DTC, Trust and AI
I helped run ecommerce strategy and operations for two brands selling $1B+ DTC/ year.
We were never going to "out-Amazon Amazon." Their flywheel is unassailable in terms of price, selection, convenience. Maybe some small wins in the margins, like a unique SKU or a 'help me choose' journey. But that's it.
That leaves "trust" as a unique value proposition for DTC channels.
If you are Nike or Hoka or Brooks, help me find the best shoe for me, and earn my trust throughout the buying cycle, from discovery, selection, order, omnichannel fulfillment, post-purchase support and (maybe) returns.
If you are Microsoft or Apple, do the same as I learn about and buy a laptop.
If you are Patagonia or The North Face, do the same as I shop for outdoor gear.
Use cases like this are where agentic AI for customer support chat should shine. The LLMs and generative AI capabilities exist today.
But as a consumer, I seem to always end up feeling like DTC brands are "using AI on me" vs using AI to help me.
Why is this?
Perhaps ecommerce product managers are trying to impress their management chains more than they're trying to help customers?
Here's an example from this morning. And The North Face has been at this nine years with Watson AI.
When TNF site asks "Hey, I’m The North Face Virtual Assistant. What may I help you with?" and the result is an undelivered promise and a waste of my time, I don't want to trust the brand with my time, money or loyalty. I'm picking on TNF here but this kind of experience has been the norm for me.
My advice to these DTC brands is to evaluate any AI-enabled feature the same way you would (should?) any other part of the customer experience:
When you use it yourself, do you genuinely like it?
What do customer signals tell you? Funnel metrics, NetPromoter, retail staff, etc.
I wonder if any DTC company is getting this right.
