DigitalTransformationTalk: Trust at scale - building loyalty in an AI-driven market

Growing online traffic ‌from AI platforms has pushed retailers to update their websites so their products rank highly in chatbot searches. Yet many want purchases to remain on their own websites, where they can collect data on browsing habits, basket sizes and past purchases that help drive future sales and customer loyalty. Executives argue that retailers retain an edge because they know far ​more about customer preferences than general-purpose AI tools do. For now, while ChatGPT and Gemini are emerging as important ways to market products, consumers still appear more comfortable completing purchases on retailers’ own websites. 

 

Traditionally, repeat purchases were the ultimate proof of customer loyalty. But in today’s shifting environment, the point of service has become strategic as this is where brands can show they really value their customers. To make the most of this opportunity, customer data should be shared across the whole organisation rather than leveraged only by the marketing function. It’s also key to meaningful personalisation that recommendation engines only show products to loyal customers that are available in their size or preferred colour.  

 

Loyalty has more than one aspects. There is the kind that can be detected through customer behaviour but there is an attitudinal aspect to it too, including brand love and referrals of products face-to-face or on social media. Naturally, attitudinal loyalty is harder to measure and requires specific metrics. That said, AI is just a tool that accelerates processes and its use in itself won’t level brand offerings. Competitive advantage can be gained from how well a brand uses this tool. But if brands build personalisation on data that they aren’t supposed to have, the effort becomes counterproductive and may lead to losing customers. Therefore, it’s key that brands remain transparent about the use of AI and the data they leverage to make recommendations. To establish an emotional connection with a customer, first the brand must understand why its customers are drawn to it – whether it’s its ethos, reliability or delivery. While AI-driven loyalty is gaining ground, incentivised loyalty and transactional relationships with brands are here to stay too.