e-commerce
The chatbot is a computer program that facilitates communication with a user without intervention of human support.
According to Oxford Dictionaries, A chatbot is:
A Computer program designed to simulate conversation with human users, especially over the internet
Chatbot works as customer support and helps users when they ask any questions or have any normal query. In other words, it works as a “virtual companion”. Entrepreneurs & companies integrate it with their website, applications or use it as an instant messenger in order to provide real-time support anywhere, anytime.
The main question someone can ask is “Why we need a chatbot?” The answer is very clear.
- The chatbot can be very helpful in answering common & repetitive questions. So, that the customer support team can focus on more complex tasks.
- The chatbot can address even complex questions if utilized fully. So, It can add more value in terms of personalized customer support.
- Nowadays, customers tend to hate exploring the FAQ section or calling a helpline for getting all support. If businesses have a chatbot setup, you can easily integrate your knowledge base to your chatbot widget, which will rapidly increase “buyer engagement” & “customer loyalty”.
A chatbot is not only built for customer support but modern businesses are using it to enhance the overall customer experience.
- Weather Bot: Get the weather update whenever you want
- Grocery Bot: Help you pick & order groceries for the week
- News Bot: Instant access over daily news updates
- Life Advice bot: For alternative solutions to daily problems
- Personal Finance Bot: For managing your daily money
- Scheduling bot: For scheduling your daily meeting
Functionality
Image Source: Expert System
The chatbot is working in two phases.
- Analysis of user’s request
- Composing & sending a response
From the image, the interpretation is very clear that the user will send a request to the chatbot and it will reply after analysis of the user’s intent regarding the specific requests.
Future of Chatbot
As Artificial Intelligence is rapidly evolving and transforming the business, social media platforms are the biggest players to adopt chatbot technology. According to Statista report, there are 2.271 Billion monthly active users on Facebook alone. Chinese WeChat bots can already set medical appointments, book a taxi, send money to friends and many many others. According to a Gartner report, around 85% of customer queries will be handled without human intervention by 2020.
Chatbot Usage In E-Commerce
According to a recent Economic Times report, Indian E commerce industry to touch USD 84 billion in 2021 from USD 24 billion in 2017. When the industry is growing and more players are coming in, it’s mandatory to win customer support game by providing a response in no time. This is the reason why chatbots are primary need when comes to answering common pre-purchase questions and solving post-purchase query.
Utilization of chatbot with e-commerce can be possible in the following ways:
1) Integration with Shopify, Wix, WordPress & Squarespace — There are certain chatbot provider companies that can support you in integrating chatbot with E commerce portal.
2) Decision-based on analytics — With chatbot analytics data based on most common product questions and feedback, customer support team can learn from that in order to take future decisions.
3) Real-time customer support — When you start an e-commerce business, there is a need to provide constant customer support. But human support can’t be possible for 24/7 with 100% accuracy. So, in this situation, chatbot can be the best solution in order to provide prompt and rapid responses to buyers asking for product related queries.
4) Greater Support in Identifying Buyer Persona — It’s very important to know the target market before entering into the competition, The same thing follows for e-commerce companies too. If companies have no idea of buyer persona, interests, activities & opinions data, it’s difficult to target them individually with customized product recommendations. Here, chatbot comes to rescue with chat log feature. When a chatbot is there, the marketing team need to focus on chat log content. They can fetch data regarding buyer persona and use it to provide “push notifications”, “limited offer sale” & “product recommendations”.
5) Reduction In Cart Abandoned Rate — According to the research data from Barilliance — an e commerce personalization tools developer, the cart abandonment rate is inversely proportional to the screen size of the device.
Based upon the above infographic, it is clear that there is a need to find some solution in order to reduce the cart abandoned rate. With chatbot integration, it’s possible to reduce the rate.
But, How?
- Sending push notifications on abandoned cart
- Prompt responses to queries can reduce the cart abandonment rate
- Providing an alternative payment option through one to one chat in the case of existing payment failure
Conclusion
With just integration of chatbot can’t increase the conversion and revenue for the e-commerce portal. It’s better to utilize it for automating customer support. But if you want to increase website conversion, then the best option is to go for Live Chat software. So, if you are looking for a 360 degree solution, then I would recommend you try to Acquire. It can provide real-time chat solutions & in app messaging with higher user engagement.
