How Narvar is using AI and data to improve the customer experience after purchase

What happens when a customer clicks the “buy” button on an ecommerce site?

It’s the area known as the aftermarket, and it’s often one of the cheapest and most efficient parts for retailers. Post-purchase services include consideration of delivery, customer retention and, if necessary, returns. Among the pioneers in space are Narvar which counts more than 1,500 retailers worldwide, including major brands like Gap, Levis and Sonos among its customers. Across its customer experience centers, Narvar collects data from more than 42 billion consumer transactions.

Narvar today is expanding the scope of its services and innovations An AI powered platform it calls it IRIS (Intelligent Retail Insights Service). IRIS integrates data, AI and analytics into a highly optimized platform. It aims to help retailers combat fraud, optimize delivery promises, improve returns and create a better customer experience. Among the first services that IRIS enables is the AI-powered Narvar Assist, which is designed to automate inventory management and help reduce high-profile fraud.

The first results from a group of 20 sellers show a significant improvement: an 80% reduction in questions related to fraud and a 25% decrease in satisfaction, or compensation sellers provide related to shipping.

“We are not just solving problems; We are turning what used to be a cost-effective solution for retailers,” Anisa Kumar, CEO of Narvar, told VentureBeat in an exclusive interview.

Why AI in the post-purchase process is critical to success

Kumar joined Narvar in 2021 as chief customer officer and became CEO in October 2024. Prior to that, he had a long history working in customer service at Levis Strauss and Co., Walmart and Target where he saw the challenges of retailers. .

Marketers of all kinds often spend a lot of time and effort thinking about what to buy from consumers. Kumar said the biggest challenge, however, is customer retention.

“Post-purchase is thinking about what’s in the next frontier to keep consumers coming back, and treating them the way they deserve to be treated, giving them their own experience,” he said.

With all the information Narvar collects, AI is now able to help retailers turn their post-purchase experience into a service that helps retain customers. Applying AI to marketing has been challenging; for example, a 2024 report from Forrester found high interest, but low adoption rates.

As a SaaS offering, Narvar makes it easy for marketers to reap the benefits of AI. Kumar explained that the IRIS platform will help create a personalized post-purchase experience for retailers and their end consumers.

How Narvar is using AI to improve policy

The IRIS system uses a combination of AI and data services from Google Cloudand collaborative machine learning (ML) and predictive AI algorithms.

Ram Ravicharan, Narvar’s CTO, emphasized the power and importance of data that the company needs to inform AI to help retailers. Narvar uses billions of consumer insights, giving them unique insights into customer behavior and goals.

Narvar’s IRIS does not use generative AI, although it uses methods that have introduced large-scale linguistics (LLMs), including transformer.

“If you think of the experiences that people have during the shopping journey as a language, we now have a language that the next sentence will be,” Ravicharan explained. “And this is how we see it.”

With predictive models of AI and data, Narvar better understands what customers want. This can be very helpful in customer retention and fraud prevention.

Beyond reducing fraud, IRIS is also designed to help retailers make accurate delivery promises and increase customer loyalty. Before IRIS, Narvar used to rely on rule-based models, especially for activities such as estimated delivery date. With these new models, there is more intelligence from the entire supply chain to provide greater accuracy, Kumar said. For example, the system is aware of weather conditions and carrier delivery methods that may affect delivery.

“Everyone focuses on getting customers, but they lose them and pay to get them back,” Kumar said. “IRIS helps retailers build lasting relationships by delivering experiences that matter most – after the sale.”

Early adopters see the benefits

Narvar Assist technology is not yet available, although it is being tested with existing customers.

Some of them are Boston Proper. The clothing retailer has been a Narvar customer for 6 years, explained DeAnne Judd, Narvar CIO. To date, Boston Proper has used Narvar’s Engage solution to quickly notify shoppers about the delivery of their orders and other actions to improve customer visibility. The company also uses Narvar’s Return and Exchange solution to streamline returns and provide consumers with visibility into their returns.

Judd said that, right now, Boston Proper is using the first IRIS system, Assist, which helps the Narvar environment to reduce costs due to fraud.

“Since integrating Narvar Assist, customer interactions and costs have decreased due to its user interface and smart management systems,” said Judd.

Online and offline marketing

Hopefully, Narvar wants to expand IRIS in a number of ways.

While Assist’s initial product focus is on online transactions, Kumar said Narvar is working with a few vendors to further expand the store’s capabilities. Narvar’s platform includes information and communication on the Internet, in retail and even in warehouse services.

“Our idea is to establish an online and in-store presence and the way we’ve designed our model is how we can have a cross-channel approach,” he said.