Types of Conversational Commerce
Brands for as long as we know constantly compete among themselves to offer high-quality products at affordable prices to consumers. This race isn’t easy.
With big players like Amazon dominating almost ½ of the e-commerce market, smaller players may find themselves struggling in this market. This, however, doesn’t mean that you can’t compete and make sales as a small player in the industry.
You also don’t have to undersell quality products (and harm your business) just to have a fighting chance. More than 80 percent of customers will willingly pay more money for a better shopping experience.
With conversational commerce, you can improve your customer’s experience and ultimately drive up sales for your brand. In this article, we will take a closer look at some common types of conversational commerce to help you find out which will be a better fit for your brand. But first, let’s take a quick detour to explain what conversational commerce means.
Conversational Commerce – What Exactly is it?
Conversational commerce is otherwise known as conversational marketing or chat commerce. Generally, it is a method through which online retailers explore the power of conversations to market and sell their services and/or products.
This type of sales can take several forms such as through messaging platforms, voice assistants, chatbots, and so on; all of which will be subsequently discussed. But it does not matter the form it takes, so long as communication is helpful, personalized, and takes a customer faster through your sales funnel, then the purpose has been served.
The phrase conversational commerce became popular in 2015 due to an article posted by Chris Messina on Medium. In this article, Messina made people more aware of the trend of selling services and products via messaging apps. You can visit https://medium.com/ to read this article.
Conversational Commerce – Types
1. Messaging Apps
Messaging apps such as WhatsApp and Messenger let you send and receive instant messages. Customers use them for shopping online or contacting brands a lot. In some ways, you could say that these messaging apps have outpaced social media networks. They get about 20 percent more users than social networks.
These apps typically allow the use of emojis, videos, GIFs, and memes; these additional features make conversations light while ensuring customer engagement is improved. By making communication natural and more personal between you and your customers you can significantly improve your sales rates.
2. Live Chat
This is one communication channel that several brands employ. Using live chat is easy and customers can promptly get answers via the retailer’s site. This feature alone gives it an edge over phone calls and email.
One agent can chat with 2 or even 3 customers simultaneously via live chat. This helps brands significantly reduce their customer’s wait time.
You could use live chat to engage customers that visit your site and connect with those customers that are shy or otherwise won’t ask for help. Once you’ve broken the ice, you could give the customer a tour of the website and then offer customized recommendations to help them select a product.
3. Voice Assistants
Voice assistants are software activated via voice commands. Voice assistants like Siri, Cortana, Alexa, and Google Assistant are becoming increasingly popular by the day on several electronic devices. Consumers love these assistants because of how convenient they are.
Because of how popular voice assistants are, brands now use them for their customer service and marketing strategies. They can direct searchers straight to your site. This alone will help build brand awareness.
What’s more, certain voice assistants recognize the voice of users. This recognition feature is very useful when multiple users (for instance, a family) share one device.
Natural language processing, machine learning, and artificial intelligence have made it possible for these assistants to learn the particular interests of a user and then make recommendations that fit their past choices. This opportunity is used by marketers to make personalized voice adverts and increase intimacy with their customers.
4. Chatbots
Chatbots provide answers to users’ questions through text messages. These bots can chat with several users simultaneously, and give information immediately, 24/7. What’s more, they can be implemented on both messaging platforms and websites. This way, the conversational experience can be delivered at every stage of the customer’s journey.
Unlike regular apps, users don’t have to learn how chatbots work, and they do not require much (if not no) effort. This has made it a popular choice for brands when it comes to their conversational commerce strategy. You can read more about conversational commerce to learn how it works and even the benefits it can offer your brand; although we believe you must have learned some of its benefits from all that we’ve said so far.
Conclusion
Conversational commerce can significantly increase your business sales when used properly. This type of commerce comes in several forms including chatbots, live chats, voice assistants, and messaging apps. We have discussed all of these in this article to help you choose which ones will be a better fit for your business.
