The world of eCommerce business is a highly competitive scenario where every move that the brand makes will have an impact on its customers and visitors. It is up to the brand’s strategic team to decide whether it is a positive or a negative impact by aligning it appropriately.
A strong customer service by implementing live chat for e-commerce is mandatory which has been signified through various studies and statistics. Adding strength to the statement is a survey by Econsultancy that claims, “79% of customers would wish to have live chat when shopping because it is immediate and accessible.”
Having a live chat on your e-commerce website retains customers and helps them better, which is a fact. Before we delve further into the question of whether it should be done with a personal touch or faster support, let us explore the major differences between a human and a bot answering questions.
eCommerce Business Strategies: Human Vs AI
Be it a brand new startup or an existing online store, customer support is of utmost importance and if you haven’t implemented it yet, it is time to do so.
Personal Live Chat support offers
- A personalized solution where a human responds to questions during specific hours when a customer is online
- They still have to make use of personalized, template messages in order to speed up chat
- The person can choose to offer unique solutions that ensure customer satisfaction
- It requires manual labor and can also be provided only during fixed hours whereas customers may shop and have questions at odd hours
Chatbot Powered by AI
- A chatbot is instant and is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and throughout the year
- The same set of template questions used by a person can also be utilized by AI to respond
- Improving big data measurement and better AI have led to simple tools that can power up chatbots with minimal technical assistance
- They are easy to use, cost-effective and can work on WordPress or other eCommerce websites as a plugin
Millennials, the e-commerce generation that loves shopping online, prefer to have a bot over a real person to answer most of their common questions immediately. At least 63% agree with this, according to Software Advice survey.
Converging Social Media and Mobile-Friendly Apps to Retain Customers
One of the biggest challenges faced even by e-commerce giants is the ability to retain a customer’s attention while they are shopping. The attention span has considerably reduced and if a shopper is not provided with viable information on how to place an order or other technical questions, they may move to a different website or never purchase at all.
Mobile-friendly apps are proven to be more effective because when using a smartphone, the user is bound to using multiple apps at once and the chances of them completing a purchase are much higher compared to a desktop or laptop at work. Besides, their mindset is more relaxed when using phones during specific hours, which encourages them to spend more.
In order to improve customer experience, creating a personalized touch that they can immediately associate with the brand is important. In this highly competitive environment, a lot of purchasing decisions are made based on how a brand treats its customers, makes them feel good which leads to conversions. While it is mandatory to deliver products on time, provide live chat for e-commerce and use reliable shipping methods, offering additional perks such as freebies, friendly staff, and added value for money go a long way in convincing a customer to stay with your brand for longer.
The Best Time to Promote Your Ecommerce Website on Social Media
Based on the metrics created by Rhonda Piper, there are some e-commerce data available on how you can combine chatbots with timely social media posts to create a personal touch.
- Facebook is considered to be a weekend website that people love and Thurs-Friday seem to be the best time to promote your products as posts
- Consider the type of products you sell and if Twitter is your platform of choice, choose working hours between Monday to Friday as it works best on weekdays
- Most companies tap into the Instagram audience throughout the week in the late afternoon between 3 to 4 pm and you can do the same for your website
- Pinterest is a website that people use to shop during weekends and Saturday afternoons are ideal to promote your content on it
Implement Mobile-Friendly Apps to Influence Visitors
Having a mobile-friendly website or a dedicated app for Android/iOS is considered one among the much-needed eCommerce business strategies. While we can further explore how live chat support software for eCommerce websites can help stir business, mobile apps have a significant role to play.
According to 2018 e-commerce statistics conducted by Codal, over 24% of the e-commerce sales were done on mobile devices.
The advantage of bringing your e-commerce to the mobile platform has a fair share of advantages including,
- Users will be able to access your entire product catalog leisurely on a mobile device
- The app enables them to shop on-the-go while traveling in the car or waiting in a shopping mall
- Instant checkouts and ease to pay improve customer conversion rate while reducing cart abandonment
- Chatbots are quite popular on the mobile platform as well as e-commerce website making them an important tool to push sales
Building Your Customer Service with Chatbots and Live Chat
The debate on whether you need chatbots or a live chat can go on and on. However, there is one simple and straightforward answer to this question. A good eCommerce website will need both because the immediate response AI-powered chatbots help a lot in ensuring a customer’s basic questions are answered whereas live chat is much more personalized for more complex hurdles a visitor faces.
A survey by Kayako confirms that “over 79% of e-commerce businesses claim that live chat/chatbots has increased sales and also played a huge role in improving customer/brand loyalty”
Technology enables humans to work much better and deliver on various fronts in a more effective manner. While your brand can make use of various improvements in terms of utilizing Big Data, Social Media websites and Mobile-Friendly apps, live chat have a spot in it.
Telus International report claims that support agents can seek assistance from chatbots allowing them to handle up to six customers at once and focus on complex issues whereas the basic ones can be handled through pre-defined replies in an automated system.
What Do You Need? Personalized Touch or Faster Support?
#YouNeedThemBoth
Customers have no time or the attention span to understand a brand’s goals. All they require is an immediate answer when they are unable to complete a purchase or if they are unable to find the product they are looking for or there is some sort of technical issue. Whatever the scenario is, unless the problem is really complex, you can rely on live chat for e-commerce to provide them immediate, pre-defined answers.
- An Aberdeen Group report claims that companies that use chat service can save over 50% of their expenses by combining both these technologies by hiring employees as well as using AI
- Live chat helps boost conversion rate not only for B2C eCommerce websites but also for B2B sellers as it brought about 20% increase, according to the American Marketing Association
- The global chatbot market is growing at a rapid pace as over 45% visitors prefer to have AI-powered live chat to quickly answer their queries
Corporate giants like Amazon and other firms can deploy both services, a live chat provided by a representative and chatbots that help on the fly. Among other eCommerce strategies, it is mandatory to have a chat feature on your WordPress website as it helps boost sales, conversion rate and retain customers on the platform.
With the vast majority of customers suggesting that they need immediate response at any time of the day, AI-powered chatbots are the way to go as they are inexpensive software for e-commerce business that can be implemented into any website. They help in the betterment of customer experience and live chat by people is feasible when your investors allow them to be facilitated.
A Kayako survey claims that over 51% of the customers feel comfortable and are inclined to purchase again from a company when they offer live chat support, which is possible by using human assistants during working hours and chatbots in non-working hours. Combining the best of AI chatbots with quick, template replies with customized and personalized solutions for more complex scenario is a great way to deliver the best user experience that your customers would expect.
Start by implementing chatbots first to tap into its advantages before introducing live chat for an ecommerce website as you need them both in order to sustain and grow in this highly competitive market. Be it a startup or an established commerce brand, every company needs to ensure they keep their customers satisfied and well-informed to offer a holistic shopping experience.
Infographic source: www.providesupport.com
