London – February 9, 2024 – A limitless shopping experience opens the door to unlimited opportunities. That's Lore, a virtual digital assistant created by leading retail innovation provider NTT DATA for L'Oréal, which revolutionises e-commerce and social commerce. The digital assistant has been designed to disrupt customer service through AI bot functionality.
Bots are usually programmed to provide only limited answers, reducing accuracy as queries become more complex. With this in mind, L'Oréal decided to take its consumer interactions to the next level and co-created this virtual assistant with NTT DATA, allowing hyper-personalised communication with each customer based on natural language, just like a human being.
At the core of the solution is eva, the conversational AI platform developed by NTT DATA to create and manage virtual assistants with generative AI. eva also integrates the power of the latest Open AI innovations to deliver a solution that can understand written and spoken conversations with remarkable fluency.
"The development process of this solution was challenging and, simultaneously, very rich in learning. We trained the virtual beauty consultant for months to ensure that it would achieve its goal to provide consistent and responsive answers, even in the most complex situations," says Santiago Santa María, Director of Conversational AI at NTT DATA.
Lore makes recommendations to customers and advises on beauty products based on their needs, redirecting them to the brand's online store, or even letting consumers shop within the same application. "From the Lore development, we know that we can offer a hyper-personalised customer experience that allows us to train it on new products and enhance its knowledge and sensitivity to interacting with humans. This is only the tip of the iceberg on how artificial intelligence can empower users and improve people's lives," says Santa María.
Arturo Pérez-Wong, General Manager of CPD CERAN at L'Oréal Chile, stated: "With this new technology, we will better understand our consumers and provide them with superior service, since Lore can hold a fluid conversation just like a person and can advise them on the best products, reducing the margin of error." Perez-Wong added, "this is the starting point for a solution that will evolve."
Francisca Unda, Key Account Manager at L'Oréal, commented that Lore "was the opportunity to better connect with our customers, making them feel truly supported and humanising the service, with empathy and containment."
Virginia Duran, Senior Manager Technology & Innovation, NTT DATA UK&I said: “Lore is disrupting the norm in customer experience, shifting the idea of what retail customer service should look like and improving L’Oréal’s customer interactions. With the help of our conversational AI platform, eva, L’Oréal has become a pioneer in e-commerce and social commerce, kickstarting a truly limitless shopping experience for its customers and providing a glance at how AI can truly empower consumers.”
The enterprise solution enables businesses to quickly create virtual agents to efficiently manage thousands of users in multiple languages and different business areas. It can also be deployed across various digital channels such as WhatsApp, Instagram, call centres, Web, mobile, chatbots, and many other devices. In other words, customer experience and social commerce are taken to the next level.
