Consumer trust has slipped to a record low with 81% of Canadian consumers trusting companies less than they did a year ago, according to Salesforce.
With Salesforce predicting $19.78 billion in sales for November and December in Canada (+2% year-over-year), retailers need to understand the Canadian shopping mindset to deepen loyalty and drive more sales.
AI has the potential to bridge this trust gap. In fact, 66% of Canadian consumers believe that advances in AI make trust even more important. There’s an opportunity for brands to win consumers back.
A new Salesforce report says over half of all generations are comfortable with AI agents creating more personalized shopping for them and 25% of Canadian consumers – slightly more among millennials [28%] – would work with an AI agent instead of a person if it meant they would receive faster service.
Vala Afshar, the Chief Digital Evangelist for Salesforce, said one of the key findings was the expanded use of AI in business.
“We believe that Cyber Week sales will reach $311 billion accounting for 23 pe rcent of the purchases in this year. And $61 billion of those sales are going to be impacted by AI. So, AI and agents will influence,e believe is going to be 19 per cent of the orders,” he said.
“Technology, specifically agentic AI, it’s not just offering people and businesses tools for humans to do the work. The technology is providing intelligence and frankly, scalable digital labor that performs the work autonomously. So this is a really important inflection point in terms of AI and why consumers perhaps understand the power of it.
“Instead of having to wait for human input. How long are you waiting on a call or a chat or whatever the channel is waiting for a human to respond to you for a service inquiry, agents can now analyze the information, make decisions, take actions and do all of that independently from us and then adapt and learn as they go.”
Here are some key highlights of the Salesforce global study of more than 15,000 consumers, including 1,004 consumers in Canada.
Nearly one third (30%) of Canadian consumers would work with an AI agent instead of a person to avoid repeating themselves.
Transparency is key: 73% of Canadian consumers want to know if they’re communicating with an AI agent.
The opportunity is greatest among millennials in Canada: 24% of Millennial consumers say they’d be comfortable having an AI agent shop for them, compared to Gen Z (17%), Gen X (16%) and baby boomers (12%).
49% of Canadian consumers say poor customer service experience will stop them from making a repeat purchase from a company.
38% of Canadian consumers say that inconvenience, such as a difficult return process or clunky purchase experience, will cause brands to lose them.
65% of Canadian consumers prefer using fewer touchpoints to get information or complete a task.
Afshar said said digital agents are responding to people in real time. They are monitoring stock levels. They’re looking at reordering inventory, coordinating with shipping providers and they’re doing all of this without human intervention.
Consumers are experiencing this.
The most indispensable apps that they have are powered by AI.
Consumers expect value at the speed of need
He said digital natives expect value at the speed of need and businesses need to recognize that they don’t get to dictate the speed it’s the customers.
“There’s a real opportunity for companies to win back the trust. This is the lowest trust we’ve recorded in the survey in eight years of doing this research. And Canadians have a higher expectation than the globe. 81 percent of the Canadian consumers have less trust for companies than they had a year ago. Globally, that number is 72. So Canadian consumers are almost 10 points more dissatisfied with trust and 72 per cent of the Canadian consumers feel companies are reckless with the customer data. Globally, that number is 65. So, almost in every dimension, the Canadian results stood more of an expectation than the rest of the globe,” added Afshar.
“That’s something to take note of. I thought that was interesting. Now, it doesn’t surprise me. Canada’s consistently ranked the smartest country in the world. I think 60 per cent of adults have college degrees. That’s number one in the world, if I’m not mistaken. And you also have 92 per cent internet connectivity. I think the U. S. is 89 per cent.. So you’re the most intelligent, most connected.”
Research found that 30 per cent of Canadian consumers would work with an AI agent instead of a person just to avoid repeating themselves.
“This is very new technology and yet one in three Canadians already. prefer to work with the agent versus a person. A quarter of the Canadian consumers, and slightly more if you’re a millennial, there was a 28 pe rcent if you’re a millennial, would work with an AI agent instead of a person if it meant they would receive faster service,” he explained.
“In a hyper connected, knowledge sharing economy, especially Canadian economy, the most connected, the smartest and pioneers in AI, I would say that delivering value at the speed of need matters and the currencies that matter for business leaders is speed, it’s scale, it’s personalization, it’s intelligence, and ultimately shared success I would say is an important core value. You as a company have to make sure your customers are winning. You’re giving them back time, you’re giving them back convenience, you’re giving them back value, And you’re doing that based on their expectations.”
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