Retailers at the Conexxus conference in Tucson, Arizona, on Monday learned about three artificial intelligence (AI) use cases: call center assistance, personalized messaging and fuel forecasting and demand.
ChatGPT is the fastest-adopted technology in the world, Richard Taylor, senior manager of strategy and consulting for energy and mobility retail at Accenture, a consulting company based in Dublin, said during a session.
“It took, I think, less than 60 days to get over 100 million users,” he said. “So that's less time TikTok, Instagram, all the social media platforms—pretty alarming to think about.”
With artificial intelligence growing so quickly, how can convenience-store retailers leverage it for their business? Taylor gave three examples.
Call Center Assistance
Utilizing AI within the call center provides retailers with the ability to redistribute labor and learn from the data it collects.
Without AI, to understand areas of operation that need improvements, someone has to listen to a good portion of those calls to assess what they called about, if the customers problem is solved and if the agent followed their script, he said. That’s about 500 hours of labor per month. Large fuel and convenience leaders with 1,000 or more stores in the United States receive 3,000 to 4,000 customer calls monthly, Taylor said.
“Now, what we've done in this situation is we've taken the audio files, we've got that translated into scripts, and we ran that through the technology, and we've been able to process that within 15 minutes, and what we get on the other side is a large amount of data,” Taylor said.
AI can track call time and purpose and provide scores to agents based on if they followed their script and left the customer happy. The technology can also highlight aspects of the business customers are most frustrated with and recommend a plan to improve it.
It can also collect data on customer sentiment, such as if a caller is frustrated but polite or frustrated but upset.
“Think of the time that you save with this but also think of the rich data that we've been provided in order to take these insights and actually drive better results on our help desk,” said Taylor.
Personalizing Customer Experience
Unlocking new, personalized experiences for customers is another way to leverage AI.
AI cameras can detect information about who pulls into the fuel pump by analyzing visual details.
“We're able to leverage video and camera footage to understand a whole host of different information,” Taylor said. “Think about the customer profile. Do they have any children in the car? What's the mood of the person when they turn into site? How much do they normally spend based on the look and the feel of their car? What does the vehicle look like? Where are you located? What's the temperature and what's the time of day?”
And if that customer is a loyalty member, there's even more data work with.
“The technology then chooses that best offer for the person based off their data,” he said. “The outcome is the best offer at the right time, delivered in the best way. We are able to flash [an ad] up, either in the forecourt or on the pump screen to actually drive more revenue into the store and give our customers a more personalized experience."
Fuel Forecasting and Demand
Imagine bringing in macro data in addition to the micro data to get a better understanding of how much fuel to order, Taylor said.
Macro data can include any current geopolitical incidents, supply chain issues, sports events in the area and more.
“All of these different data points will allow us to really hone in and accurately predict [fuel] demand,” he said.
Taylor gave an example of how an AI system might monitor these data points and recommend a solution. The system in his example detected and alerted a retailer that it had lost 2% market share in southern Florida, amounting to a lost fuel margin of $18,000 and a lost convenience margin of $38,000. From there, it recommended how the retail could best manage the loss.
Members help make our journalism possible. Become a CSP member today and unlock exclusive benefits, including unlimited access to all of our content. Sign up here.