metrics will improve over time. Start by automating simple tasks like refunds and password resets. As your team becomes more comfortable with AI, you can scale its use to handle more complex issues, driving higher-impact results such as improved customer retention and increased lifetime value.

2. Equip support agents with the right tools

Now that you’ve defined your goals, you need to equip support agents with the right tools to achieve them. Agent-facing AI tools are a great place to start, as they are easy to implement and drive fast value. But these tools are only effective when agents actually use them—so opt for technology that is purpose-built for their needs, like agent copilots.

Agent copilots are AI-powered, intelligent assistants that can guide agents through interactions, providing them with all the information they need to offer exceptional support. This can help them provide effortlessly effective customer support.

3. Deflect tickets to AI agents and AI-powered knowledge bases

By the time your customers reach out to your support team, they are likely already frustrated—because they couldn't resolve the issue on their own. AI can help you enhance your knowledge base so your customers can effectively self-serve, boosting customer satisfaction and reducing tickets from your agents' queues. For example, generative AI tools can help you create articles from just a few bullets and refine your tone.

Once you’ve built a knowledge base, AI agents can direct customers to helpful articles or pull information from that content directly into the chat. This unlocks immediate support for shoppers and gives agents time back to focus on more important tasks and build deeper connections with customers.

To see this in action, look at UK-based fashion retailer Motel Rocks. The brand used Zendesk AI agents to help customers find answers on their own—leading to a 206 per cent increase in its self-service rate and a 9.44% increase in CSAT.

4. Integrate with your key business systems

Next, to make the most of artificial intelligence, you’ll want to integrate it with your key business systems. AI agents can draw information from your CRM, order management system, and other internal databases to expertly assist customers. For example, AI agents could access customer purchase history to suggest upsell and cross-sell opportunities. This creates a fully automated business ecosystem, which helps you use AI effectively.

5. Strive for continuous improvement

Finally, consistently measure your progress once you’ve implemented AI into your processes. Revisit your e-commerce metrics periodically to see if you’re making progress or if there’s room for improvement.

You can also use AI-powered quality assurance to do the heavy lifting. QA tools can harness AI to review 100% of customer support interactions, giving you insight into how your human agents are using AI so you can make your AI-driven tactics more effective. QA can also identify inefficiencies and suggest what to automate next, helping you scale and unlock more from AI.

Frequently asked questions

Revolutionise your e-commerce CX with Zendesk AI

AI can help your e-commerce business elevate your customer experience and drive revenue. With it, you can deliver 24/7 customer service, offer greater personalisation, and even automate day-to-day tasks like ticket organising and issuing refunds. However, not all artificial intelligence is created equal. Consider a partner built on 18 billion real customer service interactions like Zendesk. With us, you can expertly anticipate customer needs, optimise your operations, and empower your support agents to deliver an exceptional CX.

Learn more about our retail capabilities to see how we can upgrade your CX.