Building Trust: 3 Top Tips for Better AI-Driven Ecommerce Experiences

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Whether they know it or not, marketers are at a crossroads in determining how far they can leverage new technologies to enhance their brand. As we saw in Merkle's 2022 Customer Experience Report, 47% of consumers believe online personalization is invasive, up from 44% in 2021. This means consumers don't necessarily feel more empowered. comfortable with technology the longer it exists in our daily lives. , which is especially true with AI-powered services.

AI has become a powerful tool for commerce experiences such as chatbots, product recommendations, voice search, and other forms of personalization. But many consumers don't believe that AI services use and store their data responsibly, often leading to distrust of AI tools intended to improve user experience.

The most common barriers to gaining trust with a brand's AI-powered experiences include:

A lack of transparency on how consumer data was used to provide recommendations Failing to set appropriate expectations about the limits of technology Not allowing users to personalize their AI experiences along the way

To overcome these hurdles for your AI-enabled services, here are the top three ways to build trust with consumers:

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As stated above, it can seem scary to consumers if an AI-based service recommends products on an e-commerce site without any explanation. If the rationale for a particular AI prediction is unknown or overly complicated, it creates a barrier to building trust. Instead, focus only on explaining aspects that impact the user and their decision-making.

This can usually be done by:

Articulate the data source — tell the website user exactly how you got their data. For example, if the user has previously created an account on the e-commerce website, you have the email and preferences they shared during registration. Link the explanation to the user's previous behavior — Once the user knows how you can collect and store their information, tell them what behaviors led to the AI-based recommendation(s), such as purchases previous or registered products. Accounting for situational stakes - Set expectations for the accuracy or inaccuracy of a prediction. For example, if your e-commerce website predicts when an item will arrive at the customer's doorstep, you can share the variables that might change the outcome.

In the next section, we'll talk more about how to set expectations for website users.

2. Provide onboarding experience to users

If users don't understand how AI-powered services can improve their experience, they often don't understand the limitations of the AI ​​they interact with. An onboarding experience is a way to break down how your brand's AI provides support to users and what barriers it can help the user overcome. This way, the user doesn't expect anything more than the AI ​​is capable of. An onboarding experience may include a pop-up welcome window...