Human communication is quite unique. Even with lost phylum, it has been an interesting part of evolution. First, the human race and now business.
As for the latter, traders have been conversing to drive sales and keep prospects hooked with information. Conversation has always been since humans first began trading — and always will be — a core part of commerce.
What has changed over the years, is the medium. To keep up with user expectations, commerce needs to talk over screens, now.
Talk to me. Now.
User behaviour has evolved and is redefining the way they interact with businesses. Conversational commerce is a huge opportunity for e-commerce.
Enabling two-way communication, it encourages businesses to go to where the customers are. Incorporating conversations with messenger, and into social media platforms.
It can help upscale your sales effectively, adding new touch point to the customer’s journey without redefining it.
Source: medium.com/chatbotsmagazine.com
1. User Convenience
Over 2,000,000,000 people are using messaging apps or rather 37% of the world’s population.
Bringing convenience to people, it keeps people hooked. The massive distribution and adoption of messaging apps give businesses the ability to communicate with each of their customers in a private, personalized, and two-way environment.
Chatbots offer a direct line of proactive support to the buyers.
2. Connect with 2–5x more customers
Businesses have experienced that mere implementation of the Facebook Messenger Checkbox moves the ability to connect with a customer to the top of the funnel. They have potentially increased the number of customers to talk to by 2–5x than previously done over email.
2. Stores experienced an increasing annual revenue by up to 25%
Chatbots offer opportunity even when the customer adds a product to their cart and doesn’t complete the purchase. Reminding the customer about the abandoned cart can improve commerce experience and businesses have already started to increase revenue by 7–25%.
3. Interact most naturally
The rise of devices with voice assistants including Google, Siri and Alexa have confirmed one thing, humans prefer conversation in the most natural way. This has definitely opened doors to an entirely new approach to e-commerce.
In fact, with Google Duplex, Google went a step forward, extending the use of the chatbot to book an appointment.
Coupled with these advantages, the merits of on the go interaction are priceless and can win over a lot of customers single-handedly. The most effective ways to incorporate text messaging is to connect with users via a popular app, such as Facebook Messenger.
Let’s Get Texting
From the Turing test in 1950 to bots for messengers, chatbots have evolved from computer-based offerings to providing pro-active conversation for context-based highly individual offerings.
From solving queries to providing the necessary information and even making successful purchases, they are highly efficient and trustworthy. These bots have, in fact, taken over conversational commerce in a lot of sectors, be it healthcare, grocery shopping, paying bills or contacting a customer service department.
Success Story: Eila
Here’s how Eila’s Facebook Messenger bot “Freeda” made a difference for Freedom Pizza, in just two weeks!
Teaming up with Visa and Freedom Pizza, Elia helped Visa explore opportunities for monetization via messaging platforms. More than just a pizza joint, Freedom Pizza has always incorporated new technologies with its business to open new sales channels to its customers.
To push conversational commerce, they even started providing special offers which were available only through their conversational sales channel, ChatShop. By limiting customization, they simplified their ordering process. This attracted a lot of attention to their new sales channel and resulted in thousands registering for a Freedom Pizza account.
Within just two weeks, they had over 2400 unique users, with a conversion rate of 49%, and the ability to handle up to 8 customers at once!
In two weeks, Eila helped Freedom Pizza:
- Complete 2600+ purchases
- 2400 unique users conversed with Eila
- 49% of all conversing users completed a purchase
- Which is $ 7700 of value purchase
Looking Ahead
If you haven’t adapted to conversational commerce, you must do so right away! Conversational commerce has gone far and beyond, from automated texting on the go, to digital voice assistants and the future looks bright for digital personal assistants! This makes it a valuable asset to add to your business, and an untapped opportunity to skyrocket your business. The sky, after all, isn’t the limit anymore!
