How conversational commerce can transform online shopping

With the growth and innovation of consumer technology, retail customers can now purchase products with the click of a button.

But with increased capabilities, comes higher consumer expectations. Shoppers now want brands to engage with them on a personal level and provide them with a more personalised retail experience.

80% of consumers are more likely to shop with brands that provide personalised experiences. And personalisation can reduce acquisition costs by as much as 50% and can increase revenue by up to 15%.

Epsilon

How can businesses tailor the buyer’s journey to each customer? By allowing consumers to communicate with them in ways they never could before.

What is Conversational Commerce?

Conversational commerce combines messaging apps, voice technology, chatbots, and live video chat with online shopping. Messaging apps consumers can use to interact with businesses include Facebook Messenger, Instagram chat, or WhatsApp.

Customers can use these apps to get customer support, ask questions, get personalised recommendations, and purchase products. With conversational commerce, a consumer can either interact with a human representative, chatbot, or a mix of both.

But conversational commerce goes beyond messaging platforms. For example, consumers can now connect with companies via live video chat.

As remote work and eCommerce continue to boom, live video chat will be a huge area of conversational commerce. Through live video chat, customers can interact with online stores in real-time. They can ask questions, view products, and get recommendations.

What Conversational Sales Mean for Consumers

Using conversational sales platforms, consumers can more easily purchase products and get support from brands. For example, within some messaging apps, consumers can purchase a product or service without leaving the conversation.

With live video chat, customers can get personalised customer support and faster responses. This reduces wait times and, ultimately, frustration.

Text isn’t always enough to solve issues customers face. Every customer experience is unique, which means there should be a unique response from customer support.

Benefits of Conversational Commerce for Brands

There are a host of benefits your business can gain from conversational commerce, including:

  • Resolve issues faster: It’s fairly common for customers to make multiple touchpoints with a brand to get the right solution for their problem. But with live video chat, you can identify and solve the issue in the first go.
  • Make more sales: Through video chat, you can offer live, one-to-one online demos for products, anything from jewellery to cars.
  • Boost customer satisfaction: When you solve and identify an issue faster and personalise conversations with customers, that improves the customer experience. This, in turn, increases customer satisfaction.

Which Conversational Commerce Channel Should You Use?

Consider using different conversational channels in unique situations. For example, if an issue is pretty simple to solve, an AI chatbot should be sufficient.

For more complex issues, live chat and video chat are best. Video chat can be a more effective channel because you’re interacting with customers face to face. This not only helps you solve problems without phone or chat wait times, but it also helps you humanise your brand.

Using Conversational Commerce at Every Stage of the Buyer’s Journey

Let’s look at how you can use conversational commerce and customise it depending on where your leads are in the buyer’s journey.

1. Awareness

At this stage, prospects know they have a problem. This is when they start looking for ways to solve it. In the process, they discover your business.

You can create quality content and promote your great products. But some customers need a little extra to get them to the next stage.

This is where conversational commerce comes in–to help drive them toward the consideration stage.

They might be browsing your Facebook and Instagram page. They want to know how you can solve their problem.

You should be available to answer any questions they have. This is where you can have a conversation with them, whether it’s through text message, email, or even live chat.

2. Consideration

At this stage, your prospects have already done their research on your company (and possibly others).

However, they’re still looking for information that will help answer their remaining questions or remove possible doubts. They’re likely comparing you against competitors, reading reviews, and weighing their options.

82% of consumers expect an immediate response from brands on marketing or sales questions. 90% of them view an immediate response as important when they have a question.

Hubspot

A great way to provide that is conversational commerce. This could be the difference between a customer choosing you over a competitor.

3. Decision

At the decision stage, a lead is ready to purchase. They most likely have decided which product or service they’re going to buy.

This step is perhaps where conversational commerce is the most critical. That’s because making a purchase decision requires a more personal touch than any other stage of the buyer’s journey.

For example, at this stage, potential customers might want to set an appointment or make a purchase entirely through a messaging bot or one of your live agents.

4. Retention

Now that you’ve acquired customers you shouldn’t stop there. Through conversational commerce, you can offer personalised recommendations to compel customers to make repeat purchases.

Using text, chat, and live video, you can reach out to customers one on one.

This will allow you to learn their preferences, interests, and likes and dislikes. That way, you can tailor your recommendations to suit their exact needs.

As a result, they’re more likely to come back for more of your products and services.

5. Advocacy

When a customer is satisfied to the point where they’re recommending your products to others, they’ve become a brand ambassador.

You can use conversational commerce to ask customers for testimonials or product reviews. This will not only make them feel connected to your brand, but it’ll also help build brand awareness and trust with potential customers.

Conversational commerce is a great tactic for businesses to use to build trust and customer satisfaction. Live video chat will emerge as one of the best ways for enabling brands to sell better online.

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