AI Chatbots for Ecommerce: Maximize Online Store’s Potential

Owing to the popularity of AI-Powered chatbots, the ecommerce industry has witnessed a significant change in recent years. Grand View Research said the global chatbot industry was worth USD 2.6 billion in 2020. It is predicted to increase at a CAGR of 24.3% between 2021 and 2028.

The rise in omnichannel retail, online stores, and cost-effective ways to interact with customers contribute to this surge in chatbots. This industry is expected to touch $1.25 billion by 2025.
But what is causing such a tremendous rise in the adoption of chatbot? Well, this is what we will be discussing in this blog. So, stay tuned with us till the end.

How AI Chatbots Benefit Ecommerce Businesses

What makes ecommerce chatbots so valuable is how seamlessly they handle multiple customer queries simultaneously, allowing human agents to focus on other complex issues. They provide personalized product suggestions and give customers visiting the online store a more engaging shopping experience.

Some other essential benefits of AI-powered chatbots include:

24/7 Availability:

Online shoppers expect round-the-clock availability from businesses. The availability of chatbots can fulfill this expectation. They provide assistance and automated customer support even outside regular business hours. Thus, improving customer experience.

Faster Response Time:

Ecommerce Chatbots respond instantly to customer queries, unlike human agents who require breaks between conversations. They also handle multiple queries simultaneously. Thus, reducing the response times and increasing customer satisfaction.

Personalized Experience:

Businesses can provide customized recommendations and product suggestions and support online shoppers based on their past behavior. What makes this possible is how ecommerce chatbots analyze customer data, such as browsing history, search queries, and purchase history. This enables businesses to tailor their offerings to individual needs, providing a more engaging customer experience.

Product recommendations:

Depending on customer preferences, chatbots can make pertinent product recommendations, assist customers in finding the products they seek, and raise the possibility that they will purchase.

Upselling and Cross-selling:

Ecommerce chatbots suggest complementary products to the customers, encouraging them to buy additional items. Thus increasing the average order value, sales, and revenue for ecommerce businesses by offering upsells and cross-sells.

Simplified Checkout Process:

Ecommerce chatbots simplify the checkout process by guiding customers through the process, reducing cart abandonment rates, and increasing the number of successful transactions.

Rule-based and AI chatbots are the best ecommerce chatbots available today:

Regarding chatbots, rule-based and AI chatbots are the two types available today:

1. Rule-Based Chatbots

These chatbots typically rely on pre-set rules and decision trees to simulate responses to customer queries. Human developers design and create these rules based on predefined inputs and responses.

Rule-based chatbots function by analyzing the customer inputs, matching them with the pre-existing rules, checking if they are in sync, and responding to the user.

For example, if a user asks a rule-based chatbot a question about a product, it will try to match the particular query with a prewritten response and provide the customer with the answer. However, if the query doesn’t fit with a prewritten reply, it will not be able to give an answer.

Rule-based chatbots are relatively simple to create. However, they cannot understand natural language and generate personalized responses. However, they can be helpful regarding FAQs and simple customer support questions.

2. AI Chatbots

Unlike rule-based chatbots, AI chatbots can simulate personalized responses. These chatbots use artificial intelligence and natural language processing technology to interpret customer inputs.

Moreover, these chatbots can learn from past interactions and improve their responses. AI Chatbots occupy the ecommerce industry landscape as they are considered the best for customer support, transaction processing, and personalized marketing campaigns. What makes them so popular is their ability to understand complex queries and simulate human-like interactions.

For example, a user types I am looking for a pair of sneakers. The chatbot will respond, “Great! We know what you would like. Here is our new line of sneakers waiting for you.” How does the ecommerce chatbot know what the user wants? Well, the answer is simple. Based on the previous responses, purchase history, and data points, the chatbot could predict the products the customer would want to buy.
The chatbot may provide a few other options with product images and descriptions, giving the user a wide range of products.

Top Use Cases for Chatbots in Ecommerce

Some of the top use cases of chatbots for ecommerce include:

1. Customer Service

Chatbot technology are best suited to respond immediately to customer queries, whether day or night. They can assist round-the-clock, even when the live customer service agents are unavailable in the online store. Chatbots use customer data to provide product recommendations that the customers may be interested in.
In addition, chatbots can handle multiple tasks like order tracking, returns, and cancellations, freeing human agents for more essential tasks. They can handle these tasks instantly and at once, eliminating long wait times and improving customer journey.

2. Lead Generation

Chatbots are extremely quick and convenient tools for communicating with potential customers. They can ask questions and gather customer information which can be used to generate leads.
They can also provide customers with product information, services, special deals, and promotions to lure them into buying the product. Once the customers purchase the product, they also send reminders offering additional products they might be interested in.

3. Shopping Assistance

Chatbots can assist customers while shopping by providing detailed product information, including specifications and prices. They can also help customers find the right size and fit by asking about their preferences. Chatbots can function as the virtual assistants of the users by helping them add items to the cart, apply coupons and check out.

4. Order tracking and notifications

Chatbots can provide real-time updates and notifications to customers on their order status like the order has been received, processed, shipped, or delivered. They can also offer delivery options such as changing the delivery date or time or canceling the order. They also assist customers with queries related to their orders, including missing items, delayed deliveries, and damaged products, enhancing their customer journey.

5. Feedback Collection

After purchase or interaction with the customer, a chatbot can collect customer feedback through surveys. They can ask questions about the products, services, or customer support. They can also monitor and analyze social media channels to gather customer feedback.

Streamlining Ecommerce Operations with AI Chatbots

Many online retailers are routing for ecommerce bots to streamline their operations and provide customers with one of the best customer experiences ever. But how do you implement AI chatbots in e-commerce?

Here are some steps to implement chatbots for e-commerce:

1. Determine Your Business Goals

Knowing your business goals is the first and most crucial step towards implementing chatbots in ecommerce. You must ask yourself:

• What are you looking forward to achieving with chatbots?
• What are the possible use cases for chatbots in your business?
• What chatbot platform do you want to use?
• What type of chatbot your business requires?
• How will you integrate your chatbot with the ecommerce platform?
• How will you measure your chatbot’s performance?

2. Choose the Appropriate Chatbot Platform

Look for a platform that meets your ecommerce business goals like natural language processing, integrations with ecommerce platforms, and analytics. Plus, choose a platform that has a user-friendly interface and allows you to build chatbots quickly.

3. Identify Use Cases

Identifying the use cases of chatbots, like answering queries, providing product recommendations, or taking orders, can help you design your chatbot to provide valuable customer services.

4. Design Conversation Flow

Before designing the conversation flow, try to understand your customer’s journey, needs, goals, and pain points. Then design an intuitive conversation flow that caters to their needs without overwhelming them.

5. Train Your Chatbot

Identify the intent and purpose of user queries such as checking order status, making purchases, or asking for product recommendations.
Design and script sample dialogues for each intent, including tone, content, and variations in phrasing, and train the chatbot to recognize and respond to varying user inputs.

6. Test and Refine Your Chatbot

Test your chatbot and identify any errors, gaps, or bugs in the conversation flow. Based on the feedback, make refinements to your chatbot.

7. Integrate Your Chatbot With Your Ecommerce Platform

The integration of AI-powered chatbots with ecommerce platforms like Shopify or Magento is a prime example of the evolution of AI in the ecommerce industry. By gaining access to customer information, product catalogs, and order management systems, chatbots can provide personalized product recommendations, answer customer queries, and even help with the checkout process. This seamless integration not only enhances the overall customer experience but also boosts sales for ecommerce businesses.

Top AI Chatbot Platforms for Ecommerce Businesses

Now, you can create a chatbot of your choice using these platforms:

1. Drift

Top Features:

• Autoresponders
• 5.0
• Landing pages
• Mobile optimized emails
• Reporting/analytics
• List management
• AB testing
• Multi-Channel Marketing
• Real-Time Analytics
• Subscriber Management
• Template Management
• WYSIWYG Editor

Pros:

• It is easy to build chat flows with Drift.
• It allows for contacting leads at the precise moment of their highest interest and engagement with the website, resulting in sales.
• Enterprise B2B companies may find its features, such as lead routing, instant meetings booker, and help center article lookup, helpful.
• Customized chat experiences can be created based on various criteria, allowing for targeted messaging to specific businesses.
• Drift is an in-app messaging platform but may not be suitable for marketing automation, customer engagement, and onboarding.
• Drift is user-friendly, with a simple UI and bot-building capabilities.

Cons:

• Customers must provide email addresses before speaking with a representative, which can be a barrier to a smoother chat experience.
• The feature requests can take a long time to be implemented.
• Some of the functionality and audience building could be more intuitive.

2. Chatfuel

Top Features:

• Multi-Account Management
• Automated Publishing
• Content Management
• Reporting/ Analytics

Pros:

• Chatfuel offers both free and paid plans. The paid plan is cheap and provides decisive chat support.
• Allows integration with external systems for creating interesting automation and reviews.
• It is easy to use as step-by-step instructions are available.
• The platform is ideal for Facebook messenger bots, with one-click signup and randomization options available.
• Chatfuel can be used to convert prospects easily.

Cons:

• Chatfuel majorly focuses on Facebook Messenger, thus limiting its potential.
• Its natural language processing could be more accurate.
• It is less intuitive and more time-consuming when it comes to setting up messaging journeys.
• The interface is less user-friendly.

3. ManyChat

Top Features

• Proactive Chat
• Third-Party Integrations
• Customizable Branding

Pros

• ManyChat can easily create chatbot flows with a visual flow builder.
• It segments the customers and then targets them accordingly with personalized messages.
• It can be integrated with other platforms, including Shopify and Google Sheets
• It can remove inactive subscribers to save money on advertising.

Cons

• Its web channel is only available in paid plans.
• Its pricing is considerably high.
• Integration with other tools may require Zapier solutions.
• ManyChat’s functionality may only meet some business or organization needs.

4. MobileMonkey

Top Features:

• Landing pages

Pros:

• Easy to use.
• Can increase audience interaction.
• Cheapest tool for building a customer list and capturing leads
• Includes a library of resources for businesses such as website chatbots, Facebook Messenger bots, and OmniChat

Cons:

• There needs to be more communication flow.
• Support is limited to free users.
• It needs to be better-suited for large enterprise SMS campaigns due to limited throughput and no shortcodes.
• Excludes LinkedIn in the MobileMonkey toolkit.

5. Tars

Top Features:

• Mobile Accessible

Pros:

• TARS is feature-rich, flexible, and fast, which makes it suitable for creating landing pages for ad campaigns.
• Its variety of templates allows users to jumpstart campaigns without extensive research. Even non-programmers can develop engaging chatbots for Facebook messenger, thanks to their intuitive workflow and easy-to-use interface.
• Chatbots built by TARS are relatively more efficient in lead generation than forms.

Cons:

• Some of the design elements offer limited configuration.
• The information about TARS’ natural language processing capability is little.
• Limited functionality in customizing the look and feel of the chatbots.

Conclusion

If you are an online clothing e-commerce business looking to increase sales, streamline your operations and improve customer interaction, it is time for you to explore chatbot technology. You can provide on-the-spot customer support by deploying live chat system on your websites and social media platforms.

So explore the benefits of chatbot technology for your e-commerce business immediately. If you are looking for a reliable ecommerce app development services, look no further than us. We can help you create a custom chatbot solution that aligns with your business needs.

So contact us and take your first step towards success by building the right ecommerce chatbot with our leading web app development company.