Scaling Personalization in Retail: Driving Customer-centric Strategies through AI and Innovation

With technology and innovation fueling retailers to meet and exceed their customers’ expectations, standing out in a competitive industry means driving customer-centric retail strategies to empower customers and create meaningful interactions.  

Leveraging AI, personalization, and innovation contributes greatly to creating customer-centric retail strategies—but it must not be forgotten that empathy and the human touch are essential in delivering enhanced customer experiences in retail. In the second part of our LinkedIn Live session on retail, Evan Gaines​, Vice President of Business Development – Retail; Himadri Sarkar​, Chief Solutions Officer for US Markets; and Blake Morgan​, Customer Experience Futurist and ​host of “The Modern Customer” podcast discuss how to drive customer-centric strategies in a highly competitive retail industry, how to leverage AI and personalization, the importance of the human connection, and the future of customer experience. 

Envisioning the Future of Retail: The Power of EI+AI at TP

In the evolving retail industry, training TP’s customer experts on emotional intelligence (EI) and soft skills is crucial in driving customer-centric strategies. “At TP, training and nesting was always about ensuring that the agent workforce understands the process and the knowledge workflows. But now, in order to drive more of EI and soft skills, there has to be a tonal analysis that needs to be done as a simulation during the training that helped us create something that we call an AI coach,” said Himadri. “What we also do is we use a combination of generating AI as well as sentiment analysis. We empower our customer experts with agent-assist solutions so that they truly focus on driving resolution satisfaction for the end customer as opposed to getting bothered about the mechanics of the call.” By doing so, TP’s customer experts can purely focus on the customer with the right level of emotional intelligence and soft skills. 

When asked about the future of customer experience in retail and how the advent of AI and personalization can potentially impact it, Blake highlighted the importance of the human connection: “As we think about the future of customer experience and the future of the contact center, those contacts that you get are going to be more nuanced, which means the agent will be more educated, more equipped to solve complicated problems for customers, to be an advisor, to really understand EI. AI is going to create a lot of operational efficiencies solving frequently asked questions, but for more nuanced conversations, customers want not less human interaction, but more. I think there's still, there's still a lot of opportunity to have that human touch, that human interaction.” 

At TP, AI doesn't replace human connection—it augments it. When implemented correctly, it has the power to enhance team productivity and drive customer-centric retail strategies while strengthening customer relationships and loyalty. We deliver outstanding retail experiences to all those we serve, powered by EI, enabled by AI.  

Learn more about AI and personalization in retail and join the insightful LinkedIn Live discussion featuring Evan, Himadri, and Blake! Click here to watch the full session.