The conversation is the most natural form of communication for humans. While new technologies are developing, we can not forget about the need for people to interact with other people. Fortunately, digital transformation enables easier communication with customers, and brands started to see their potential in conversational commerce.
How to take advantage of conversational commerce? Why is it crucial for business? How to drive sales with chatbots? Keep reading to find out!
But first, let us clarify the term.
What is conversational commerce?
Practically, conversational commerce uses natural language for interacting with customers during their buying journey. The goal of this trend is to help customers in making decisions by recommending products and provide customer support. That way, businesses can maintain relationships with customers and improve the overall perception of the brand.
Conversational commerce supposes to replace interaction with an in-store salesperson. This customer-orientated approach is significant for online businesses to get new buyers and nurture existing relationships.
Conversational commerce: not only a buzzword
The trend we discuss is this article became an important part of customer support. As shoppers expect fast and useful help while contacting brands, it is crucial to solving their problems in no time.
Numbers speak for themselves.
Even though some marketers think that shoppers prefer to interact with real humans than bots, actually The 2018 State of Chatbot Reports by Drift reveals that only 43% of respondents would agree. Additionally, according to Bot.Me: A revolutionary partnership of PwC, 27% of consumers were not sure if they had talked to a human or a bot during their last contact with customer service.
80 percent of businesses asked by Oracle admit that they use a chatbot or were planning to use one by 2020.
Not to even mention that 37% of the world’s population is using messaging apps. As you can see, the future of social commerce is in conversation.
Do not stay behind your competitors!
Take your business to the next level with conversational commerce
The ultimate advantage of conversational commerce is the usage of automation. Thanks to advanced technology brands can automate interactions with customers, thanks to chatbots and voice assistants.
Chatbots
Techopedia explains that
Chatbots placed on the website as well as in Facebook Messenger can successfully replace other forms of communication. Nowadays, customers do not like to contact brands via email and phone. We all know that it can be time-consuming and irritating. You can message shoppers the details about the delivery, to thank them for choosing your store, but chatbots can be also helpful at the beginning of the customer journey.
Chatbots are surely going to be one of the leading e-commerce trends for 2020.
GOLDEN TIP: With RocketLink, you can embed a chat box in the links that you share. For example, you can post a link on Facebook. A user can, therefore, instantly contact your company from a given website. Let’s imagine an article about fashion trends. You can recommend via chatbot products that represent the new summer collection. Do it in a friendly and helpful, not pushy way. Such contextual advertisement can be extremely effective because you interact with a customer when he is engaged in the topic.
What is fantastic about RocketLink is that you can use ANY link you share, not only a link to your website. Additionally, you can add retargeting pixels while you shorten and custom links via RocktLink. Find out more about RocketLink’s superpowers!
Note: Always link to content relevant for your audience so that you reach people interested in your offer.
Surprisingly, chatbots are easy to implement. You can use online tools, such as Bot Society, to program a chatbot without coding skills.
Voice assistants
Another example of the usage of conversational commerce is the voice assistant. This concept is even more similar to a human-to-human conversation.
A voice assistant can be defined as a digital assistant that uses voice recognition, speech synthesis, and natural language processing (NLP). Its goal is to provide a service through a particular application.
Voice assistants can help shoppers on every stage of the customer journey. This solution can be very useful for customers. Google and Amazon provide the most popular voice assistants. Currently, this technology is not as widely used as, for example, messenger, this trend will definitely grow in the next years.
GOLDEN TIP: The usage of voice assistants created the new method of searching – voice search. Take the specifics of the voice search into consideration when you optimize your website (SEO). As you can imagine, people ask the question differently depending on if they type them or simply say.
Conclusion
To conquer the market, you need to take advantage of the most advanced technologies, but for the most, focus on your consumers’ needs. Automation can be time-saving if it is appropriately implemented. The key is personalization so that customers can receive suitable recommendations and relevant content.
Deliver excellent customer experience by using the best tools. Remember always to test your solutions several times – otherwise, you might have to face the customers’ frustration. Program your bots to be intuitive, helpful, and simply nice. That way, your customers can be satisfied with the interaction with your brand and stay with you for longer.
chatbotscommunicationconversational commercecustomersecommercevoice assistantsvoice search
