How to Win Back the Wary Consumer

What's happened is over the last five years in particular, customer shopping patterns have changed markedly. This is Corey Berry, CEO of Best Buy. She recently spoke with Accenture CEO Julie Sweet as part of the Reinvented with Accenture series. The shopping patterns Corey is talking about have a lot to do with the fact that online shopping is the new norm.

These days, customers spend less time perusing store shelves and more time internet shopping from the couch, where they're swamped with ads, reviews, and sometimes conflicting recommendations. And as a result... They find that retail isn't the inspiring experience it used to be. It feels a little more transactional.

It's not just Best Buy shoppers. Inundated with options, many consumers are less confident in the purchases they make. Plus, new products and services are always hitting the market because tech is constantly evolving. So it's no wonder that people are fatigued, overwhelmed, and uninspired by the whole shopping experience.

And that's certainly not how Corey and her team want their customers to feel, whether they're shopping in-store or online. Instead, they want the process to be less exhausting and more personal and human. The shopping experience should be seamless, even joyful. When you know explicitly how you want a customer to feel, I do think you re-engineer completely how you think about going to market.

For Best Buy, that re-engineering would mean taking a closer look at their approach to consumer experience and then weaving in a new technology, generative AI. They'd have to think in entirely new ways about how to combine AI with the human touch that their customers want, even when they're browsing online. Cori and her team started by asking, how can we help our employees help our customers so that they can genuinely look forward to shopping again? It would take a lot of training and a complete overhaul of processes they'd had in place for ages.

But for Cori, that's a necessary part of growth and change for companies whose customers are changing too. Don't be so in love with the company you were to be afraid to become the company you need to be. And that should, for us, always be in service of where the customer is going. The world around us is not static, and therefore, neither are we as leaders.

I'm Elise Hu. And I'm Josh Klein. And this is Built for Change, a podcast from Accenture. Okay, Josh, I like stuff.

I like getting things, but I don't actually enjoy shopping. Right? The whole process, just I'm constantly inundated with so many ads and then too many choices. Yes, that's it.

How do you feel about shopping these days? Well, for one, I have never enjoyed shopping. And now the fact that we now have more information is worse. I've got two modes.

I've got create a massive spreadsheet and gather data for hours and hours and do analytics to determine to make sure I'm getting just the right thing or ignore it and hope that I can get away with not having a toothbrush the rest of the week. Yeah, I often just like find an item that like other people are using or I see it out in the wild. And then I go specifically for that item because I don't want to peruse any sort of online marketplace. It's better not to know.

Like there's just so much information and it's so hard to trust. The truth is this feels like a nearly universal experience among us consumers. I mean, we're frustrated, especially with brands, for not giving us the information that we need and can trust to make decisions as we shop. And so we end up getting information that's not as good.

But it sounds like the good news is there is all kinds of new technology out there, right? Like generative AI, which can help businesses hone their customer experience and empower consumers to make purchases that we feel good about. Here's hoping. And that's the trend that we're learning about today, right?

Why consumers are losing trust in brands. And more importantly, how brands can step up to innovate with a combination of technology and empathy. The power of digital, the power of online, it's been extraordinary in all of our lives. We get faster access to information.

We get faster access to products. As consumers it never been easier to have so many choices to compare This is Beiju Shah Global Chief Strategy Officer at Accenture Song He says that while online shopping has a lot to offer consumers as far as convenience and options sometimes it a double-edged sword. So on the one hand, we're overwhelming the choices. And then in addition, there's increasing distrust.

The distrust in reviews, skepticism in the authenticity of products and services. And it's for good reason. There's plenty of false claims and scams on the many online marketplaces out there. Recently, Beju went through one that many shoppers can probably relate to.

My son just bought a pair of sneakers. Very exciting, except they're fake. And we learned they're fake because we also have a level of distrust like everyone else. Beju and his son looked closely at the sneakers, examining the seams, the tread, the laces, just trying to make sure that they were real.

As we start going down the checklist of whether this was authentic or not, what was supposed to be an exciting unboxing moment quickly turned to disappointment. And then that disappointment turns into exhaustion. Exhaustion, trying to just resolve the issue, get your money back, dealing with the marketplace, dealing with the seller. There is skepticism.

and for better or worse, the skepticism is well-founded. Understandably, many people are skeptical because they're trying to avoid situations like the one that Bijou and his son found themselves in. And while most vendors aren't actively trying to deceive people or sell them fake products, there is an increase in distrust among consumers. And as a result, we're hesitating at the checkout.

Accenture's 2025 Life Trends report has a name for this, the cost of hesitations. It's a very real behavior and it resonates with everyone I speak with. The entire idea is that because of overload of information, because of increasing distrust, consumers are walking away from purchases because they felt unsure about the decision they're about to make. So that hesitation is bad for the consumer, but it's also very bad for business.

It's a crisis of confidence among consumers that Beju says will actually turn into a crisis of relevance for retailers, especially if they can't earn back people's trust. Companies need to take a step back and consider how they got here. Many companies have been focused on efficiency, not on experience. Focused on selling to us, not solving for us.

We all shop because, well, we need something. But rather than getting their needs met, a lot of people feel like they're just getting bombarded with ads. So how can companies help relieve some of that overwhelm among their customers? Well, Beiju says that there's a part of the process in between the advertisement and the point of purchase that many brands have let fall by the wayside.

So in between feeling and action is understanding. And it's at that level of understanding where we build trust. It's about helping you and me have the relevant assistance to make the right decisions and understand why. So that missing middle, it's a pervasive challenge across industries.

Brands need to help consumers understand their options and try to anticipate their needs. They also need to be more thoughtful about the content that they provide throughout the online shopping experience, especially knowing that people are busy and overwhelmed. And over time, as people have more positive interactions with brands, ones that feel personalized and empathetic, that trust will be restored. So how can companies cultivate experiences like that for shoppers?

Well, one way is with generative AI. We should really be thinking about Gen AI as a route to achieve what you've been trying to achieve as a brand for decades, which is increased intimacy, increased engagement, helping your customers use your products more effectively. And so Gen AI is a route to do that like we've never had before. Here's an example.

Imagine you're going through the process of redecorating your house. You're browsing online, completely overwhelmed by interior design choices, what color or finish of paint to use. These are really simple decisions that need to be made and collectively they're going to affect your experience in redecorating your home. So we're working with this online retailer to create a set of assistants.

Interactive AI assistants that can guide each shopper through their many design decisions letting them ask questions and get answers that they confident in rather than scrolling through forums and endless DIY guides trying to figure out which primer or paintbrush to buy. It's using the power of technology for a brand to become more human and help us solve, help us simplify some of these challenges in our lives. And while indecision about small purchases might not seem like the biggest challenge, the stress can add up quickly.

That's why trying to make a simple purchase can sometimes feel overwhelming. But with generative AI to help us make better decisions faster, the hope is that brands can help alleviate some of that stress. Now, Beiju acknowledges that plenty of brands might recognize the risks in incorporating Gen AI into the ways that they reach shoppers. Risks like alienating their employees or legal and intellectual property concerns.

But the biggest risk we're finding is the risk of inaction. Those brands that are using Gen.ai intentionally to become more human, we're seeing an increasing separation of them in terms of their growth trajectory versus those that aren't. And that growth trajectory is so steep that time is of the essence.

So we're telling everyone to get off the sidelines. Now is the time to act. It's not just about growth, but about discovery and innovation too. I get very excited about using Gen.

AI not just to make things go faster or to create more. I get excited about using Gen.AI to matter more. It is very much about seeing differently through the eyes of your consumers.

Solving, not just selling, and ruthlessly simplifying. That's the path to future relevance. If brands can do that, they'll empower their consumers. Think about an empowered consumer as one who's empowered to make the right decisions for themselves.

And that means in their context, they have the right tools and the right information and access to the right products at the right place at the right time. So that we can be empowered to make the right decisions and we feel confident about them. All right, Josh. So if you were a brand, what do you think you would take away from this crisis of confidence that Beiju described?

Well, what I heard a lot of was that there's more to people than just the stuff that they buy. You know, we're real people. We've got real problems. And one of the beauties of generative AI is that it can take all that information around an individual and kind of put it into one picture that someone who's trying to help that person make a purchasing decision can use to really speak to them as a person.

Exactly. Yes. And I think it can do a lot to fight the overwhelm. Right.

Right. And it's really compelling that a technology like artificial intelligence can improve the shopping experience for real humans on the other end. Yeah, absolutely. But it is also worth noting that it's not an easy road, right?

Sure. Like, it takes a lot of openness to make that adaptation, which, again, is one of those values that Corey said is at the core of Best Buy. So let's return to Corey now to hear more about how she and her team are empowering consumers. The story of how generative AI became a part of Best Buy's customer strategy began in a conference room during a board meeting.

And a board member, who was also in retail, asked us a really poignant question. The question was, how do you want customers to feel about your brand? And I didn't have the perfect answer in the moment, which drove me crazy. And so I spent time thinking, and our team spent all this time, you know, as they do, putting data together.

And I was in a store doing a store visit and I walked past a customer and I heard it. The customer was trying out a piece of home technology on the shelves and discovered a new feature that not only surprised them, but empowered them. The customer said, I didn't know I could do that. I didn't know my family could do that.

And that, at our crux, is how we want customers to feel. At that moment, the customer saw how a tech product could enrich their life and their family's life. Cori realized that she had watched one of her customers have a moment of discovery. And although it seemed like the type of experience that could only happen in-store, she wondered, how do we help all of our customers have moments like this, even if they're shopping online?

She and her team found the answer in generative AI. What's super cool about this is this idea of, I didn't know I could do that, resonates within Gen AI It true in the back office as much as it true in the products that we sell And so what we are doing is re whether that the in experience or whether that's the digital experience around real personalized discovery. Through Gen.ai, Corey's digital and technology team built out their app to make recommendations unique to each shopper, offering them ideas for how they can expand uses for the technology that they already use day to day.

On our app, we have a whole discovery tab. And all it is is ways in which we're trying to inspire our customers to think differently about how tech is evolving, how tech can help them. Another big part of their approach was to help their own teams think differently about how to help shoppers. We train 30,000 associates to be AI experts.

There is a complete unlock that frees people up to not feel like they need to know every single detail about the skew, but instead they want to know how do I ask questions that lead into what you're trying to accomplish. Take the call center experience, for example. Most people dread it. Navigating an automated menu, waiting on hold forever, explaining their problem to a robot who doesn't understand them, or to a human employee who doesn't have all the answers.

So Corey and her team re-evaluated the whole process with the goal of figuring out how to make every conversation feel smoother and more rewarding for people on both ends of the line. Then how do I use a combination of just good old-fashioned AI and generative AI to start to help the employee feel like they have more time to be empathetic, they have more time to be there when you need that real human touch, and at the same time the consumer feels like, no, quickly I am getting to the answer that I need, and I feel like they know me on the other side.

Here's how they did it. By using Gen.ai at the top of the call to get employees all the basic details about the customer and their purchase. And then after the call to summarize the conversation.

That way their employees can focus on what's actually important. The human connection with the customer and quickly getting to the answer that that customer needs. So they are explicitly focused on the customer on the phone with them. That they are just trying to help solve a problem.

And so their engagement has gone up markedly because they genuinely feel like now they're just there to help the human on the other side of the phone, not to try to sort through all the intricacies of the back office of Best Buy. And I do think that's something that's discounted in all of this. I believe strongly you can help your employees feel more confident when they have better tools at their disposal. And I do think it just allows them to be more human in the moment.

And it's that human connection that allows shoppers to feel understood and helps companies restore their trust. One of the things I always start with for our team is Gen.AI is not a strategy in and of itself. It is a tool to help us bring our strategy to life.

It actually is the most advanced technology that makes your products feel more human, makes the interactions feel more human than ever before. I love this notion of a moment of discovery because it relates to the idea of serendipity while shopping. You know, that you can discover something that you were totally not expecting and then likely purchase it. It happens to me in bookstores all the time.

Oh. And I feel like that's one of the reasons I still like to go to physical bookstores. But have you ever had a moment of discovery like that while shopping maybe online? That's a great example.

In terms of online, I actually had one happen the other day with an app. I downloaded an app to control some of the smart devices in my house. And while I was messing around with it, I found that I could actually turn off the Wi-Fi to my kids' phones from the app. And it was like, hallelujah.

That's my dream. I know, I know. Got all the power now. Right.

That's awesome. And I'm really excited to hear about more experiences like this as brands leverage gen AI. Yeah, there's so much coming our way. So to learn more about how to keep pace with changing consumer demands, check out Accenture's latest Life Trends report on the Accenture Foresight app.

Thank you to Accenture's Beiju Shah and to Corey Berry from Best Buy. To watch more of Corey's conversation with Accenture CEO Julie Sweet, head to Accenture.com. Built for Change is a podcast from Accenture.

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