There has been an enormous rise in the development of chatbot applications in eCommerce platforms. Recently, approximately 80% of businesses have implemented chatbots on their website. When used appropriately, it can drive much more revenue than human customer support agents.
Before we look at 5 eCommerce chatbot tactics to implement in 2021, it is essential to look at some benefits of incorporating an eCommerce bot in your website.
Benefits of using eCommerce chatbot
24 x 7 customer support
Most customers want an immediate answer to their issues. However, keeping a customer service team available at any time is relatively expensive and mostly impossible, especially for local SMEs. Meanwhile, chatbots help foster customer satisfaction by engaging in the conversation no matter what time of day it is.
Reduced costs
Using chatbots help minimize your cost. Efficient customer assistance through chatbots doesn’t require much human support and allows you to focus on other aspects of your business.
Product guidance
If your business offers numerous types of products, it is quite hectic to go through all the catalog. Yet, with a chatbot, you can direct the customer to find the products they want and get assistance on product-related activities.
5 Best Practices of Ecommerce Chatbot
Ecommerce customers are frequently looking for a better experience to make their shopping journey personal and exciting. To achieve this, eCommerce businesses must use relevant tactics to introduce one-on-one interaction with customers. If you want to build a chatbot, it is important to ensure it has the following features.
Include Pre-chat questions
An important aspect of user experience is efficiency. Efficiency deals with smoothing your website visitors’ interaction so that it is easier for them to accomplish a task. You need to prepare pre-chat questions regarding various aspects of your business, such as sales, inventory, promotion, etc.
For example, when a customer comes to your site, a chat pops on asking, “What do you need help with? (options: Support, sales, and others)” for each section. Then it is broken down into a series of questions and answers to help the customer.
Be transparent
While chatbots can enable you to hold conversations fluently as human beings, don’t allow customers to assume they are speaking to a human being. Using automated responses can allow you to gather basic information about your customers. It is important to know they are interacting with a bot.
Integrate with CRM
Chat agents must have access to customers’ interaction records, including support tickets, purchases, and live chat sessions. Integrating CRM with your chatbot makes it easier for the chatbot to access the customers’ history and respond accurately.
Protect customer privacy
Customers like their privacy to be protected at all costs. Therefore, don’t allow the chatbot to be too intrusive. The chatbot should communicate when necessary (when asked). Furthermore, when customers share their private and personal information, it should be protected under all circumstances.
Know when to refer to a human
It is common for humans to make mistakes, and chatbots aren’t exempted. Peradventure, a customer has a question or inquiry that the bot cannot answer. Instead of moving in circles, it is better to refer the customer to a human customer agent to deal with the issue diligently.
Final thoughts
All in all, automated platform such as chatbots is always beneficial in increasing your productivity. It is important for business owners to understand what makes a well-executed bot to improve the customer experience. Integrate a chatbot, train your team, guide your customer on how to engage with a chatbot, and grow your brand right today.
