This is a guest post by Brooke Webber. Brooke is a passionate content writer with a love for storytelling. Brooke has 5 years of experience in crafting compelling narratives that resonate with audiences across industries. Total coffee addict. During her spare time, she immerses herself in literature.
The rise of chatbots is increasingly noticeable on eCommerce websites. Digital bots are answering customer inquiries, providing product recommendations, and assisting shoppers online. What used to be a figment of our imagination has become a mundane part of everyday life.
As about 70% of chatbots are retail-based, how can you, the owner of an eCommerce store, make the most of them? This article explores ways to use chatbots for eCommerce shopping. In it, we’ll learn a number of ways to optimize customer experience using this new – but already widespread – technology.
The Rise of Automated Chatbots for ECommerce Shopping
First things first – what are chatbots? Put simply, they are digital robots capable of having basic conversations with human beings.
A large percentage of business websites today use chatbots. Convesio’s home page, for example, is a good example of a chatbot:
More specifically, what can chatbots do to help your business? A number of things. They are ready to:
- Answer customer inquiries
- Provide product recommendations
- Process simple order requests
- Resolve basic problems
- Escalate to live agents for complex issues, when necessary
There’s no denying the remarkable evolution of automated chatbots. Only a few short years ago, they used keywords and patterns to respond to users with scripted templates in place. Today, they utilize the latest technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and natural language processing (NLP), to provide more human-like responses.
These tools were previously used for a variety of business tasks, such the creation of eCommerce business names. luxury business names, or other marketing content ideas. But now they are also powerful enough to have live conversations with potential users.
Let’s look at the best WooCommerce chatbots as examples. They have unique features like multi-language support, in-chat payment options, marketing integration, and even SMS notifications. As such, they are ideal for increasing customer engagement, generating leads, and boosting sales conversion.
Chatbots for Physical vs. Digital Products
When it comes to products, there is a fundamental difference between eCommerce sites that sell digital products, compared to those that sell physical products. For starters, the sales flow process will be different for each one. But one thing’s certain: in both scenarios, automated chatbots can help with customer interactions. How?
- Digital products: For example: a SaaS company selling software (a digital product) likely receives inquiries about its features from potential customers. Your automated chatbots can directly link them to product pages or demos for further details.
- Physical products: Meanwhile, a retail business selling high-end shoes (physical products) most likely gets questions about their sizes and colors, delivery options, as well as return policies. These are different from software feature pages. Your automated chatbots can easily and quickly provide relevant answers and recommend the right products.
Key Benefits of Automated Chatbots for eCommerce Sites
How can you use a chatbot for your eCommerce site? In a variety of ways:
- Round-the-clock service availability: Unlike live human agents, automated chatbots can offer 24/7 customer support. Chatbots are exclusively designed to assist customers of different geographies and time zones around the clock.
- Data-driven product recommendations: Automated chatbots are AI or ML-powered, making them capable of recommending products through data insights. One-fourth of companies use chatbots to recommend products for enhancing personalized user interactions.
- Personalized digital shopping experiences: Automated chatbots can go as far as personalizing and improving online shoppers’ experiences. The good news? 80% of those shopping with voice assistants are satisfied, while half end up making purchases.
- Smooth-flowing customer journey: Automated chatbots can guide prospects in their customer journey, from awareness and education to negotiation and sale. Chatbots used in eCommerce help provide a seamless user experience (UX) during product purchase.
- Augmented customer satisfaction (CSAT): Automated chatbots can optimize your customer service by enhancing CSAT and establishing customer loyalty. A whopping 80 to 90% is the response rate to high-quality chatbots, providing seamless customer service compared to live agents.
- Guaranteed business profitability: Automated chatbots can help improve your eCommerce conversion rate by up to 30%. With these in place, your accounting reconciliation will show a boost in income over expense, thus maintaining a steady cash flow for your online business.
In the next section, we’ll learn how to use automated chatbots to personalize online shopping experiences.
Utilizing Chatbots: How To Personalize Shopping Experiences Online
Leveraging automated chatbots in various sectors, especially eCcommerce, has been growing and expanding. The statistics don’t lie:
The global chatbot market is projected to grow from $5.1 billion in 2022 and $6.31 billion in 2023 to $27.30 billion. It could achieve a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 23.3%.
The use of chatbots can be highly beneficial in eCommerce:
Specifically, automated chatbots can personalize the online shopping experience. Here’s how you can leverage them for your ecommerce business:
1. Align your personalization goals with consumer needs
Before you start leveraging automated chatbots for personalization, define your goals first. What do you aim to achieve from this? Is it to improve the online shopping experience and enhance customer engagement? Is it to generate more leads and convert them into sales?
More importantly, match your personalization objectives with the customer needs. This step requires due diligence to unravel their pain points, personal preferences, purchasing goals, and shopping motivations. Then, set and measure key metrics, such as search volume, SEO ranking, organic traffic, and engagement levels.
2. Sync chatbots with your digital platforms and channels
After setting your personalization goals and metrics, it’s time to select the chatbot types best used for online shopping. Is it a button-based chatbot for choosing a particular product? Is it a rule-based chatbot for answering frequently asked questions (FAQs)? Or is it an AI-powered chatbot for providing product recommendations?
Once you’ve decided on which chatbot type to use for your online store, you can incorporate them into your website, social media pages, and digital apps. Hire technical experts, such as a website builder, a social media manager, and an app developer, to do the job for you. They can go as far as installing WooCommerce plugins to help generate leads and boost your sales.
3. Use AI/ML-powered chatbots for data collection and analysis
As mentioned, you can use different chatbots for your eCommerce platform. However, leverage those powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). They are the most advanced forms of chatbots that can help you meet your personalization objectives. Nearly 25% of businesses currently use AI-powered chatbots, and 62% of customers are open to using AI for improved experience.
AI is the simulation of human intelligence into chatbots, allowing them to answer FAQs and process order requests. ML enables chatbots to learn independently and make decisions based on data patterns or trends. They can analyze customer data, give product recommendations, and resolve issues.
4. Incorporate chatbots in your catalog for product recommendations
Your online store already has digital catalog showcasing goods or items you’re selling. But are you using a chatbot to help users navigate it? Incorporating chatbots into your product catalog is best to optimize your product listings. For instance, you can optimize WooCommerce product imports, organize your digital catalog, and integrate automated chatbots for help.
How does it work? Automated chatbots can analyze customer data in real-time to understand customer needs. Then, they can offer personalized product recommendations based on customer preferences, previous purchases, and website activities. Not only do they enhance customer satisfaction, but they can also boost your sales conversion.
5. Employ NLP for Product Inquiries and Customer Service Questions
Natural language processing (NLP) is an AI model that allows digital tools to understand human language and provide relevant responses. This model can be integrated into your chatbots to optimize the online shopping experience on your ecommerce platform. NLP chatbots can effectively and efficiently handle product inquiries and customer service.
How? These chatbots can comprehend customers’ questions and respond to them appropriately. They can answer product-related queries like features, prices, and availability. Meanwhile, NLP chatbots can deal with customer concerns, like processing orders, providing status, resolving simple issues, and referring customers to live agents for more complex ones.
6. Tempt customers with personalized discounts and promos
One way to get customers to buy your products is to provide discounts and promotions. However, they shouldn’t necessarily be offered to all customers visiting your eCommerce platform. What better way to proceed with this than to give personalized offers and exclusive deals to worthy ones? As such, AI-powered chatbots can definitely help!
How do you go about doing that? You can install some of the best digital eCommerce plugins for WordPress using Easy Digital Downloads. They let you personalize discounts and promos by targeting loyal customers and supporters. You can even send personalized emails to regular and loyal customers for more surprising offers.
7. Utilize chatbots for order tracking and status updates
You can enhance your eCommerce platform and improve the customer experience in various ways. For example, you can optimize your WooCommerce store for sales conversion. Specifically, you can employ AI-integrated chatbots to track orders and provide status updates. But how do they work?
You can invest in a unified platform for data recording and integrate chatbots into this platform for data tracking. When customers reach out to you to ask about the order status, chatbots can access the information and provide real-time updates. They can further enhance the shopping experience and continue to assist customers thereafter.
8. Integrate chatbots with user accounts for a seamless customer journey
In eCommerce, providing customers with user accounts is best. Customers can simply log in, check their carts, track their orders, as well as continue to shop online and make purchases. Fret not; you can employ digital identity verification and multi-factor authentication (MFA) to promote network security and ensure data privacy.
While at it, you can integrate chatbots to guide users in their customer journey. These AI-powered chatbots can recommend products, track orders, and notify customers within the user account. They can help customers better manage their logins and improve their overall shopping experience.
9. Consistently update algorithms and train your chatbots
ECommerce businesses indeed have the highest chatbot acceptance rates. Why? Because automated chatbots can perform a lot of work for click-and-order stores. They can answer product inquiries, assist online shoppers, take order requests, provide status updates, and offer product recommendations. However, there is more to these than meets the eye.
Chatbots are ever-changing and ever-evolving. They have so much potential to elevate e-commerce products and services in the future. As such, you must constantly train your chatbots and update their algorithms. That way, they can develop and progress, and you can always keep up with ecommerce trends.
Tap into Chatbots and Personalize Customer Experiences
Automated chatbots are a game-changer in the eCommerce industry. They assist customers round the clock, offer product recommendations, and customize online shopping. Tap this incredible technology to improve your click-and-order store and the overall customer experience!
To specifically personalize the online shopping experience, consider the actionable steps and practical tips recommended above.
Start by matching personalization goals with customer needs and end with updating your chatbot’s algorithms. Likewise, leverage these chatbots for data analysis, product recommendations, customer service, and order tracking. Lastly, integrate them with multiple channels and user accounts for a seamless customer journey.
Make the most of these automated chatbots to personalize shopping endeavors, optimize the customer experience, and ultimately increase your bottom line!
