What is Conversational Commerce
Conversational Commerce refers to the technology by which online retailers & eCommerce platforms can provide a conversational shopping experience across their entire customer journey. Using AI-powered chatbots or voice assistants, it transforms every touchpoint — from product discovery to order tracking — into a simple chat.
According to research only 22% of consumers are happy with the level of personalization they receive from online brands. Conversational commerce allows brands to compensate for this lack of a personal touch in their online stores, simulating the customer engagement that human retail clerks once provided across brick & mortar stores.
WhatsApp Chatbots for eCommerce
What is WhatsApp Marketing Software?
In the public imagination, WhatsApp is viewed (rightfully so) as the most popular instant messaging service in the world. With more than two billion active users — if WhatsApp was a country, it would technically be the most populous one.
But what is often overlooked in the public discourse is the incredible technical infrastructure that WhatsApp provides for businesses, to enhance and upgrade their ⤵️
🎯 Lead Engagement: Pre-sale; includes lead generation and lead conversion
🎯 Customer Engagement: Post-sale; includes transactional messages, customer marketing and customer support.
The technology that enables the automation of these lead and customer engagement process is called a WhatsApp Marketing Software. Example? The Tars WhatsApp Engagement Suite.
What Is A WhatsApp eCommerce Chatbot?
A WhatsApp eCommerce Chatbot allows online retailers to connect with their customers where they actually are, i.e. WhatsApp. Using chat-based automation, it enables end-to-end engagement across all customer touchpoints — from product discovery to order tracking.
It do so by simulating human conversations based on a predefined set of conditions, that you are free to determine according to your specific use-case.
Benefits Of WhatsApp Chatbots For eCommerce & Retail
Since WhatsApp is primarily perceived as an instant messaging app to communicate with friends and family, WhatsApp Marketing Software (like the Tars WhatsApp Engagement Suite) allows retail & eCommerce platforms to position themselves as much more authentic, trustworthy and personal in all its customer interactions.
Moreover WhatsApp Messages have an open rate of nearly 98% and a response rate of nearly 40%! By giving 5x times more visibility and responses than any other channel, WhatsApp blows every other lead & customer engagement channel out of the water.
WhatsApp Use-Cases In eCommerce & Retail
1. WhatsApp Shopping Assistant
In the bygone age of traditional, brick & mortar stores, a friendly chat with a lovely ‘retail clerk’ was enough to ensure a guided shopping experience and resolve a buyer’s decision-making uncertainty. From product suggestions and aisle directions, to introducing brand new merchandise and clarifying the store’s returns policy — retail clerks were a one-stop solution for all things customer 🛒
However, in the age of hybrid retail & e-commerce businesses, an army of retail clerks is hardly a feasible option. That’s where WhatsApp Shopping Assistants come in and automate two key process:
Instead of trying to sell you on a million things at the same time, Tars WhatsApp Engagement Suite presents your consumers with a clean interface with list menus, where they can direct the product discovery process, and learn more about the same, without ever leaving the WhatsApp chat.
But that’s not the only way you can use our WhatsApp Engagement Suite to improve your conversion rate! If your business already runs Facebook / Instagram ads you can seamlessly redirect your high-intent leads into the WhatsApp Shopping Assistant to re-engage and convert them into happy, happy customers. Running Offline Advertisements too? Just add a QR code and you are good to redirect your offline leads into the funnel of WhatsApp Engagement.
2. Personalized Customer Marketing
Customer marketing is a term that refers to any marketing activity that’s aimed at your current customers. While channels like Email & SMS have been traditionally used for customer marketing campaigns, they tend to have extremely low open-rates and non-existent response rates.
Where Emails & SMSes fail, WhatsApp shines. Using the On-Time Campaign feature in the Tars WhatsApp Engagement Suite – any retail or ecommerce business can drive more revenue from their existing customers by sending personalized offers, product launches, discounts and referral codes to segmented audience lists; just like Big Bazaar did
3. Order, Shipping & Delivery Updates
We all know the boring transactional messages that tend to pile up in our SMS or Email Inbox. They are cold, impersonal and serve little purpose other thank ticking a checkbox in customer communication.
What if we told you that not only can these transactional messages be turned into engaging chat-based conversations — but they can also be triggered automatically, straight from your CRM!
That’s right, using the Tars WhatsApp Engagement Suite — your Retail/E-comm business can automatically trigger a smart notifications for:
4. Wishlist & Cart Abandonment Reminders
The retail & ecommerce space tends to have lower net margins which in turn necessitates a higher volume. This naturally translates to every retail business aiming for ⤵️
In both cases, customers need to periodically re-engaged, such that they receive ⤵️
That’s where the Tars WhatsApp Engagement Suite comes in. Using our Ongoing Campaign feature not only can you automatically trigger wish-list and cart abandonment reminders that customers actually read, but most importantly — you can bring customers back into the buyer journey and uncover hidden value in your funnel.
5. Instant Customer Support
In the e-comm or retail space, customer support queries tend to typically involve:
Since hiring an army of live agents is cost-ineffective and leads to annoying wait times, you can get all your commonly-asked customer support queries answered automatically, 24×7, through the Tars WhatsApp Engagement Suite.
Web Chatbots For eCommerce & Retail
What is an eCommerce Chatbot?
An eCommerce chatbot is a powerful widget that any online retailer or marketplace can add to their landing pages or websites to connect with their customers. Using conversational automation, eCommerce chatbots fundamentally transform the shopping experience to:
🎯 Move consumers faster through the sales funnel
🎯 Nudge consumers towards frequent purchases
🎯 Increase the Average Order Value (AOV) or Average Basket Size (ABS)
Which online retailer or ecommerce platform wouldn’t want to boost these particular KPIs? No wonder eCommerce chatbots are often referred to as the perfect tool to facilitate conversational commerce.
Benefits of eCommerce Chatbots
Research from McKinsey Global Institute shows that the retail industry could reap global benefits from AI worth $400 billion to $800 billion in coming years. On the frontlines of Artificial Intelligence in Retail are eCommerce chatbots.
Before we take a deep dive into each use-case of eCommerce chatbots, here’s a brief overview of the benefits they provide for retail / ecommerce businesses:
Chatbot Use-Cases in Ecommerce
1. Lead Generation Through e-Commerce Bots
Every online retailer wants to convert passive visitors to their website into highly engaged prospects. This is precisely what eCommerce bots managed to accomplish using:
And that’s not all! Most online retailers already run ad campaigns on social media (like Instagram & Facebook) to generate leads for their businesses. Our eCommerce chatbots can be seamlessly integrated into these ad strategies, such that each time a prospective customer clicks on the ad, it redirects them to a Lead Generation eCommerce Chatbot.
2. Virtual Shopping Assistant
How many times has it happened that you were on an online retailer’s website, perhaps looking to make a purchase, but were completely overwhelmed by the range of choices?
Figuring out what’s relevant and what’s not, sifting through hundreds of products and navigating the site expertly — all of these are processes that place the onus on the customer to resolve their Buyer’s Decision Making Uncertainty.
What if there was a different way for consumers to discover products that they actually want to buy, one that provided all the benefits of a human retail clerk at a fraction of their cost?
Meet Virtual Shopping Assistants. Using conversational automation, Virtual Assistants can come to the immediate aid of users as an in-house sales rep, answering customer queries, providing product recommendations, pulling up user-reviews and giving that extra assurance to the customer to make the final purchase.
3. Track Order, Shipping & Delivery
We all know that feeling of anticipation that engulfs us soon after we place an order online. Your customer are no different. They want to track their order - from shipping to the fulfilment centre to final delivery, and remain informed about any delays that might occur in the process.
Ecommerce chatbots cater to the precise need and help customers track the following:
4. Instant Customer Support
In the e-comm or retail space, customer support queries tend to typically involve:
Since hiring an army of live agents is cost-ineffective and leads to annoying wait times, you can get all your commonly-asked customer support queries answered automatically, 24×7, through eCommerce chatbots.