Podcast

CX Education 18: AI and the future of customer experience with Tara Conway, Women in Retail Leadership Circle

Join Tara Conway and Heather Garand as they chat about the evolving retail landscape and the role of AI in shaping customer experience.

AI and the future of customer experience with Tara Conway, Women in Retail Leadership Circle
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About this episode

In this episode of CX Education, host Heather Garand sits down with Tara Conway, a seasoned retail professional from Women in Retail Leadership Circle. Tara shares her rich journey in retail, starting from a family business to leading omnichannel transformations. She provides valuable insights into the evolving retail landscape and the role of AI in shaping customer experiences.

The conversation explores the potential impact of AI on retail, with Tara highlighting both the opportunities and challenges it presents. She emphasizes the need for retailers to be patient and methodical in leveraging AI, warning against the rush to adopt new technologies without a clear strategy.

The episode wraps up with a discussion on the future of retail and customer experience. Tara shares her personal experiences with AI personal assistants and how they could be improved. She also offers her predictions for the next big customer experience trends, making this episode a must-listen for anyone interested in the intersection of AI and retail.

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Guest Speaker

Tara Conway, Member Women in Retail Leadership | Circle

Experienced Retail executive with a passion for innovation, simplifying the complexity of technology, and determined to find the balance between instore and online to bring out the best experience for the customer.

For over 20 years, Tara has been focused on pushing the boundaries of eCommerce in Canada, leveraging innovation to build an unparalleled Omni-channel customer experience and retail transformation. Her commitment to bridging the gap between physical and digital retail has delivered success within many Retailers and she continues to challenge herself and her peers to push beyond the expectations to find the next version of retail shopping.

Image for Heather Garand, Sales Director E&M | Sinch

Host

Heather Garand, Sales Director E&M | Sinch

Heather Garand, is a marketing storyteller with over 15 years’ experience helping lead omni-channel growth for a number of Canada’s largest brands today. Currently Heather is the Sales Director Canada for Sinch. Sinch is a leading player in the Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) space and one of the fastest growing cloud players. Heather helps companies understand and integrate the power of CPaaS solutions for companies to have the best-in-class Customer Experience.

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Key insights

Tara discusses the role of AI in shaping customer experiences, highlighting both its potential and pitfalls. She warns against the rush to adopt AI without a clear strategy, emphasizing the need for retailers to be patient and methodical. Tara believes that while AI has the potential to revolutionize customer experience, it could also lead to disappointment if implemented hastily. She predicts that retailers who are patient and committed to leveraging AI will reap the benefits in the long run.

Tara shares her experience with Emma, the Toys “R” Us chatbot that had to be retired because of the challenges in managing the data behind it. She emphasizes that the key to improving customer experience lies not in front-end tools but in the engineering and management of backend data. Tara stresses the importance of having a strong foundation of data, understanding insights, and a continuous process of testing and learning.

Tara predicts that personal assistants will start to take off in retail, especially with the influx of shopping data expected in the Q4 2023. She believes that this data, once refined and cleaned, will lead to significant enhancements in personal assistants by the first and second quarters of 2024. Tara sees the potential of AI to have an incredible impact on customer experience, making shopping quicker and easier.

Episode highlights

From family business to omnichannel transformation

Tara shares her journey in retail, starting from a family business to leading omnichannel transformations at major Canadian brands. She talks about her experiences at Toys “R” Us and The Source, and how they shaped her understanding of retail and customer experience.

Strategy is key when it comes to AI

Tara discusses the role of AI in shaping customer experiences, highlighting both its potential and pitfalls. She warns against the rush to adopt AI without a clear strategy, emphasizing the need for retailers to be patient and methodical.

Predicting the next big customer experience trend

Tara offers her predictions for the next big customer experience trends, particularly in the context of the holiday season. She believes that personal assistants will start to take off in retail, especially with the influx of shopping data expected in Q4 2023.
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