By Anne D'Innocenzio, Retail Writer
NEW YORK (AP) --Macy's is testing a mobile tool using artificial intelligence that lets shoppers get answers customized to the store they're in – like where a particular brand is located or what's in stock – that they would normally ask a sales associate face-to-face.
The tool, which the nation's largest department store chain calls a "mobile companion," can be accessed for now through a browser and will accept questions in 10 U.S. locations about products, services and facilities. It uses natural language and offers feedback in seconds.
It's developed by IBM Watson – the Jeopardy-winning "cognitive computing" service and is designed to keep learning more about the store's customers. That's a key element as Macy's seeks to spur sluggish sales, make being at the store more enjoyable and distinguish itself from online portals and specialty retailers.
"We want to improve the shopping experience. We want the customers to shop at Macy's and come back," Serena Potter, Macy's group vice president of digital media strategy told The Associated Press. The goal: Boost sales while freeing up employees to focus on more complicated customer requests.
Potter said Macy's worked with sales associates to compile the most common inquires per store. Macy's then fed the system questions and information so it can recognize what's being asked and what the answer is. Since the pilot was quietly launched last month, the number of queries ballooned to the low thousands per store.
Five Macy's locations – in Bethesda, Maryland; Woodbridge, New Jersey; Portland, Oregon; Arcadia, California; and Miami, Florida – are focusing on the self-serve initiative. Five others – Short Hills, New Jersey; Buford, Georgia; Atlanta, Georgia; North Miami, Florida; and Garden City, New York – will have a feature that lets customers summon a sales associate. The two Miami locations will have it available in Spanish as well. Customers can click on macys.com/storehelp on their mobile device, but Potter said the company is working on an app. She declined to say when the tool might be rolled out nationwide.
The mobile tool has significant potential to help Macy's develop deeper relationships with customers by eventually offering shoppers help in styling outfits and other services. IBM Watson's vice president Stephen Gold says the technology, once trained, can pick up if customers are frustrated based on their answers and can alert a sales associate. The technology is similar to artificial intelligence the company is working on with brands such as 1-800 Flowers and North Face, but in those cases, it answers questions on their websites.
Macy's is accelerating its efforts to reinvent its business as online leader Amazon.com is expected to surpass the department store in clothing sales next year. The company's sales dropped 4 percent to $27.08 billion for the year ended Jan. 30, and it has slashed its full-year profit and revenue outlook for the year.
Reversing that will be the major challenge for incoming CEO Jeff Gennette, who succeeds longtime chief Terry Lundgren early next year.
Carrie Coon Relishes Being Part Of An Ensemble–From “The Gilded Age” To “His Three Daughters”
It can be hard to catch Carrie Coon on her own.
She is far more likely to be found in the thick of an ensemble. That could be on TV, in "The Gilded Age," for which she was just Emmy nominated, or in the upcoming season of "The White Lotus," which she recently shot in Thailand. Or it could be in films, most relevantly, Azazel Jacobs' new drama, "His Three Daughters," in which Coon stars alongside Natasha Lyonne and Elizabeth Olsen as sisters caring for their dying father.
But on a recent, bright late-summer morning, Coon is sitting on a bench in the bucolic northeast Westchester town of Pound Ridge. A few years back, she and her husband, the playwright Tracy Letts, moved near here with their two young children, drawn by the long rows of stone walls and a particularly good BLT from a nearby cafe that Letts, after biting into, declared must be within 15 miles of where they lived.
In a few days, they would both fly to Los Angeles for the Emmys (Letts was nominated for his performance in "Winning Time" ). But Coon, 43, was then largely enmeshed in the day-to-day life of raising a family, along with their nightly movie viewings, which Letts pulls from his extensive DVD collection. The previous night's choice: "Once Around," with Holly Hunter and Richard Dreyfus.
Coon met Letts during her breakthrough performance in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?" on Broadway in 2012. She played the heavy-drinking housewife Honey. It was the first role that Coon read and knew, viscerally, she had to play. Immediately after saying this, Coon sighs.
"It sounds like something some diva would say in a movie from the '50s," Coon says. "I just walked around in my apartment in my slip and I had pearls and a little brandy. I made a grocery list and I just did... Read More