With advancing technology, there is always something new in the field of the e-commerce market. The newest invention is chatbots which are currently used in the e-commerce marketing world. There is no doubt that communication between seller and customer is very important for any e-commerce business. So, chatbots are getting prevalent.
Now you may wonder what an e-commerce chatbot is. Chatbots are primarily AI systems that can interact with users through instant responses, give answers to their doubts, and also provide various information and instructions. It is mainly built with the purpose to act as a customer-service tool that replaces human activity and offers 24×7 service.
Studies suggest that about 80% of the communication with customers and interactions is done by chatbots. Buyers prefer getting instant replies to waiting for delayed responses. However, chatbots are not a substitute for customer service and must be used as a support system. You need a team of employees that are available to look after the complex issues while chatbots would attend to the easier situations like delivery problems, etc.
If you are interested in including a chatbot on your e-commerce website, let’s have a look at the features of a chatbot and its benefits. AI helps to improve your online store by giving a better shopping experience to the customers. Some of the advantages of incorporating a chatbot into your website are :
● Increased conversion rate.
● Less response time and customers don’t have to wait.
● Personalization in suggestions.
● Customers can easily connect and get solutions to any problem they may face.
● Increase in sales.
Some must-have features of a chatbot are:
1. Voice feature.
2. Supports multiple languages.
3. Notifications through sms, email, and DMS.
4. In-chat payment process.
5. Recover the shopping cart option.
Why Use a Chatbot?
● Customers don’t have to go through FAQs anymore because chatbots provide immediate responses to them. Starting from shipping facilities, to return policies and warranties, e-commerce chatbots provide instant answers to frequently asked questions. As a result, this saves time for the customers.
● Personalized shopping experience.
● AI-integrated chatbots can understand shoppers’ interests and preferences to produce highly personalized product recommendations. Chatbots are also useful for recommending the perfect gift products to customers during the holiday shopping season, following their preferences and budget.
● Chatbots are perfectly capable of making slight changes to order like address change, updating the tracking status of a parcel or changing the delivery date and thus, these functions do not require a human to perform it manually.
Now that we have discussed the reasons for using chatbots let’s look at 7 best chatbots to check out :
1. Octane
This chatbot software is designed specifically for Shopify users. It has great features like preconfigured templates, and it can include images, audio, and videos along with the conversation. It can connect to various reviews of products that can be shared with new buyers, is integrated to collect mail, and helps to recover shopping carts as well as notify about the various offers and stock alerts to the customers.
2. Sephora Chatbot
Sephora’s chatbot is very innovative and has a wide audience engagement. Customers are allowed to book through the chatbot which saves a lot of time. This chatbot constantly communicates with the buyers and encourages them to purchase by providing products that are preferred by them. Virtual Artist, the chatbot also helps the customer to choose their perfect shade of lipstick and other makeup products with the help of the virtual makeover option. This helps them to improve the rate of sales. This chatbot improves the customer experience by providing personalized service.
3. Botsify
This is an AI-integrated chatbot that offers various features like NLP (Natural-language processing), voice options, different payment methods, and integration with other services. You can personalize tasks with this chatbot and create a user-friendly virtual assistant for your e-commerce store. It extends its service to what we may call a “digital employee”. It can converse with customers naturally and learn about their preferences from an earlier conversation. It helps to develop the overall customer experience because of its capability to offer a response to complex queries and the use of memory.
4. Ada
Using e-commerce businesses features, it allows personalization and offers suggestions of products to the customers, booking through chat, and so on. Another striking feature of this chatbot is it offers customer data protection which helps the customers to gain trust in your website and as a result adds to the rise in conversion rates.
5. Kik Chatbot
It is a messenger service that engages with customers and provides answers to their doubts and problems very quickly. It uses Artificial Intelligence and helps buyers get relevant results. This chatbot service is a perfect example of how e-commerce businesses can use chatbots to increase their sales. Using a user-friendly Chatbot always helps e-commerce brands to develop brand loyalty with their customers.
6. Chatfuel
This is a widely-used messenger chatbot service that has payment options and an email integration system. It collects information through Facebook, and this is a great option for those sellers who have a strong social media platform to promote their business.
7. Botsociety
This is one of the best and easy-to-use platforms that helps you to create your chatbot from the very first stage. It includes various interesting features like voice assistant, images, and video incorporated into the conversation and others.
The Takeaway
Using Chatbots have some advantages like it promotes engagement between your brand and the customers. Having a chatbot gives a good overall impression of your e-commerce that ensures a better user experience for those who visit your site for the first time. Constantly communicating with the customers, and adding their names can help them to get a personalized experience. Chatbots, however, can’t be taken as an alternative to human customer care service. It is extremely important to have a team who can look after complex situations and answer complex queries of the customers that need special attention. Some of the best chatbots are listed above and studies suggest that they are extremely useful in taking your e-commerce business to the next level by understanding customer preferences and acquiring data from user behaviour and tend to work with all the information they have in-store to provide a user-friendly communication service to your customers.
