An Interplay of Artificial Intelligence-Based Customer Analysis on the Performance of Customer Relationship Management in Organized Retail Outlets: Serial Mediation Approach

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a disruptive technology becoming pervasive in the maneuvers of organized retail outlets in this contemporary retail business world. Many retail firms have started using artificial intelligence in core retail functions to provide personalized customer services, impressive store experience and for detecting fraudulent practices. It supports in reaching out and engaging customers, managing the customer profiles, processing their demographics and analyzing them for various decision-making purpose related to the customers in the automated system. AI-supported customer relationship management (CRM) practices are found to have a significant impact on the retail business performance in managing customer interactions successfully and providing scintillating user experience. This empirical study was carried out through the primary data, which was collected from 267 store managers, CRM managers and brand managers in the organized retail outlets of Coimbatore city through a structured well-defined questionnaire. Data analysis done through AMOS 26.0 and Serial Mediation Model 6 revealed that customer behavior and customer-focused retailing strategies have significant mediating effect between AI-based customer analysis and CRM performance. This study could support the retail firms to understand the extent of impact of AI-based customer analysis on CRM performance and help in designing suitable strategies to evolve themselves in tune with the changing trends and technology.