Since the last decade, the digital world has expanded vastly. Today millions of people prefer shopping on E-commerce platforms. But, selling products online is still one of the significant challenges that many E-commerce businesses face. To be specific, the main challenge in this domain is fulfilling the growing demands of buyers and adapt the business model accordingly. At present, the E-commerce market in India is expanding surprisingly fast and has become the need of the hour. So with the rising demands of the users, it has become essential to maintain the uninterrupted flow of services around the clock. But are you ready to connect with the next-gen of buyers?
Catching up with the growing needs of buyers is one of the important trends in the online commerce market. But, many companies in this sector often find it challenging to fulfill the growing needs of the customers and adapt as per them.
AI chatbots can amplify customer-driven and customer-centric practices.
However, if you compare the customer policies of leading businesses like Amazon, Myntra, Snapdeal, Paytm, and Flipkart, then you'll understand that a lot of customer-centric strategies, plans and policies have been revised to enhance the value of the customers on such platforms.
Do People Trust E-commerce?
Many people don't trust online commerce. They still prefer to buy products offline. The reason behind this distrust is when they buy from a physical store, they have a real person that interacts and guides them. Whereas, E-commerce businesses lack first-hand customer support, which many buyers prefer while making a purchase.
This is a known fact, online retail giants like Amazon, Target and Walmart opened physical stores in many countries. These companies believe that such move will help them gain the trust of the people and expand their presence to the masses.
From the beginning, buyers have evolved in this way. They at first wanted to be addressed by the shopkeeper or assistant about the relevant products or services. This is where E-commerce platforms fail to connect, and that makes it unmanageable for many new users to trust and connect with such a market and place their order.
However, AI chatbots can fill this gap. They interact with the website visitors as they land and bridge a two-way communication with them. Hence, with the first-hand conversation, it gets easier for buyers to ask their queries, get answers in real-time, and place an order.
Why Your E-commerce Business Needs AI Chatbot?
In the long run, AI chatbots will evolve as the trust-enabler between E-commerce platforms and customers.
Artificial Intelligence based chatbots are set to dethrone traditional customer engagement forums in the upcoming years. As an E-commerce, you might be wondering if it's for real. Look around; automation is the key to enhance the potential and pace of operations. Today, many E-commerce giants rely on AI and Machine Learning to understand the buying pattern of millions of users. So they can build a successful marketing campaign and pitch products to the buyers accordingly.
One bot for all: A single chatbot can assist thousands and thousands of the users at the same.
There are hundreds of reasons that may fascinate you to deploy an AI-based bot on your e-commerce website. But, the basic ones can be explained as:
Online Market Needs A Face!
The first hand connection with the visitors builds and strengthen the trust as well as grants them the idea of reliability.
There's no doubt that India's E-commerce has grown exponentially in the last decade. As in the year 2009, the market was worth $3.9 billion, whereas now in 2019, it is worth more than $38.5 billion.
This growth represents that people have shifted towards such platforms. But the penetration of E-commerce in India is still modest when compared to other countries like U.S, U.K, and France. However, every month India's E-commerce market is adding around 6M new users.
With such immense potential, it becomes important to connect with the users as they land on the website. With the help of virtual support, you can establish an instant connection with the visitors. Plus, when people are greeted on their visit, it enables trust between them and business (similar to the physical stores).
Fast, Reliable, and Cost-effective Customer Support:
Once a chatbot interacts with the users, it can remember them and their queries, until they don't remove the cache and cookies of the application or browser. Jokes apart, E-commerce chatbots remain available for 24*7, and they respond instantly as a user asks a query.
The lack of customer support was the sole reason behind the failure of many E-commerce businesses.
Moreover, chatbots can answer all the repeated queries of the customers regarding products and services in real-time. With instant support and two-way communication, bots can establish a real connection with the users. As a matter of fact, the presence of chatbots can heighten the uprightness of your E-commerce among the buyers.
The major part of the E-commerce operations relies on traditional customer engagement and support methods, that eventually burdens the operation cost.
In case if chatbot fails to address the issue, then it will instantly transfer the query to a live chat agent. This will make the operations smooth and easy for customers as well as from the perspective of the E-commerce businesses; they can reduce the cost of service while strengthening the services.
Poor Customer Support: The Failure Behind Many E-commerce Businesses
In India, thousands of E-commerce websites have the potential to overcome as big organizations. But, due to the lack of resources and human resources, many of them are bound to expand at a low rate.
However, this scenarios can be changed with automation, which many e-commerce giants are already practising.
Not to mention, that at present, only a few E-commerce businesses are commanding the online market. There's a reason, because in the past, due to the high penetration rate of buyers, many of the businesses have failed to manage and deliver timely customer support. As a result, users have shifted their interest towards more reliable platforms.
More Than 75% Orders Are Cash on Delivery, But AI Chatbots Can Change This
Digital transactions can help E-commerce businesses reduce the cost of operation.
AI chatbots can not influence the buyers to make a payment online. Because it's possible that buyers may not have access to digital gateways. But, a bot can tell them about the offers and benefits of paying online. That many users fail to notice and understand. Though it'll be wrong to assume that bots can alter this scenario. But, when pursued as a campaign, they can impact the end-users and educate them about the offers briefly.
More Than 80% of the Queries are Monotonous and Repeated, AI Chatbots Can Answer Them
Most of the users don’t avail E-commerce services because their queries don’t get answered at the right time.
Almost every E-commerce website offer FAQ, Customer reviews, and Ask a question sections. These are principally designed to clear the clutter, that a buyer might encounter while making a purchase.
Now, there are two areas that we need to focus on:
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The all-text knowledgebase degrades the customer experience: A user has to search through many queries to get a proper response. This process takes time and doesn't guarantee that users will always get the right solution. Hence it degrades the customer experience.
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Not everyone read FAQ's: The fact is that not every buyer reads and understands the previously answered queries. Therefore, despite the availability of the information on the website, many people use to call customer support agents to get the answer to the already answered queries. This eventually leads to the added operational cost.
AI Chatbots: A Better Platform to Let Customer Compare Products
One-on-one conversation is the most effective way to engage and convey a message to the E-commerce users.
E-commerce companies allow users to compare products and filter them as per their specifications. With all the information printed on the screen, customers often struggle to find the factors that can influence them to buy a product.
AI chatbots, on the other hand, can help users in understanding the basic difference between the products and which one can be best for them as per their requirement. By commanding the E-commerce chatbot, a customer can ask to filter out specific information. This gives them a sense of command as well as ease the process for them.
Perfect the Knowledge-base with AI Chatbots
Knowledgebase serves a crucial role in clearing the doubts of the buyers regarding a product or service. But, users have to scroll a lot to learn about the same.
This process of educating customers with the required information can become more manageable with AI chatbots. Like, when a customer will select a specific product, then the bot will offer the one-touch access to the FAQ section within the chat screen. Moreover, in case a user wants specific information, then the bot will take the input and present the asked information in just seconds.
As a result, the interaction of the chatbot with the E-commerce users can help them simplify the process, boost the engagement rate and sales effectively.
Sell more with Storytelling
Breathe life into your E-commerce with the art of Storytelling.
Selling is an art and so is Storytelling. When infused in AI chatbot, it can help you connect your brand with the customers, that'll ultimately enhance the engagement rate and yield of business.
AI chatbots can master the conversations by learning from the user inputs.
Stop selling to your customers, instead educate them about the product and keep it alive in their memory. This way, buyers get a sense that a business isn't pursuing them. Hence it increases the chances that they will make a purchase when they have to.
AI chatbots can become the torchbearer of your E-commerce business. They can engage with visitors using interactive tools, such as Images, Gifs, Videos, and Audio. It'll ultimately result in grasping the attention of the users and keep them interlocked with the bot.
How Can Analytics Help "Scale up the Sales"?
Analytics is the only way to win more customers and sale more products!
But, for many businesses, analytics is simply organized and categorized data. That won't help in achieving the real objectives. However, these are the two main characteristics of the analytics that makes it valuable, if decoded in the right way.
Smart Approach + Deep Prospecting = The Way to Sell via E-commerce
In the E-commerce world, there's nothing more valuable than prospects aka interested buyers. These are the ones who mark products in the favorite section, add them to the cart, or wishlist them. So, they can place their orders when it's suitable for them.
But, many users , abandon the carts and wishlist section in cold state for months. As a result, millions of products fail to reach the door of customers.
This practice can be changed with the help of AI chatbots. A bot can understand the requirements of the visitors by analyzing the products in their carts and wishlist. And, can further recommend better products to them. This can result in the growth of the customer base as well as will enhance sales.
Analytics: What Makes Traditional Tools Slack?
Analytics is the most important factor in understanding the needs of the users as a buyer. It can help you differentiate a visitor from prospect and customer. With the right analytics, you can turn interested buyers into customers. But do traditional tools get you the data that can do the magic?
That’s not it. AI chatbots possess endless potential. It truly depends on how you are implementing next-gen technology in your business.
Traditional tools can't light the right direction
Traditional tools are ineffective in establishing a connection with the users. Plus, in this conversational era, people don't like interacting with such tools that lack two-way communication. Hence with less user input, it gets challenging for the businesses to understand the right intent of the users.
Traditional tools have a limitation, like they can not get you information about every user interaction. That eventually makes it hard to analyze how to win more customers?
Heatmaps:
When it comes to interpreting "What website visitors are doing on a website", Heatmaps representation is one of the most widely practiced methods. But, nonetheless, by Heatmaps, you might get the idea of how to make your website content for visitors, but there's no guarantee that it will result in a boost in sales.
Forms:
Are you still relying on forms to get the needs of the users? What's the interaction rate you are getting? I guess, less than 15%. Is this it?
There's no way, you can maximize the engagement rate via a one-way communicational channel. Because people have already shifted towards the conversational platforms like chatbots and live chats. So, it's better to drop the idea of forms for customer support, marketing and sales together.
Email:
Are you still emailing your customers that they forget to place their order? That's kind of old age technique. Don't you think, you could have done better with AI chatbots? That can engage with the visitor, and ask them whether they will place an order now or 3 weeks later. So, you can better manage the inventory.
Feedback:
There are two ways; an E-commerce business can get the feedback of the customers. First one is via reviews and the other is via web forms (not to talk about). So, let's keep the focus on submitting reviews manually. This process is time-consuming, hence very few customers post their genuine reviews. On the other hand, in case of the delivery of the defected product, a customer makes sure to post the bad review.
Bad reviews hurt, and that's why there's a need to enhance the customer experience. Via AI chatbots, you can trigger the feedback collection process as per the defined time. Then a bot can get the feedback of the users while interacting and sympathizing with them. And, assuring them that their issue has been transferred to the concerned team in real-time.
This way, you can reduce the impact of bad marketing via AI chatbots. Instead, the chance is that people may promote your platform as the most reliable one among their friends and family members.
Tele-support:
When people can't find a solution elsewhere they helplessly avail tele support, knowing that it will take time to connect. The waiting time has become a norm, and that's why customers don't bother much. But it gets worse when they don't get adequate support. Hence, it gets critical for human agents to solve the query of the user as soon as possible.
The Power of Chatbot Metrics and Analytics
When most people think of AI chatbot they consider it as a conversational interface. But, when utilized correctly, they can act as a goldmine.
Right user metrics can do wonders to your business. But, traditional tools fail to fetch important details regarding the interaction of the website visitors. However, an AI-based E-commerce chatbot can collect exclusive details of the users in real-time like, interaction with products, preferences, what they disliked, and how they responded to the chatbot, etc. When utilized correctly, these user details are no less than a gold mine. They can help E-commerce businesses to enhance the customer experience by improving the services in the right direction.
The best way is to set an early impression on the user and this could be done by adding welcome message right in the beginning such as ‘Hi, I am the virtual assistant of XYZ, How can I help you? Or “Hi, Welcome to xyz.com’. What are you looking for? Here are some options to begin with”.
Ease customer executives: As chatbots can handle 80% of the repeated queries of the customer, they can help customer case executives to keep the locus of support to solve complex queries. By addressing complex queries with priority, you can win more customers while reducing the operation cost.
Tailor personalized services: AI chatbots can remember the past interactions of the users, and use them further to customize the future conversations. Moreover, bots can keep the focus on customers while promoting the products or services. Plus, by personalizing the services, you can boost the engagement rate, and also save the time of customers by promoting relevant products.
Record real-time interactions: AI chatbots enable E-commerce businesses to get hands-on real-time user interaction. This information can be analyzed to perfect the services as per the user input. The instant access to critical data reduces the operation cost, and also maximize the efficiency and functioning of a business.
What Key Metrics can Make R&D Perfect?
What is a metric?
A metric is a quantifiable measure that is used to track and assess the status of a specific business process and visitors interaction.
Metrics and analytics are inter-related with each other. Metrics can be defined as numbers, and analytics is the process of utilizing these numbers to make a decision and proceed in the right direction.
What Are the Important Metrics?
E-commerce chatbots, unlike traditional tools, can get you the right metrics in real-time. AI bots allow you to get specific information within the conversational frame as per the domain of your business. You can enhance the metrics by asking the user a few questions at the end of the bot-conversation. Like, by collecting user feedback, you can get information apart from the Chatbot analytics. Moreover, as there are hundreds of AI chatbots out there, so their functionality might vary. Hence, I'll discuss the metrics of the Enterprise Chatbot Platform Frontman:
Incoming messages
Frontman allows you to get an overview of the total messages sent by the users. This data can help in understanding the engagement of the visitors, and if the conversational flow is intact or not! This category is further categorized into three sections, which include Free Text that includes the user input in the form of text messages, Quick Replies include the total number of user inputs while selecting the predefined replies in the conversational flow, and Button that includes the responses of the users via Bot says card, Carousel card, and Image/Gif card.
Note: If you are getting good website traffic but low bot-visitor engagement rate, then you should consider revising the Frontman's conversational flow.
Total users
In this section, you'll get information about the total number of users Frontman has interacted with. Getting hands-on this information is essential as you can get a better idea of how many users have shown interest in taking assistance from Frontman. Furthermore, the Total users' sections can be useful in analyzing a marketing campaign and if the chatbot can make an impact! The Total users are divided into two sections, New users and Returning users. So, let's understand about them in brief:
New & Returning Users
This Key Performer Indicator presents the real-time information of the visitors' interaction with the chatbot. It shows the count of newly arrived users on the website and returning users. This can help you understand, how many visitors pose a great chance to buy a product. Moreover, with the help of Frontman AI, you can tailor a special conversation for them, or display unique offers to make them proceed to the next transactional phase.
Also, by analyzing the data of New and Returning users, you can get a better understanding of the overall popularity of the chatbot among the visitors. And, if this key metric is dipping, then you should consider redesigning the conversational flow and design of the chatbot.
Engaged users
User engagement section in the Analytics section of the Frontman allows you to get the details of Most frequent user inputs, Most frequent clicked buttons and Most frequent visited blocks.
By getting these details, you can understand what users prefer to say while pursuing pre-defined conversational flow. Plus, by analyzing these details, you can measure the efficiency of the E-commerce chatbot.
User Stats and Session Length
In addition to the above-discussed metrics, the user stats section gets you combined analytics of user engagement. It displays the duration of the bot-conversation for the Average sessions per day, Average incoming messages per user, Average message per hour per user, Average messages per day and Average minute spend per user.
All this information can work as a goldmine for an E-commerce platform. Plus, by introspecting the overall performance of the chatbot, you can understand the behavior of the website visitors.
Track Campaigns and Completion Rate
E-commerce businesses often run campaigns like "Festive sale", "End of season sale", "Grand Sale", etc. But, are you able to understand why many of your users are not participating in such a bonanza sale?
Knowing this can make you compose a sale that can help you sell the products to the untapped customers. You can track such campaigns with the help of AI chatbot like Frontman. Using this bot, you can place the Goal-tracker card at important conversational turns. When the users will pass through these points then it will be marked as the completion and the result will be displayed in the analytics section of the Frontman.
By understanding the graph of the Goal Tracker, you can analyze the percentage of the users that have completed a campaign. This feature of the Frontman can benefit an E-commerce business in interpreting the entire journey of the visitors.
Urchin Tracking Module
Frontman is a super bot, it has many industry-first and industry-specific features bundled to its core. Like this chatbot is UTM enabled, it tracks the source of visitors' origin and helps in understanding the success of online campaigns run on varied medias.
This feature lets E-commerce business to get better insights on about the visitors' penetration and design the marketing campaign while boosting ROI.
Further, with the help of A/B testing card, you can run two different conversational flows for pre-defined users and understand which one is more suitable for your business.
Note: The traffic statistics can be viewed by week, month or in a custom date range. All this is critical to the organics of the E-commerce platforms.
Measure Customer Satisfaction: Let Visitors Rate a Product or Service
Good customer experience will always lead to good customer satisfaction.
E-commerce businesses often struggle to improve the customer experience. Mainly, because unhappy customers are unlikely to return and make a purchase again. Therefore, it's important to understand if a customer is happy with the services or not.
Moreover, Frontman allows businesses to get real-time insights into customer satisfaction. This AI chatbot can interactively collect the feedback of the users, and send the ratings to the concerned team in real-time.
Apart from the business perspective, it's imperative to get the feedback of the users. It can help detect the weak points in the chatbot conversation flow that may include incorrect answers, poor conversation design, repetitive responses, and knowledge gaps.
You Need These Metrics to Perfect the Real-time Marketing
Real-time marketing is the most effective way to showcase the perks of a product or services among interested buyers because it enables them to get a better understanding of the product they have shown interest earlier.
As visitors' interaction pattern is switching day-to-day, it has become necessary to market products in the way they like. The above-defined metrics can help you tailor a personalized experience for the varied user base as per their interaction.
AI chatbots like Frontman can master the conversation based on user input, hence bot-visitor interaction results in better output. This bot can connect with thousands of visitors at the same time, and play the personalized conversation to keep them engaged.
By enhancing the individual experience on such platforms, a chatbot can level up the synergy between buyers and E-commerce platforms, and further upscale the sales and revenue.
All the above metrics can only be derived through a well-equipped chatbot analytics platform. Makerobos' Frontman not only provides a chatbot building platform but also focuses on the analytical side of a chatbot. Hence, removing hassles of integrating third-party analytics into the chatbot which could be an expensive and time-consuming affair.
The key performance indicators (KPI) can make or break a business. That's why Frontman displays them in a well-organized way. Further, to make it easy for the businesses, all the important analytics is presented in the form of graphs and charts. This empowers the brands and enterprises to improve the performance and boost the customer engagement rate by making use of real-time and pre-stored audience information.
Conclusion
E-commerce businesses always strive to delight their customers with an unparalleled experience. But, with traditional tools of engagement, it eventually results in average customer satisfaction.
This can be improved with AI chatbots. By implementing new tactics via conversational channels, you can understand how to enhance customer satisfaction! and get the best out of your E-commerce business.
AI chatbots can help you go the extra mile and stand your business apart from the competitors. Plus, bots like Frontman come with advance UI that is based on LEGO architecture, which makes designing and building a bot for your E-commerce super easy and fun.
