How can retail Contact Centres harness the AI opportunity?

This article is provided by BRC Associate Member, IP Integration.

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Today’s retail consumers don’t just want support – they want experiences that are fast, personalised, and friction-free. With retailers facing a host of macroeconomic pressures and rapidly shifting customer demands, delivering excellent service is no longer a differentiator, but an expectation. And the Contact Centre is under increasing pressure to deliver an improved customer experience (CX).

That’s where artificial intelligence (AI) comes into its own. With  60 percent of retailers ramping up AI investment, the technology is now an essential tool for enabling smarter, more effective customer experiences. Used correctly, it can drive greater consistency, anticipate customer needs, and uncover process improvements that benefit both the customer and the bottom line. For the retail Contact Centre, there are three main ways that AI can be utilised to drive smarter, more seamless customer experiences.

1. Blending AI with the human touch for more consistent CX

Consistency remains one of the greatest challenges – and opportunities – for retail Contact Centres. Customers don’t just want fast service; they want the same high-quality experience whether they’re interacting on social media, over the phone, via email or in-store.

This is where AI-enhanced tools like Agent Assist and Knowledge Management systems come into play. These technologies provide real-time guidance, next-best actions and contextual knowledge to agents during interactions. That means faster issue resolution, fewer errors and a more consistent experience – regardless of which agent a customer speaks to.

At the same time, AI-powered chatbots and voicebots can handle routine queries efficiently, freeing human agents to manage more complex, emotionally nuanced cases. The goal is not to replace the human touch, but to augment it, a growing trend in Contact Centres where AI supports and empowers agents to deliver consistent quality, reduce customer effort and improve agent satisfaction.

2. Anticipating customer needs by understanding the full journey

Modern retail is driven by data, and the Contact Centre is one of its richest sources. Every customer interaction offers insights into behaviour, sentiment, preferences, and pain points. But with thousands of calls, chats, and messages daily, identifying patterns and acting on them at scale is a challenge.
Enter AI-driven analytics. Speech and text analytics tools can scan vast volumes of customer conversations to detect recurring themes, emotional tone, product issues, or potential churn signals. This allows retailers to move from reactive service to proactive engagement.

For example, if analytics identify a surge in complaints about a product feature, retailers can flag the issue early, provide pre-emptive support messaging, and feed insights back into product development. Or if a specific customer regularly contacts support after an online order, AI can flag them as a priority and recommend outreach before the next expected issue arises.

Crucially, AI is helping brands understand not just the what, but the why of customer behaviour. It surfaces emotional context and friction points that would previously go unnoticed – allowing for more empathetic and informed outreach. In this way, AI is becoming central to predicting and meeting customer expectations before they escalate.

3. Unlocking process improvements through actionable insight

AI’s value extends far beyond customer-facing interactions. Behind the scenes, it enables managers to surface inefficiencies, highlight training needs and streamline operations in real time.

AI-powered dashboards can now track queue volumes, sentiment shifts, and first-contact resolution metrics – flagging potential problems before they snowball. If a particular issue spikes inbound volume, managers can quickly adjust resources or train bots to handle it automatically.

AI also automates labor-intensive tasks like post-call summaries and quality assurance reporting. This frees supervisors from manual processes and allows for faster feedback loops, boosting compliance and agent performance.

This shift in visibility is also transforming how CX is perceived internally. Enriched insights generated by AI are feeding into boardroom discussions – helping leaders understand where customer pain points originate, which suppliers or internal systems are contributing to cost, and how to align investments accordingly. AI now enables retailers to employ technology strategically, not just deploy it.

AI for better customer and agent experiences

Ultimately, AI in the retail Contact Centre is about more than efficiency. It’s about delivering the seamless, personalised, and proactive service today’s consumers demand – and empowering agents to deliver it at scale.

It also improves life for Contact Centre teams. By automating repetitive tasks and simplifying workflows, AI reduces agent burnout and enables staff to focus on meaningful, high-impact work. As retailers face increased cost pressures and rising customer expectations, maximising the value of each employee is essential — and AI provides the tools to do just that.

The Contact Centre has never been more important to the retail customer journey. AI is now no longer a future investment - it’s a present-day necessity. Whether improving consistency, anticipating needs, or driving operational change, AI has the potential to transform the way retailers engage with their customers.

Retailers now have the opportunity to reposition the Contact Centre – not as a cost centre, but as a source of strategic insight and commercial value. The brands that succeed will be those that embrace AI as an ally: amplifying human service, enhancing CX intelligence and unlocking opportunities across the business.