Supercharging sales at a big-box retailer with targeted AI

A major retailer with over 300 brick-and-mortar stores and a strong digital operation faced major growth challenges in spite of their well-rounded in-person and online presence. Sales and marketing teams were looking to use AI to supplement limited resources and develop new strategies that could unlock stronger sales.

AlixPartners was brought in to overhaul business as usual, putting in motion a suite of customized AI solutions that personalized the customer experience. 

Our experts solved the seemingly unsolvable over a 10-week sprint. We swiftly developed proprietary AI models to estimate customer lifetime value; built response propensity models to identify which customers were most likely to reply to sales team contact; created micro-segmentation models to hone marketing messages to specific sub-groups; and used generative AI and Bayesian optimization techniques to test dozens of messaging strategies and optimize each one per micro-segment.

Each AI solution helped executives make confident, calculated moves—and unlock big gains. 

40-50%

higher click-through rate

The retailer quickly saw an increase in sales, as the AI models predicted. Revenue improved by 47% among customers who were contacted using our campaign, compared to customers served by the company model.

The marketing team integrated AI with a test-and-learn strategy, discovering messages with 40-50% higher click rates versus alternatives. The difference? Setting up GenAI to create hyper-personalized marketing collateral with an automated test-and-learn loop, rather than relying on one-shot blanket-target marketing content that has been manually drummed up by staff.

Ultimately, our team delivered the vision and know-how to deploy AI solutions with 25% higher revenue outcomes than the retailer’s incumbent methodology.

25%

higher revenue from AI-enabled campaigns