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2020 saw an unprecedented increase in online sales but this increase wasn't uniform across the entire eCommerce industry. However, this increase in new online shoppers does increase the potential to boost sales – the only question is how. There are conventional ways of driving eCommerce sales such as paid ads, discounts/offers, better search engine rankings, etc but a better and more cost-effective alternative is conversational AI.
Among many other benefits of conversational AI is its ability to boost eCommerce sales. According to recent reports, conversational AI was responsible for a 67% increase in sales. But how exactly are eCommerce businesses achieving these results? To answer this question, we've compiled a list of the top 5 ways in which conversational AI can help drive eCommerce sales in 2021.
Conversational AI is only a technology and in order for it to be useful, businesses must implement it in a way that fits their business model. For eCommerce businesses, the most popular implementation of conversational AI is an AI chatbot. AI chatbots have become extremely versatile and the following list is evidence of the different ways they can drive eCommerce sales. You can learn more about Conversational AI by clicking here.
1. Additional Point of Sales
A point of sale is where the actual transaction occurs and for eCommerce businesses, Points of Sale have traditionally been their website or mobile application that have a cart and checkout functionality. But now, eCommerce businesses are deploying sales chatbots that double as a proper Point of Sale and not just a communication channel.
These sales chatbot examples use conversational AI but also have a cart and checkout feature, allowing users to make purchases right from the chat window. They are most often deployed on popular messaging apps like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Google RCS, making online shopping even more convenient. An additional PoS is especially useful for eCommerce businesses that sell relatively low-value and low-risk products/services such as groceries, takeout, stationery, etc since these products are most likely to be ordered routinely.
2. Future of Business Messaging
Every business engages with its customers through different communication channels. Traditionally, two of the most popular channels for business messaging have been email marketing and SMS but both of these platforms lack the personalization and customization required today. As a result, social media platforms are on track to overtake email and SMS both in terms of popularity and effectiveness – and they are doing this through conversational AI.
Unlike SMS and email which are one-way communication channels, chatbots open up a traditional chat window, enabling both the business and consumer to communicate with each other. This is a big step in customer engagement and the results show its effectiveness. Business messages via chatbots have an average open rate of 85% and a click-through-rate (CTR) of 40% – completely blowing email out of the water (23% open rate and 3% CTR).
Furthermore, consumers aren't just more likely to read the message, they're also much more likely to convert. A real-world example of this is Aveda, a cosmetics company that deployed their own chatbot and increased their weekly bookings by 7.67 times.
3. More Effective Retargeting
More often than not, the initial business messaging isn't enough for converting new customers, which is why businesses engage in retargeting. Retargeting involves trying to convert warm leads or consumers who showed interest in the brand but didn't convert initially. Retargeting is extremely important since only 2% of online shoppers tend to purchase on their first visit but retargeting can increase conversion rates among online shoppers by 128%.
And many of the features of chatbots that make them so effective at business messaging, also make them equally effective at retargeting. However, conversational AI plays a much more important role here as it is responsible for finding out the most likely reason the potential customer did not convert initially and take action accordingly. Luxury Escapes, one of the biggest travel agencies in Australia, leveraged conversational AI in their chatbot and managed to increase response rates to an excellent 89% during retargeting.
4. Faster and Easier Shopping with Digital Assistants
Another popular way to boost eCommerce sales with conversational AI is using chatbots as digital shopping assistants. eCommerce companies including Lego, H&M, Whole Foods, Sephora, Domino's Pizza, and many more have deployed their own digital shopping assistants, either on their website/app or on a popular social media platform.
Most shopping assistant bots leverage a powerful AI recommendations engine alongside conversational AI to recommend products on the basis of customer preferences and help them find what they're looking for quickly.
5. Brand Loyalty and Repeat Customers
Becoming more cost-effective will be one of the key goals for most eCommerce businesses until the market uncertainty eases. Unfortunately, the balance between cost efficiency and better CRM is difficult to achieve. Managing customer relations is expensive but since customer service has become a major product differentiator in 2021, it is also critical to staying competitive.
The alternative? Automating customer service with AI chatbots. AI chatbots are capable of using CRM data to send personalized and relevant messages to customers and maintain an interpersonal line of communication. They can also be used alongside loyalty programs for sending reward vouchers and coupons. The conversational aspect also makes the entire process feel more natural and special, especially compared to receiving a corporate email or SMS.
And of course, there is the original use case of chatbots – after-sales service. AI chatbots are an excellent addition to a human sales team as a very large percentage of customer queries can be answered by chatbots. Chatbots also answer instantly, are available 24/7, and with conversational AI, they also have powerful natural-language-understanding and processing (NLU and NLP) capabilities.
And there you have it – the top 5 ways in which eCommerce businesses can leverage conversational AI to boost sales. Increasing sales in what is arguably the most competitive industry isn't easy but it's certainly not impossible either. The lack of traditional product differentiators is forcing businesses to think outside the box and implement new systems that improve and make the customer experience different from other businesses. And conversational AI is one of the best ways to do that in 2021.
