Customers are interesting creatures. They have high expectations for retailers, and they only want more. Studies say consumers are holding retailers to a higher standard than in past years. Consumers want a seamless and enhanced shopping experience, and they also want their items shipped quickly.
“With the popularity of Amazon, Pandora and Netflix, today’s consumer has the expectation that retailers will know them personally,” said Craig Alberino, president of Grey Jean Technologies. “When they walk into the store or browse online, they expect an experience tailored to their unique needs, desires and wants.”
Grey Jean Technologies marries artificial intelligence with customer and payment data to generate accurate predictions of consumer behavior that ultimately focus on driving sales figures. The New York City-headquartered company uses its proprietary AI-powered recommendation engine called Genie to quickly merge existing data sources with more than 500 consumer behavioral attributes to identify what patterns connect consumers with specific products. These consumer insights are used by marketers and executives to engender ways to enhance interaction with consumers and ultimately improve sales.
“The right recommendations serve as a valuable discovery mechanism that connects customers with the content and products they actually want,” said Alberino. “ECommerce personalization helps retailers meet their customer’s needs more effectively and efficiently, making interactions faster, easier and more satisfying — encouraging repeat purchases and creating loyal customers.”
Back in 2015, conversations about the business began to swirl between the two founders, Cosmas Wong and Alberino, as a way to apply their combined experiences of working with Big Data in the financial and retail sectors. Grey Jean launched in May 2016 at the Shoptalk Conference, where Genie was unveiled, along with the work the firm was doing with its first two clients: Hiro Sake, a handcrafted premium spirit company, and Namco Pool, one of the largest dealers of swimming pools.
“Predicting what shoppers will buy next has long been a dream for retail marketers, but very few have had the technology to pull off that vision,” said Alberino. “While many advancements have been made over the last 20-plus years, true one-to-one, real-time personalization is still a rarity in retail, due to its historical struggle with lack of data, followed by too much unorganized data.”
Alberino said that, through advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning, retailers have the ability to harness the power of their data to predict consumer purchase behavior and more effectively target those customers based on their unique preferences and behaviors. And, over time and through more data, Genie’s predictive algorithms inspire better recommendations, which, in turn, is an increased benefit to retailer clients that are looking for a slew of outcomes.
“Genie has demonstrated a 72 percent accuracy rate in predicting a next likely purchase at the category level. This accuracy enables our customers to improve personalization and micro-targeting but also take actions that will be the most effective with each consumer,” said Alberino. “This results in more conversions, higher redemption of coupons and promotions; increased visit frequency, foot traffic, time in store and basket size; and greater brand affinity.”
Alberino gave the example of one of its new clients that has already achieved some quick success. Pure Green, a New York City-based juice bar, had Grey Jean provide insights into its customer base as it sought to expand the number of its retail locations. First, there were three locations, but the hope is for 30 by the end of 2018.
“Leveraging Genie has allowed Pure Green to have a greater understanding of their consumers’ demographics, preferences and behaviors, helping them identify who their target audience really is and, subsequently, where they would have the most success with a new storefront,” said Alberino.
Ultimately, more time and more data only helps this type of technology. The company said that, each passing year, Genie’s algorithms get stronger and more refined. And it helps that more people are shopping digitally, where AI can easily live.
“We plan to stay ahead of the curve by continually integrating new attributes and data points that keep Genie the most accurate recommendation engine for predicting consumer purchase behavior,” said Alberino. “We also want to help shape retailers’ understanding of AI, which is currently used in many ways within the market.”
While some retailers currently use AI technologies — such as natural language processing — for sentiment analysis, Alberino said that this application alone will not give the full picture of what retailers are looking for in terms of consumer shopping behavior. While it may be helpful to know how a consumer feels about an ad or product, retailers also need to understand what drives purchasing.
“Focus on using artificial intelligence to drive actions, rather than just delivering insights,” said Alberino. “We actually help retailers take an action with their customer, rather than just presenting their data in new ways and leaving them wondering what to do with it.”
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