How chatbot benefits your eCommerce business

A chatbot is a software application developed to conduct an online conversation for customer inquiries through text or speech. Chatbots are used instead of living human agents for solving general inquiries. The chatbots in e-commerce are getting more popular due to their benefits. The continuous emergence of artificial intelligence and machine learning leads to the AI chatbot development, and this originated smarter AI-powered chatbots. Chatbots offer quick responses to inquiries and they can learn from previous conversations of customers. It is one of the technologies that can provide customer support and improve the ecommerce checkout process.

How artificial intelligence and machine learning helped in improving chatbot service?

The new, improved Artificial intelligence (AI) concept has changed the method of searching and ordering the product online. AI offers numerous help to you, like searching different options according to the search history, adding it to a wishlist or shopping cart. AI also helps in different tasks focused on data to improve the capabilities of chatbots.

Machine learning (ML) allows chatbots to learn from their interactions with humans, leading to natural conversation. It can answer simple questions and search for detailed online information.

According to the MarketsandMarkets , the global chatbot market size is forecast to grow from 2.9 billion dollars in 2020 to 10.5 billion dollars by 2026, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 23.5 percent. The primary factors that contribute to this growth include the growing urgency for 24/7 customer support at low operational cost along with improved focus on customer engagement through different channels and developments in technology. The demand from customers for self-service operations, also contributes to the growth as it helps in competitive advantage to businesses.

Magento store owners can hire Magento 2 developers to help them in improving the chatbot service for their E-commerce businesses. They can help you improve your chatbots to make them more responsive and conversational and manage customer inquiries.

In this upcoming discussion, you will see different aspects of chatbots regarding eCommerce.

How does an ecommerce chatbot work?

Chatbots process data to offer responses to different inquiries from customers. Chatbots are driven by AI, natural language processing (NLP), and ML. It utilizes all these languages to give a response to the inquiry.

There are two types of chatbots in e-commerce:

• Task-oriented (declarative) chatbots: These are the most commonly used chatbots, as these are single-purpose programs focused on performing one function. These can manage common inquiries like business or simple transactions. For customers, it works conversationally.
• Data-driven and conversational chatbots: These chatbots are more conversational and not so task-oriented. These are also called virtual assistants or digital assistants, as they are more interactive with customers. These learn the preferences of customers over time and offer the most accurate recommendations. It can also anticipate the requirements of customers after some time. Siri and Alexa are some examples of consumer, data-driven, and predictive chatbots.

How can an online e-commerce business benefit from chatbots?

Chatbot assistance is gaining more popularity in business as most of them are getting online exposure. Customers get on-the-spot solutions to some of the inquiries with detailed descriptions of products.

Some of the benefits of chatbot in eCommerce are discussed below:

• 1. Business Revenue Generation:

  Chatbots helps in attracting business leads by asking relevant questions. Some of these clients are forwarded to the sales team or being scheduled for discussion. This will sometimes help in sales conversion. The whole process depends on the nature of the business. In some eCommerce businesses, these

• 2. 24X7 Customer Support:

  Businesses are not required to train personnel to manage initial customer inquiries on the website’s home page. A 24×7 service from an employee is not possible; therefore, chatbots take that place. An inquiry done by the client at midnight is also answered by chatbots.

• 3. Improved Customer Experience:

  The development of the business also focuses on how speedily you are engaging with your clients. Chatbots suffice this necessity by analyzing customer response and offer data in no time. These are quick response channels to communicate with customers. In addition, Chatbots acts as brand representatives as they manage the inquiries in the initial stage, offering more satisfaction to customers with a problem-solving approach and effective guidance.

• 4. Improve Team Productivity:

  Chatbots are getting the identity of replacing humans with automated customer services in the business. A bot can’t replace humans completely, but it will allow primary support that filters customer inquiries before being directed to support agents. This whole process helps in automating sales and improving the productivity of the team.

• 5. Low Human Errors:

  Mistakes from humans are inevitable. Errors are linked to manual work, which may lead to mistakes in managing customer information or sharing the price information of products. On the other hand, if we talk about chatbots, they are the best methods to deliver error-free services with fewer complications. The inbuilt features of chatbots make them more accurate in delivering services.

• 6. Instant Response:

  During an inquiry, the chatbot offers an instant solution. It not only offers responses but it helps in offering answers based on feedback and FAQs. According to the data from Juniper Research, the retail chatbot interactions around the world are expected to reach 22 billion dollars by 2023. Thanks for the improved AI engagement.

• 7. Managing Complex Queries:

  The AI-powered chatbots collect information in the initial interaction with customers. It helps in dealing with questions and inquiries that are difficult. Chatbots were very beneficial during Covid 19 pandemic social distancing situation. One of its examples is Genpact’s AI-powered chatbot named Amber that actually replaced humans by asking employees questions and capturing the answers in real time.

• 8. Time Saving:

  Using AI-powered chatbots helps in saving unnecessary time that is wasted in initial inquiries from customers. It helps save time with quick replies, and the customers need not wait for days to answer questions. According to Juniper Research , chatbots are expected to offer 11 billion dollars of cost saving annually for the retail, banking and healthcare industry by 2023. Almost 2.5 billion dollars of customer service hours can be saved by consumers and businesses by 2023.

Some ecommerce chatbots examples:

Chatbots have numerous specialities and it helps in completing buyer’s purchases, offers recommendations on buyer’s products and offers customer support.

There are some examples of how chatbots help connect businesses with customers.

• 1. Staples:

  Staples is a retail company that uses the Facebook Messenger chat feature to offer product suggestions based on past orders and chat history. This chat feature allows customers to complete the purchase process through chats.

  

  Image Source: sellbrite.com

• 2. Sephora:

  Sephora is a French multinational retailer of personal care and beauty products that uses the chatbot to offer users makeup tips and product suggestions. The suggestions are based on the answers to personal questions on the makeup usage of customers. It also redirects users to the app or site for completing the purchase.

  

  Image Source: chatbotguide.org

• 3. H&M

  The H&M clothing brand developed a chatbot that asks questions from users based on their styles and provides a photo option to select. According to this information, the bot creates a fashion profile with outfit suggestions and directs the users to the purchase page.

  

  Image Source: bdc-retail.com

How to improve chatbot functionality to attract more customers to your ecommerce store?

There are different methods to improve chatbot functionality in the business.

• 1. Try to update your chatbot with new information

  Updating your chatbots with new and real-time relevant information is mandatory to make it up to date. Neglecting the same may lead to a huge loss, as it may lead to more confusion and redundancy in the information being provided. Running a chatbot can be expensive and maintaining it can be time-consuming. Therefore, any drawbacks in the updating criteria may lead to huge costs.

• 2. Try to include empathy quality in chatbots

  Chatbots are considered efficient enough to manage various inquiries with different nature, but sometimes like other automated systems, customers feel the absence of empathy in conversation. This may sometimes lead to losing customers. Therefore, it is recommended to train the bot in such a way that it can capture customer sentiment throughout the conversation. Furthermore, it should focus on the flow of the conversation and explicitly ask customers how they feel after the conversation.

  

  Image Source: Google Images

• 3. Train them to collect information the initial conversation with customers

  Use bots to automate the repetitive tasks of information collected during the initial conversation period and at the start of any dialogue. Then direct the caller to one of the self-service options or online advisors.

• 4.Utilize the power of natural language processing (NLP) to make chatbots more friendly

  Using a friendlier tone during the conversation with consumers offers more benefits to the company. The NLP allows the system to learn about real language. This real language engagement allows the software to manage the personalized information of customers. The software can analyze the tone of customers and allows the chatbot to communicate in an interactive and engaging tone. This software also allows the company to determine the type, needs, and inquiries of customers.

• 5.Utilize interaction analytics to make chatbots more conversational

  The company needs to ensure that customers feel satisfied with the chatbot communication. The method of communicating on mobile phones is different from text messages and emails. It is therefore important to know the requirements of customers. The main motive should be to coach chatbots according to the preferences of consumers. The adaptations of chatbots can be based on the understanding that it gathered from interaction analytics.

Conclusion

Chatbots are a boon to businesses as it helps to offer details on customers preferences and their methods of purchases. The customer-focused targets can be planned using the interactions of chatbots and customers. The benefits of chatbots in the eCommerce business are enormous. Chatbots allow companies to get consumer feedback that helps in planning improvements.

If you have wanted to know more about chatbots and how it affects your e-commerce business, please connect our specialized team. We will assist you in dealing with all your inquiries.