Top Ecommerce Chatbot Use Cases

A chatbot is an artificial intelligence software that simulates and processes human conversation and allows humans to interact with digital services as if they were communicating with a real person. A chatbot is designed to convincingly simulate how a human would behave as a conversational partner. They typically require continuous tuning and testing to ensure they perform their tasks effectively. From personal shopping and product discovery to immediate responses to common customer service questions, the use cases of chatbots are endless. Users in both business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) environments increasingly use chatbot virtual assistants to handle simple as well as complex tasks. Adding a chatbot to your digital platforms reduces overhead costs, saves staff time, and enables your business to provide 24/7 customer service. Here are some eCommerce chatbot use cases.

Finding Products

If a customer is visiting your eCommerce store and is in a hurry, they want to get what they are looking for immediately. Rather than having to search through your site, wait for a page to load, then apply filters in the hope of finding their preferred products, a chatbot can navigate them to the right product page by asking them a few questions regarding what they are looking for. An eCommerce chatbot can also send them a carousel of products that meet their specific description. They can then purchase the product with the assistance of the chatbot without going through a complex process with multiple steps that could lead them to drop off from the website on the way.

Customer Service and Support

Chatbots can answer repetitive and common questions. For instance, if your customer service agents are constantly being asked about your return policy, chatbots can quickly respond to these questions. It is cost-effective to give customers the option to talk to a chatbot rather than have to call a support agent for answers. Chatbots can also help your website visitors navigate through different pages. This includes assisting visitors in finding specific products and discovering information of interest.

Personalization and Predictive Analytics

Chatbots are an effective way of segmenting your audience and putting each of your personas in a tailored experience. According to a study carried out by Accenture, customers are 75 percent more likely to buy from companies that recognize them by their names or recommend options that are based on past purchases. For instance, think about Amazon’s recommendations system, which suggests prompts such as “frequently bought together” or “customers who bought this item also bought” suggestions.

Many purchases for eCommerce businesses usually come from product recommendations. Chatbots are suitable for personalization and predictive analytics and can effectively recommend products to your customers based on their past purchase behavior.  

Boost Customer Engagement

For eCommerce businesses, sometimes the app design may not be robust enough for boosting customer engagement. Chatbots can play a crucial role in engaging your prospects if this is the case. People sometimes prefer inbuilt messaging and all they care about is their convenience. If your eCommerce business has a website messaging platform that helps customers to communicate faster, a chatbot can easily answer your customer’s queries, display product categories, and show recommendations. For instance, the Facebook Messenger app has over 300,000 chatbots.

Return Prevention

Research shows that customers usually return about 30 percent of online purchases from eCommerce stores they purchase from. Returns are generally a result of a lack of customer satisfaction for the products received. If a customer exhibits a purchase behavior that indicates that a return is possible, eCommerce chatbots can prove instrumental in preventing a return from happening. There are also fewer returns because the chatbots educate the customers about products to know more about what they are buying. As a result, the customer will understand properly what they expect from a specific product, its functionality, uses, and other relevant product details. An informed customer is likely to make better decisions when purchasing from your eCommerce business and therefore reduce the number of returns.

For instance, if a customer adds the same product to the cart twice or thrice, a chatbot can quickly notify the customer that they have added 2 or 3 similar items to the cart. In case this was done mistakenly, the customer will have the opportunity to change the product before checking out. This mechanism effectively prevents returns from customers as a result of purchase errors. This not only eliminates the need for a customer to go through the hassle of returning an item but also saves the retailer significant costs related to returns.

Rescuing Abandoned Carts

According to research conducted by the Baymard Institute, about 69.57 percent of online shopping carts are abandoned by customers before checkout, which essentially means that for every 100 visitors that add items to their cart, 70 of them will potentially leave without purchasing. Think about it, how much would your business’s revenues increase if you were to capture those sales instead of losing them?

A chatbot service for your eCommerce business can play a crucial role in reducing the likelihood of a customer abandoning the chat halfway. When the customer is idle for a given period, you can configure chatbots to automatically send a notification to the customer and encourage them to go ahead and purchase whatever is in the cart. Also, a chatbot can send reminders to customers who have abandoned their carts when almost purchasing. The customer may consider getting back to your website and proceeding with the purchase with a reminder.

At Rep, we believe that your business can convert more customers with an amazing AI-powered salesperson. Our AI uses behavioral analysis to detect when your customers will abandon your website and offers them contextual and personalized shopping assistance in real-time. Request a demo today and get started with reaping the benefits of an AI-powered salesperson.

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