Teknosa, a consumer electronics retailer in Turkiye, is sending out to its customers, based on their location. Launched in November, the service enables the retailer to send a personalised invite via its app or SMS to customers if they are near a store.
“If you’ve given location permission within our app we can recognise you’ve entered a shopping mall, and we can send you an invite to our store,” Ayse Demirhan, CRM & market research, senior manager, Teknosa, told Customer Experience Magazine.
Or it can “propose a complimentary product, or [another purchase] that goes well with your purchase”, she added.
Experimenting with AI since 2020
Location-based offers are the latest step in a rolling campaign of AI-powered CX innovations from the retailer. Starting in 2020, Teknosa began integrating artificial intelligence across its supply chain — from the point of sale through to its backend supplychain systems.
“AI analyses data from the point of sale, the inventory application, and from market trends to generate accurate sales forecasts and ensure optimal stock levels,” Duygu Bayram customer experience, CRM & data analytics, group manager, Teknosa, told Customer Experience Magazine.
With AI fused across sales product lifecycle and store capacity information, it enables “Teknosa to predict customer demand and adjust inventory levels accordingly”, she added.
With the backend infrastructure in place, the retailer started rolling out personalised services last year. Over time, Teknosa has painstakingly built a single view of its customers that combines online and offline purchase history, and data on engagement with its customer service channels.
An app developed in-house using Python, blends this with unstructured data to create personalised offers.
“Our journey began with stock optimisation [using] AI, but last year we added AI-powered personalisation. This delivers real time, personalised offers to customers based on their behaviour and preferences,” explained Bayram.
“The system pulls data from various sources, including the CRM, ERP and e-commerce and customer service systems. By integrating data from diverse sources it ensures that customers receive relevant and timely offers,” she added.
More sales and better NPS
Personalisation is already improving the bottom line for the omnichannel retailer. For example, the sales of recommended substitute products has jumped 40% in the last year.
AI pulls together data on product features, analyses what products are typically brought together and then pulls in customer data. “All [systems] work together. Then we propose alternative products that you have more probability of buying,” explained Bayram.
Overall average order value has risen 22% and sales conversions are up by a fifth since the retailer started sending out personalised offers. Its net promoter score has improved by 30 points in the last four years.
“The implementation of personalised services has delivered remarkable results,” said Bayram. “Teknosa has had a significant increase in customer engagement and loyalty. NPS has improved from 47 to 77 in four years,” she added.
AI creates content for the site
AI has reached into other areas of Teknosa’s operation. Increasingly, the retailer leverages artificial intelligence to create content for its website. Previously, it maintained a large team to create and edit content. Even then it struggled to keep up with constantly changing product information.
Teknosa now uses AI to automate a lot of content updates. The content is fact checked by “human moderators who verify its accuracy and quality before it’s pushed to consumers”, said Bayram.
Artificial intelligence has also played a major role improving its support channels in the last two years.
“Our chatbot is designed to provide instant assistance and support to customers for a wide range of tasks, including logging into accounts, tracking orders and resolving common issues,” commented Bayram.
Increasingly the generative AI chatbot is being used to answer “technology-related questions,” she added.
In the last 18 months, Teknosa introduced speech analytics to its call centre operation. Speech analytics evaluates over 55,000 calls a month, which has led to dramatic improvement in its call listening rate from 5% to 99%. “This enables us to identify areas for improvement and enhance the overall customer experience in the call centre,” said Bayram.
Teknosa’s AI focus won the company numerous accolades, as well as streamlined the business. The judges anointed the retailer the Overall Winner at the 2023 International Customer Experience Awards. Teknosa has also picked several awards at the Turkiye Customer Experience Awards.
Over the last three years Teknosa has picked up 30 CXs.