Nov. 14 (NBD) -- This year's double 11 shopping festival once again hit a new retail sales record in China and the smart customer service systems made great contributions to the strong sales.

Ali Xiaomi, Alibaba's new-generation smart customer service chatbots, provided 95 percent of the total customer service during the festival.

Based on artificial intelligence technologies such as voice recognition, semantics understanding, personalized recommendation, and deep learning, the new version rolled out in 2015 is able to provide consulting services to customers before or after the purchase.

Zhao Kun, senior director of e-commerce behemoth Alibaba's smart service division told NBD that another AI-powered chatbot named Dian Xiaomi served as the store assistant, also helped retailers to handle customer enquiries. Each chatbot can serve 3.5 million customers per day, a considerable jump as compared to the number of 200-250 that could be handled by a customer service representative in the past.

Alibaba's rival JD.com set its foot in the smart customer service market in 2013 by bringing online its 24/7 smart service robot JIMI. This July, the retail giant launched its new-generation smart customer service system by combining the functions of JIMI and its instant messaging software Dongdong.

Another leading retailer Suning.com introduced its new-generation smart customer service robot before the arrival of the double 11 shopping festival, with a goal of offering shopping guide and one-to-one experience services in multiple areas based on personalized customer needs.

Alibaba's Chief Technology Officer Zhang Jianfeng once said in an interview that the smart customer service system has become a must-have for e-commerce platforms to win the competition during big promotions.  

While employing smart customer service systems themselves, these e-commerce platforms are devoting themselves to providing smart consulting solutions to merchants or institutions from different circles.

Zhao Heng, founder of research-based media platform CNITEYES, said in an interview with NBD that Alibaba and JD.com have always wanted to grab a share of the corporate services market, but haven't yet found the right way. Opening their smart service systems to the outside might be a kind of attempt.

The customer service industry is also regarded as a niche sector by a batch of startups.

However, it would not be easy for them to gain a firm foothold in the sector, as the market pattern has already taken initial shape and investment institutions don't have much confidence in the 2B market at present, Zhao noted.

Email: lansuying@nbd.com.cn