Luxury and AI: Are superhuman customer advisors on the horizon?

With the emergence of chatbot applications driven by artificial intelligence such as ChatGPT or Gemini, web browsing and search habits have evolved considerably. The effectiveness of these tools and the new behaviours they induce have influenced purchases and raised the expectations of luxury brand consumers to a higher level of demand in terms of customer experience. This was a major development to which brands are adapting by redefining the standards of excellence in their customer service.

Yet, only few high-end fashion marketplaces or luxury brand e-shops have deployed a customer service that fully satisfied their buyers. This was one of the first conclusions drawn from a new Boston Consulting Group (BCG) study on Customer Experience and AI in Luxury. According to this document, 56 percent of respondents stated they were not satisfied with their luxury shopping experience.

Luxury customers interviewed in the survey expressed their frustration at having to enter their personal data several times and stated they did not feel recognised or valued when customer advisors had no knowledge of their preferences. They also indicated impersonal and inconsistent follow-up and engagement from advisors after purchase.

Today, most customers (64 percent) still made their purchases in-store, but the share of online purchases increased: 38 percent of customers stated that they shopped more online for luxury goods than three to five years ago. In addition, the study pointed out that even when the final purchase took place in-store, luxury customers spent time researching and planning from their screens.

According to BCG experts, brands had no choice but to implement AI within their teams to design new operating models that would give customer advisors new capabilities. "Customer advisors become "superhuman" thanks to instant access to customer information, proactive suggestions and the ability to write personalised communications," the study stated.

The full implementation of AI as a full member of the team would thus make it possible to offer exceptional customer service on a large scale. However, the dose of artificial intelligence used would always have to be used with a great deal of common sense so that the aura of luxury was maintained and the service did not fall into robotisation.

Finally, with extensive personalisation resulting from the collection and processing of vast quantities of customer data, brands would have to ensure they did not lose consumer trust through the use of data deemed too intrusive.