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When visitors to luxury brand websites put a product in their shopping cart, the retailer wants to respond right away, with encouragement and support to help them make the purchase. These are not little household goods from Amazon or cleaning supplies from Walmart.com; these carts include a $900 Gucci bomber jackets for a toddler or a $3900 purse from Neiman Marcus. To move these high-end customers along their journey, retailers increasingly turn to the services offered by Powerfront and its data analytics tool, Inside.

The service not only gathers customer data, but it also presents them in a way that is easy for customer sales representatives to understand and act on. Through Inside, each customer on the focal retail site is represented by a small cartoon avatar that looks a little like a bowling pin. As this online shopper provides more information—whether by clicking on different color variations for a particular shirt, moving the cursor at different speeds, putting products in the shopping basket and then taking them out, or using words that signal their moods—Inside gathers the insights to add detail to its depiction. It also integrates information gathered from the customer’s previous visits to the site. Thus it might be able to identify one shopper as tempted and excited about buying a pair of shoes, but not quite ready to place the order, then recognize that another shopper seems to be having a rough day and is trying a little retail therapy to gain an improved mood.

Such information, presented using cartoon symbols and images (e.g., smiley face, emoji hearts, a shopping bag accessory if the cart has items in it, a ribbon if the customer has purchased a lot before), makes it easy for human service and sales employees to gauge the tone and tactics they should use, if the customer clicks on the “want help?” chat button.

Once the customer has initiated the chat, the representative seeks to provide the level of service that any luxury customer might expect, even in stores. Even if the interaction is not face-to-face, they can express empathy with the depressed shopper, tease the excited potential buyer about how great it would be to have the shoes, help an indecisive shopper decide among a few potential options, and inform a grandparent about precisely which pair of sneakers will be the coolest gift they can give their teenaged grandchild. All of these actions also aim to appear personalized to the person’s past preferences. Even if the representative has not actually interacted with the shopper before, it is possible to simulate such familiarity, because the vast amount of data, presented in an intuitive form, makes the necessary information readily accessible.

Notably, though the data analytics are powered by advanced, cutting-edge technology, the chat agents are all human, not bots. Powerfront’s clients include retailers such as Neiman Marcus, Gucci, and Sephora. Customers on these sites likely would reject a canned or automated response from a bot, as poorly aligned with the likelihood that they might spend thousands of dollars during the transaction. Thus far, bots still have not attained the level of development at which they can sense consumers’ emotions and respond in kind.

Discussion Questions:

1. What does Powerfront do?
2. What types of retailers benefit most from Powerfront’s services?
3. From a customer perspective, would buying from a retailer that uses Powerfront influence your purchasing behavior?
4. How do Powerfront’s services influence the buying process, as described in Chapter 4?