These are the best Conversational Commerce Solutions
7 mins read
June 14, 2021
Other
Why is Conversational Commerce so important these days? How does it work? Why should you definitely implement it and how? What are the best Conversational Commerce solutions? We’re covering all of these questions in this blog post. Ready? Let’s get started!
The digital world is changing rapidly, and so are the needs of customers. Online shoppers will no longer wait for a few days to get a reply via email or to get on the phone with your call center. They want their questions answered on the spot or they go shopping elsewhere. This is where Conversational Commerce comes in: respond to your audience within seconds and increase your sales drastically. This blog post will educate you on how to use this popular method and how your business can benefit from it.
What does Conversational Commerce mean?
Conversational Commerce is a method of engaging with website visitors and converting leads via dialogue-driven activities. This style of inbound marketing puts a focus on interactions with the consumer, not simply one-way transmission by the brand. Conversational Commerce aims to create relationships with the consumer by building trust through conversations and by making the buying experience as smooth and easy as possible.
Conversational Commerce enables your business to provide improved e-commerce solutions. Customers nowadays are seeking instant resolutions and are all up for personalized recommendations. To reach this point, it is required to involve a human representative driving the shopping experience for them. When you look at it from the customer’s point of view, you realize that it makes it easier to get information about products you care about and make decisions about whether to buy them or not. It gives brands the opportunity to provide the kind of instant, engaging advice that better satisfies consumers and helps them feel more connected with your brand. All credit for this term is due to Chris Messina, who best defined the term in 2015. He framed it this way:
‘’Conversational commerce is about delivering convenience, personalization, and decision support while people are on the go, with only partial attention to spare.’’
How Conversational Commerce impacts online shoppers
It can be challenging for your company to get into the minds of your customers. Within the process of the customer journey, a customer interacts with your company in order to achieve a goal, which most of the time is a purchase. They go through various stages before and after clicking on that precious checkout button. The 5 phases of the customer journey are
- Awareness (pre-sale)
This is the discovery phase – but at the same time also the most important stage. Every sale begins when the customer becomes aware of your specific product or service and why they need this. Use conversational tools to connect with customers who have just begun their searching journey.
- Consideration (pre-sale)
Comparing options between brands, debating the benefits, considering prices: this is the stage where customers are trying to find the best option for their needs. Give details through the power of conversation to help them get to know your offer. - Purchase
The decision is made, so the customer needs to be acknowledged. Provide them with an excellent experience, keep the conversation going, and give them a chance to complete the purchase online. - Retention
Look after your customer’s needs, that’s what’s important at this stage. Retaining a customer & get them to commit to a repeat purchase is difficult and this is where many fall off the process if they’re not sufficiently supported. - Advocacy
Your customer’s influence on their purchasing decisions of others should facilitate further sales. A recommendation is a great boost to improve your sales, so it is important for brands to continue the conversation.
With Conversational Commerce you create the chance to connect with your customers at every step of their customer journey, mentioned above. This form of selling opens a smooth dialogue between you and your potential customers, which lets you establish strong relationships.
Benefits of Conversational Commerce
As technology advanced, so did the nuances in customer service and engagement. Take special care of each and every one of your customers. Conversational Commerce lets you recreate the experience your customers get in-store. Personal, on-demand, and engaging. The difference is that they don’t have to leave their couch for that to happen. You can show your customers you care by delivering an omnichannel presence. Make yourself personally available to your customers and attend to them anytime, anywhere – via all different kinds of channels like messaging apps, on your website with Live Broadcasting and Live Video Shopping, through blogs, social posts and ads. Creating this omnichannel experience for your customers is an initiative that is highly recommended in the e-Commerce world. According to BigCommerce, there are 5 huge benefits for using Conversational Commerce:
- First and foremost: Conversational Commerce reduces your cart abandonment. You can offer real-time support to the customers that are on your website.
- It helps you close potential leads. Conversational Commerce is a great way to support customers who are considering a purchase.
- Collecting feedback from your customers through natural conversations is much more effective than using typical web forms.
- Upselling and cross-selling strategies give you a chance to double your profits by selling more to customers who are already considering purchasing from you, a quick win.
- You only get one chance to create a good first impression. Conversational Commerce helps build customer loyalty. By supporting customers through the next steps of their customer journey, you can establish a much better relationship and build trust.
Solutions for Conversational Commerce
Conversational Commerce and Live Commerce go hand in hand. Take your online store to the next level by combining Conversational Commerce and Live Commerce. But, enough with the theoretical part. Let’s move over to which solutions are the best and put Conversational Commerce into practice.
Whisbi is all about Conversational Commerce, that’s why all of our solutions are conversational marketing based. We like to call it: Live Engagement. This term involves striking up a real-time conversation with your customers at any stage in the sales process. Whether they’ve just stumbled upon the first piece of content by your brand, they’re getting ready to hit the buy button, or they’re already a satisfied customer – you can engage at any point in the best way for the situation. We’ll now go into depth and explain to you what each of these solutions has to offer; and how to be omnipresent for your shoppers. Each step of the way you can connect with your audience and walk them through the journey to becoming a happy customer.
Whisbi Engage for Conversational Commerce
We start top of the funnel with our Engage solution. It’s the beginning of the customer journey and a chance for your customers to get to know your brand. How can you use Conversational Commerce to help inform them about your company? A great way to start is with Live Broadcasting. You’re allowing your customers to educate and inform multiple customers at once about your products with a real-time video. Encourage questions and have your presenters interact with viewers in real-time. This allows you to connect with your customers from the very start — forging a bond and setting the stage for your future relationship. Read all about Live Broadcasting or Live Video Shopping in our dedicated guides.
Powerful chatbots with Whisbi Guide
Once your customers have gotten to know your brand a little better and are getting ready to make a purchase, it’s time to guide them towards the sale – with Conversational Commerce of course. Chatbots can be a powerful tool at this stage. You can use bots to guide, inform, and convert your visitors into customers. Chatbots can also help minimize lead response time, which has huge implications when it comes to qualifying leads. According to the Harvard Business Review: “Brands who respond to online leads within the first couple of hours are more than 60 times as likely to qualify them as potential customers than those who wait 24 hours or longer.”
Complete the sale with Whisbi Sell
The most important part of the customer journey is getting your audience to actually make a purchase. Whisbi’s Sell solution digitizes your sales journey and brings the in-store experience online. We use conversations to qualify web visitors and connect them to your experts in stores, call centers, showrooms, or any location you would like. This way, you enable your online customers to have real-time conversations with your sales team every time they visit your website. Within this human-assisted online sales solution, we offer smart lead routing and lead qualification, where we automate lead routing based on your business rules and qualify leads 24/7. Whisbi Sell includes real-time video, file transfer, web sharing, live messaging, and video walk. All of these features will increase your online sales drastically: you will convert more leads, shorten sales cycles and generate more revenue!
Get started with Conversational Commerce
Don’t stress it. Obviously, it’s impossible to create your brand new Conversational Commerce strategy overnight. But it’s good to understand that if you pay attention to detail, you can stand out from the crowd. With these 5 steps you will become a pro in Conversational Commerce.
- Set realistic goals: start by analyzing your business needs and set goals you would like to achieve. Do you want to increase your sales or gain customer engagement? Group and prioritize your goals to decide which ones are the most important. Testing also helps a lot!
- Research Conversational Commerce: set a benchmark before you go into business with any solution. See whatever solution suits your needs best and see what customers have to say about your pick.
- Choose the right partner: you want to have an easy, seamless integration with your business. Therefore it’s crucial to find the right match. With Whisbi, you can integrate each one of our solutions into your existing tech stack & business processes, to address your business challenges.
- Address your KPIs: the hard work is almost done. You’ve selected the solution you want to use – but now it’s time for your KPIs. Those numbers will measure your success and tell you when some parts need to be improved.
- Measuring = key: monitor your performance. Real-time metrics help you evaluate your performance and improve your Conversational Commerce journey. With Whisbi you get a dedicated customer success manager that will help you every step of the way and make sure your new conversational commerce project is a success!
Why Conversational Commerce is the future of e-Commerce
In recent years, instant messaging has taken over. It’s the preferred channel for official communication. According to eMarketer, there were nearly 149.8 million users of messaging apps in 2018 in the United States alone. The number is projected to reach 171.3 million by 2022. If surveys are anything to go buy, 83% of consumers now obtain the required information about a company’s product or services via messaging platforms. An estimated 76% seek support and assistance over texts, and 75% use it to make purchases – which is an extremely high amount.
Why is Conversational Commerce so popular? Because it’s like having a personalized shopping assistant and it’s an easier way to shop. The future of Conversational Commerce is looking bright: customers are able to use these services on the go and on-demand, which makes it highly convenient. Conversations shorten the distance between wanting and having a product, which is why customers are globally embracing Conversational Commerce. It’s not just growing the universe of online shoppers, it’s also associated with higher spending. The ongoing, trusting, and personalized relationships people develop with brands often lead to new interactions, effective recommendations, and spending more money on your website.
Facebook states that more than two-thirds (67%) of buyers surveyed say they plan to increase or maintain their Conversational Commerce spending, showing that the approach is resonating strongly with consumers. Conversational Commerce is well poised for future growth since it’s widespread. Not only traditional chatbots are covered by this channel, but also live broadcasts, and Live Video Shopping belong to this term. It’s evolving right before our eyes, rapidly. This is why you should join this revolution today!
