It struck me the other day when I was shopping for a bag online. Every time I liked a product, it was being shown as sold out or unavailable. Once I mistakenly clicked on an exorbitantly priced bag. Almost immediately I was led to the cart page.
I was flabbergasted. I mean I have not even checked the product features, or chosen my preferred color, and I was being dragged to the shopping cart.
What if I had a virtual shopping assistant who could guide me through the shopping process, help me find what I was looking for, or bail me out if I had stumbled anywhere?
Top Trends in Conversational Commerce
Then, deep inside I understood how millions of shoppers online felt, amid the labyrinth of choices on shopping sites. How many of us want to speak to a customer care exec or still worse, mail them for an issue, they might very well ignore? Trust me, no one.
Honestly speaking we don’t want to waste time on an automated phone menu or even emailing a customer care executive and having to wait for a reply. Instead, we prefer a casual conversation (like in the earlier days of offline shopping) on what we would like to have? Or what range we are looking for?
This is where Conversational Commerce comes into being. Personalization and convenience have been two great buddies of direct marketing of consumer brands. Conversational Commerce is one of the most hyped catchphrases in e-commerce.
Mobile First Generation
The term “conversational commerce” or cCommerce, as it is commonly known was coined in 2015 when Chris Messina of Uber published a short article on Medium where she mentioned about adding a conversational element to the customer experience.
Messaging apps are here to stay
On average, an online shopper spends two to three hours on social media apps daily. They prefer texting for service more than customer care interactions. Also, marketers are finding it easier to convert the leads into customers over messaging apps. Top global brands like Google, Amazon, and Facebook, H & M, and Sephora have already achieved personalized interactions with customers.
Conversational AI is here
AI-empowered virtual shopping assistants are helping enterprises manage billions of online customers on a daily basis.
Apart from taking note of customer preferences and their online buying behavior, these chatbots make customized recommendations to boost sales and enhance customer relationships. Automated one-on-one conversations are strengthening the communication and branding strategy of e-commerce players.
Mobile commerce is on the rise: Mobile commerce has redefined e-commerce in more ways than one. The users have become largely dependent upon their smartphones or handheld devices (which are playing the dual role of a shopping assistant and user’s tool to respond).
The customers can now choose, compare and buy items of their choice. The ease of e-transactions coupled with the increased bandwidth has made smartphones a major internet access channel.
Big Data is making its presence felt: With Predictive Analysis already in use for most online retail stores for forecasting demand and the number of user visits, conversational commerce has more reasons to celebrate its victory.
Big Data Analytics has helped us to keep track of every action of a visitor on the retailer’s website into data. Thus, e-commerce sites now have an in-depth understanding of their target base and offer an optimized customer experience.
Closing thoughts: With more and more brands coming up with chatbots and voice assistants, online shoppers will surely have a better shopping experience. The retailers will try to sense what is going on in the users’ minds and come up with customized offerings for them.
The year 2019 will witness more changes in the in-store experience, find newer ways to boost customer loyalty, and also see the changing role of brands, to fish out the right technology to gather insights.
