Chatbots in eCommerce: Why Are They Important?

How many times have you opened a website or even a Facebook page, and a chatbot popped up? Frankly, this is quite a norm in businesses in general and not just a fashionable webpage style trend. Numerous benefits of chatbots in eCommerce have lighted up opportunities to expand your reach and improve customer satisfaction. 

They perform a set of assigned mundane and repetitive tasks, something too basic for humans (and boring as well!). For instance, Facebook recently incorporated chatbots into its Messenger app in a way to cater to businesses present on its platform.

What are Chatbots?

eCommerce Chatbots are automated bots that interact with customers as they land on a website through a chat interface. They provide a seamless customer experience as if visitors are speaking to customer service agents using live chat.

But that’s not all. These smart chatbots can be used in a variety of ways, courtesy of their quick automated responses.

To emphasize, the global chatbot market will be worth $9.4bn by 2024. Now, most web pages are shifting towards this trend that provides convenience and a sense of 24×7 availability. Similarly, e-commerce businesses should also think about integrating chatbots into their online platforms. Let’s discuss why!

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Why are chatbots important? 

The importance of chatbots in businesses is rapidly increasing, with an estimated 80% of marketers planning to incorporate them into their customer service strategies. This trend has led to a significant improvement in the overall customer experience, which is why many businesses are investing in this technology.

Chatbots, powered by artificial intelligence, can enhance operational efficiency, leading to significant cost savings for businesses. By automating frequently asked questions, use of chatbots in e-commerce business can reduce the need for human interaction, saving time and providing a convenient experience for customers. 

Moreover, they can handle multiple customer inquiries simultaneously, providing timely assistance without the need for customers to wait in long queues or on hold.

Let’s look at the benefits of Chatbots in detail: 

What are the benefits of chatbots in eCommerce?

Below are the benefits of chatbots in eCommerce that make them a prominent part of marketing strategies: 

Chatbots in eCommerce upsell

Chatbots are a great way to increase your marketing efforts for the latest collections and deals. AI chatbots can even calculate personal preferences, order history, and social media activities to figure out which item best fits a visitor’s needs. This not only helps e-commerce businesses to market their new products to new customers but also creates a potential for upselling. 

Personalization

Integrating chatbots in an e-commerce business might not be as much of a challenge as giving it a human touch. Companies that provide increased levels of personalization in their chatbots are more likely to outperform. Speaking to a bot that delivers generic responses is fine. 

However, if one modernizes it by giving it the ability to read, understand customer responses, and analyze past purchasing behavior to generate replies is one level above.

Sephora is one of the largest retailers of beauty products and is also one of the best eCommerce chatbots offering personalized customer experiences. It has a team of 3 chatbots, i.e. Sephora virtual assistant, Sephora reservation assistant, and Sephora’s Kik chatbot deployed between Facebook and Kik. 

These chatbots offer advice to customers, let users book beauty appointments, and more.

Seamless checkout procedures

Subtle attention to detail goes a long way, especially in the case of e-commerce businesses. In e-commerce, one thing that customers hate is a dragging checkout process. Sometimes added features like editing cart items show customers the “human touch” involved. 

Whether yours is a product-based or service-based e-commerce business, eCommerce chatbots can make the complex checkout process easier for customers.

Chatbots can even make checkouts through Facebook Messenger! If we look at e-commerce chatbot statistics, studies suggest that by 2023, chatbots are projected to drive e-commerce transactions worth $122bn. 

Similarly, 25% of consumers are open to talking to a human or a chatbot as long as it leads them to their desired outcome. Therefore, chatbots can even take care of customer service on behalf of businesses.  

Solving customer problems

AI chatbots for eCommerce can greatly facilitate businesses by handling customer queries and complaints 24/7. This is one of the most important and common e-commerce chatbot use cases. 

It can directly converse with customers for support in case of grievances or feedback that needs instant handling, irrespective of the time and location.

Additionally, offering 24-hour support is a great way to ensure customer satisfaction. Nowadays, customers prefer to interact with a bot which makes up almost 35% of users. 

Reduced costs

Since chatbots are fully capable of doing all customer service activities, this can help save a massive amount of resources spent on hiring, training, and retaining a customer service team. They have self-learning capabilities due to machine learning technologies which is why it requires less human interference.

Moreover, companies can focus more on their core business operations by efficiently deploying chatbots in eCommerce. Besides, chatbots leave little or no room for costly errors and mistakes.  

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Few Disadvantages to Using Chatbots

Even though chatbots are a great way to provide seamless customer service, they still it has some downsides, such as:

• eCommerce chatbot AI benefits lack human emotion. Human customer support personnel usually understand the emotions of their customers and respond accordingly, whereas chatbots do not. They are just too mechanical and only perform pre-programmed conversations.

• It is difficult to build a chatbot from the ground up. Developing a chatbot initially may cost a handsome amount. However, there are some platforms available that let companies easily build a chatbot. But only a custom-developed chatbot is a better-functioning chatbot. Hands down!

• Chatbots for eCommerce are only designed to handle general questions, such as answering only those queries that are fed into the system. But oftentimes, we find queries we didn’t even know existed. Hence, chatbots are not designed to solve complex problems.

• Just like any other online system or software, chatbots require regular maintenance. They need to be continuously optimized to better interact with customers. At times, it becomes difficult to track every single customer interaction. But with the help of AI and Machine Learning in eCommerce, they can be trained to respond quickly.

Why Add Chatbots or Live Chat to Your Online Store?

Let’s have a face-off between live chats and chatbots for the eCommerce industry: 

24/7 support

Providing round-the-clock support is a core feature of chatbots. Unlike human agents, chatbots are always available and can adapt to workflow changes in real-time.

Thanks to their automated nature, chatbots can offer reliable and fast responses to customer queries. Live chat may be open 24/7 as well, but this would require human agents to work constantly. However, it does provide the advantage of customers receiving personalized support at any time of the day.

Managing complex issues 

When it comes to addressing complex issues, live chat is the optimal choice. Human agents possess the expertise necessary to handle intricate problems effectively.

Live chat agents can work collaboratively with other teams and communicate with customers to provide the most appropriate solution. In contrast, chatbots are trained to respond to a specific set of keywords. 

If a customer raises an issue too complex for the chatbot to address, the chatbot will redirect the customer to a live chat agent for resolution.

Although chatbots for eCommerce websites now employ artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), they are still not advanced enough to handle complex customer queries independently.

Instant response 

Chatbots excel at providing immediate responses to customers, making them the ideal choice for businesses seeking swift customer service.

By deploying a chatbot on your website, you can ensure that each customer who requires assistance receives a prompt response. Furthermore, chatbots can eliminate wait times, thereby enhancing the customer experience.

With live chat, customers may need to wait a few minutes before connecting with a suitable agent. Although wait times can be minimized if the chat support team is well-equipped and staffed, canned responses and chat scripts enable agents to provide instant support.

The Future of Chatbots

Opening a business online means that the website might receive traffic around the clock. Providing efficient customer service is difficult unless you opt for outsourcing the department, which can make things easier. But a simpler method, like integrating a chatbot that can guide your visitors, allows you to take more control of the sort of customer experience you want to maintain.

Chatbots in e-commerce not only transform the online process but also increase customer engagement, retain customers, and improve sales. Besides, integrating a chatbot into your online platform is a smart marketing strategy. If you, too, are looking for smart and clever eCommerce development services, then InvoZone is your go-to. Our complete solution package can provide you with consultation, solution, and implementation services that can uplift your online presence.

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Frequently Asked Questions

How do chatbots help eCommerce?

Chatbots help eCommerce by improving customer service with 24/7 support, and personalization, increasing sales through real-time engagement, reducing response times, and cost-effectiveness through handling multiple customer interactions simultaneously.

What is an example of an eCommerce chatbot?

An example of an eCommerce chatbot is the H&M chatbot on Facebook Messenger, which provides personalized fashion recommendations and helps customers find and purchase products.

How do I create a chatbot for eCommerce?

To create a chatbot for eCommerce, you can follow these steps:

• Choose a chatbot platform and sign up for an account.
• Define the purpose and goals of your chatbot.
• Determine the type of chatbot you want to build (rule-based or AI-powered).
• Create a chatbot flow and write the chatbot's responses.
• Integrate the chatbot with your eCommerce platform.
• Test the chatbot and make improvements as necessary.
• Launch the chatbot and monitor its performance, making adjustments as needed.

What is the future of chatbots in eCommerce?

The future of chatbots in eCommerce is expected to grow with advancements in AI and machine learning, providing more personalized recommendations, improving customer experience, increasing sales, and handling additional tasks like product research and payment processing.