Retailers look past apps to the next frontier of digital shopping
ARTIFICIAL intelligence is being touted as a tool for addressing some of humanity’s most pressing problems, including climate change and cancer.
But starting this week, you can put it to work for something a little more prosaic: Ordering a hoagie.
Last Tuesday, MasterCard announced it has partnered with Subway and two other major merchants to launch “chatbots,” which are robots that simulate human conversation. The Subway iteration allows you to order a custom sandwich for pickup, something of a digital version of walking down the chain’s sandwich assembly line. There’s another from Cheesecake Factory that allows shoppers to purchase and send out gift cards, and a third from online grocer FreshDirect in which customers can place orders for groceries and meal kits. The bots will be found within Facebook’s popular Messenger app, and will be powered by Masterpass, the credit card giant’s digital wallet.
These big-name brands join a growing group of retailers that are experimenting with how chatbot technology can be leveraged for digital shopping. The debut of the bots will provide a fresh test of shopper appetite for what the industry has dubbed “conversational commerce,” the idea of making a purchase or other customer service transaction through A.I.powered messaging.
FreshDirect said its foray into chatbots in part reflected the changing reality of how customers use their smartphones.
“We know that asking someone to download an app, it’s a hard thing to do now,” said Lisa Kolodny, FreshDirect’s vice president of brand marketing and communications.
Here’s what Kolodny means by that: Consumers are spending more time online, and yet they are concentrating those minutes in a very limited number of apps. Retailers – along with hotels, rental car services, and other businesses – are realising that the best way to snare your interest online might not be with a killer app of their own, but by creating bots that live in the apps that you already use.
Facebook has said that more than 33,000 bots have been created for its Messenger app so far. This latest batch demonstrates how differently businesses are approaching the technology at this early stage of the game.
Subway, for example, essentially tried to re- create its in- store experience on the small screen. In a demonstration of how the technology works, the bot asks what kind of cheese you prefer, how thick a coat of mayonnaise you want, and so on – all in a very chatty voice. ( When it wants you to indicate whether you want your sandwich toasted, it asks, “Wanna get toasty?”) “We talk a lot about communicating not as a brand, but as a friend, and really engaging with your consumer in a very personal way,” said Linda Kirkpatrick, Mastercard’s executive vice president of merchants and acceptance.
Meanwhile, Cheesecake Factory decided to use the bot for gift cards because it reflected what customers are often doing when they come to one of their nearly 200 restaurants.
“We are a place that a lot of people go for celebrations,” said Donald Evans, the restaurant’s chief marketing officer. — WPBloomberg