Leading Automotive Manufacturer
A New Shopping Experience Fueled by AI
What if... we could transform the end-user shopping experience with artificial intelligence?
Our client is one of the largest automotive companies and a leading automobile manufacturer.
A Website in Need of a Turbocharge
Our client wanted to overhaul its website and take the B2C customer experience to the next level by incorporating an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot to make its website more user friendly with the ultimate goal of driving consumers to the dealer showroom. However, while the company knew it wanted to innovate with AI, there was no clear path to navigate the journey.
Our client asked us to establish a clear roadmap that identified realistic use cases, helped navigate the complex landscape of AI vendors and capabilities, and ultimately design and build this new experience.
We helped the company achieve its goals through AI platform selection, methodologies to define capabilities, and implementation and testing of the new B2C shopping experience.
Shifting to a Better Shopping Experience
We employed our CX AI methodology to determine where AI could fit into the existing website to address pain points and achieve the desired future state. Next, we used our proprietary platform selection tool to find the vendor that could deliver the desired AI capabilities.
We recommended Google DialogFlow as the conversational AI technology and cloud platform for the chatbot. We leveraged our findings to build use cases for each of the identified capabilities and rank each based on complexity and priority.
Putting Customers in the Driver’s Seat
Next, we determined the specific requirements and capabilities the chatbot needed to have, such as:
- What's your biggest model?
- What's your most fuel-efficient model?
- What's your fastest model?
- What's your most powerful model?
- Which model has the most trunk space?
- Which model has the most seating capacity?
- Which model has the best electric range?
- What's your most popular model?
Once the AI capabilities and platform were selected, we needed to create a high-level look and feel of the AI chatbot and integrate it throughout the site. Our client wanted to make the customer experience conversational, engaging, and above all, meaningful. To accomplish this, we combined text with imagery and included different calls-to-action and options to help buyers make informed decisions and create an engaging experience.
We also conducted usability testing to ensure the design was responsive and functional. For example, if a customer asks about a particular product, a product image appears with content that provides product details. We then embedded the AI chatbot across the entire website, which made the content consistent, available, and accurate, helping users make a more-informed decision on their buying journey.
Parallel to that, we began configuring and integrating the chatbot into the back end of our client’s technology stack and leveraged application performance interfaces (APIs) to automate the curation of information about the our client's lineup and features. We engaged in multiple discussions in two-week sprints regarding how the capabilities would work in detail, followed by iterations of these requirements in a separate development environment. Once tested and approved, they were merged into our client’s main development environment, tested, and deployed.
We infused AI and cognitive capabilities throughout our client's website for an improved, engaging, and intuitive online customer experience.
Results
Riding in the Fast Lane With AI
By infusing AI and cognitive capabilities throughout its website, our client can provide its customers an easy, engaging, and intuitive online automobile purchasing experience.
Our client chose Perficient as its partner in this important initiative due to our ability to provide end-to-end delivery, from software vendor selection and roadmap creation through ongoing managed support.