AI
Photo: Generated by AI. Adobe Stock.
September 23, 2025 by Victor Cho — CEO, Emovid
Retailers have spent years investing in automation — streamlining service, personalizing outreach, and accelerating the path to purchase. Those efforts have made shopping more efficient, often more convenient. But not everything in retail can — or should — be automated.
Customer loyalty lives in the gray area: in how a customer feels after a return, during a service hiccup, or when reaching out for help. These are moments where trust is earned or lost, and they still depend on human connection. An algorithm can track your behavior. A chatbot can answer your question. But only a person can make you feel heard.
The real challenge for retailers today isn’t whether to automate. It’s knowing which interactions benefit from automation — and which demand a human touch.
When automation undermines loyalty
Retail has become faster, smarter, and more personalized, at least on the surface. Automation has streamlined checkout flows, fine-tuned promotional targeting, and taken over much of customer service. A chatbot can now cancel an order in seconds. A predictive engine can recommend products you’re likely to buy. But in the push for speed and efficiency, something essential has gone missing: emotional connection.
Loyalty isn’t just about getting what you want quickly or at a good price. It’s about how a customer feels when something goes wrong, and whether they believe the brand is on their side. A bot might answer your question about a late shipment, but it won’t apologize for the missed birthday gift. An algorithm might notice that you left items in your cart, but it won’t recognize that you gave up after a confusing checkout process or a failed promo code.
Customers feel the gap. A smooth return policy helps, but it resonates more when there’s some sign of recognition — an apology for the hassle or a quick thank-you for your patience. A personalized subject line feels empty when the body of the email is clearly written by a machine. These are the moments that shape emotional memory, moments in which loyalty is either earned or lost.
Without a sense of human presence, even the most efficient customer journey starts to feel transactional and cold. And when that happens, convenience alone won’t keep customers coming back.
Knowing what to automate and what to humanize
The challenge for today’s retailers isn’t whether to use automation — it’s where to draw the line. Some tasks are ideal for automation: reordering, tracking shipments, checking store hours. But others require nuance: resolving a complaint, responding to a negative review, or restoring trust after a service failure.
In those moments, customers don’t want speed — they want to feel heard. And that’s something automation still struggles to deliver. Chatbots can handle straightforward requests, but they often fall short when empathy enters the equation. Even the best personalization algorithms can’t replicate the tone, timing, or emotion of a real person.
The best solutions preserve the advantages of automation while making room for human connection — whether that’s a real-time conversation with a service rep, a thoughtful follow-up after an issue, or a personalized gesture that shows someone’s paying attention. It’s not about rejecting technology. It’s about using it to build trust where it matters most.
Blending tech with human presence
Retailers are rethinking how to balance automation with emotional connection. Many are using technology to manage routine tasks — like order tracking or appointment scheduling — while reserving human attention for moments that carry more emotional weight. These include resolving a complaint, handling a negative review, or responding to a confused customer in real time. Some brands are even blending both worlds — using AI to streamline production, but keeping the message human: a handwritten note tucked into a package, a brief follow-up call from a real person, or a personalized video message recorded by store staff.
In those cases, what matters isn’t speed – it’s tone, clarity, and empathy. Some retailers ensure that service interactions always have a clear path to a live agent. Chewy, for instance, is known for handwritten cards and follow-up calls from customer service reps after a pet’s passing, a gesture that resonates deeply with its customer base.
Others focus on language: using plain, natural phrasing in automated messages and making it clear when a real person is responding. Even subtle shifts, like including an agent’s first name or acknowledging a delay, can make the difference between a forgettable exchange and one that builds trust. Transparency also matters. When customers know when AI is in play — whether through a small icon or a short note – they’re more likely to feel respected rather than manipulated.
Some companies are also using technology to amplify human creativity rather than replace it. Stitch Fix, for example, uses generative AI to analyze customer preferences and purchase history, then passes those insights to real-life stylists who assemble personalized outfits. That blend of machine efficiency and human intuition helps the company deliver a highly individualized experience at scale, while still keeping a person at the center of the process.
Behind the scenes, more teams are investing in emotional intelligence training. Associates are being taught how to read tone, de-escalate tense situations, and offer responses that feel considered, not canned. Zappos is one standout: its customer service reps are encouraged to spend as long as needed with each caller, even making gestures like sending flowers or hand-signed cards. The goal isn’t to follow a script.
It’s to treat people like people.
These aren’t radical changes, but they reflect a shared idea: loyalty grows when customers feel a human presence behind the brand, even if technology helps deliver it.
Final thoughts
Automation is no longer a differentiator in retail — it’s the baseline. Most customers now expect efficient service, accurate recommendations, and quick responses. But they also notice the behavior that breaks that pattern: a thoughtful message, a moment of patience, an interaction that feels less like a transaction and more like a relationship.
The retailers that stand out won’t necessarily be the ones with the most advanced tech stack. They’ll be the ones that use technology to support, not sideline, their people. They’ll know when to hand the conversation back to a real human, and how to do it in a way that feels genuine, not forced. Loyalty today isn’t driven by convenience alone. It’s driven by care, and care can’t be automated.
About Victor Cho
I am a CEO/Advisor/Board member who has a deep passion for building online customers experiences that truly delight (Net Promoter 80+) and define markets. I do that through a leadership ethos grounded in transparency, empathy, diversity, and integrity. The building blocks that I deploy most from my toolkit (other than customer-centricity) are: use of analytics/data, leveraging networked business model dynamics, and creating organizations with recursive leadership engines.
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