Conversational commerce refers to businesses using messaging technology as a form of interaction to win the sale.
Tools and platforms include website and in-app chatbots, live chat, messaging apps (WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook Messenger, etc.), and voice assistants (Amazon Echo).
In comparison to email, conversational commerce is much more casual and flexible for the customer. Messages also have a higher open rate than emails (whether in-app or through a messaging platform).
Well-executed conversational commerce will integrate seamlessly into your marketing strategy and will be a great source of data for personalization.
For example, website chatbots can nudge a visitor by offering to help with common problems related to the webpage.
Mirroring the visitor’s actions can help increase engagement by showing the visitor that you’re actively working to solve their problems.
If you notice that visitors spend a lot of time toggling between pages to compare different items, consider mimicking the assistance of a sales representative in a physical store using a chatbot.
Instead of leaving visitors to look around by themselves, your chatbot could ask them about their preferences and guide them towards items the visitor might like. This saves time for the users and makes it easier for them to reach a purchase decision.
Conversational commerce can also mimic the experience of dedicated assistance in high-end retail stores.
A customer could open a query, have their doubt resolved, and purchase an item without having to leave the chat.
Whilst not quite the same as being in a physical store, purchasing through the chat is still much faster than opening a query with customer service through a website form, waiting for a reply, and purchasing on the website.
If customized orders are a big part of your business, conversational commerce might be a more user-friendly option for placing orders online.
Instead of trawling through countless checkboxes and subpages to place their order, customers can just type their order as they would say it in-store.
Chats that are saved and constantly accessible on proprietary apps or third-party messaging platforms are also a good way to provide post-purchase service.
This can be used not only to respond to customer queries, but also for up-selling or cross-selling, re-engagement, and encouraging repeat purchases.
