The whole reason of having a conversational eCommerce is due to convenience. It’s not that the users just use these messaging application, it’s because they prefer them. This helps users to drive a business on their desired platform whenever they need. If you would ask how many users are following the social media channels what people mostly use, it would be 30%. Especially, the Facebook Message has got over 900 Million users along with 50 Million organizations. If you were to compare the number of messages processed in this platform, it would be over 60 billion a day! Wow! Now that’s 3 times larger than the global volume of text messages.
The trend these days shows that users would be interested in following text messages for communications rather than phone, emails and social media platforms. Seriously, who is bothered about giving a ring to a company. Also, instead of users installing new applications for every service/business they interact with, it’s better to bring all the companies to top-notch applications available today. As the most important part is the usability, users need to message a company/service in the same way as they are messaging their colleagues/friends. Conversational Commerce – An Overview
To explain what conversational commerce is easy – Users interacting with chat-in requests of a company to avoid user interface friction. Messaging apps an do way more better than the existing Facebook queries. It harvests its potential to assisting consumers throughout the buying cycle. Conversational commerce has to work in parallel with the existing digital/physical touch points throughout the consumers’ journey.
Let’s follow a scenario: A users is looking for a sports watch, black in color, leather straps. The chatbots or a representative shows the recommendations that is further filtered based on the user conversations. When the user is all set, he/she selects the purchase button and gets the order confirmation and shipping information.
Facebook has already launched the bot service. In Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft Teams has a similar feature too. The same is available for Skype too! Slack, Kik and Telegram will join the league soon, so they ca
n answer consumer queries, curate reviews based on what users are looking into.
Gartner reveals that by the year 2019, apps will have more customer support requests than social media and call centers.
Pros of Conversational Commerce
According to the report by Conversational Commerce 2017, For eCommerce/retail businesses, Conversational commerce is very important because there will be a drastic increase as consumers communicate with the brand using chat-in features. It allows companies to access larger user based and enhance retention strategies via better customer service. The chatbots will be able to automate the service messages and send across delivery and shipping information to the users. This can save lot of service team’s time as bots can interact with consumers real-time.
Technology at its peak
Well, according to Business Insider in the Conversational Commerce Report, the missing area is the payments feature. If the chat application forces the users to redirect to another application just for the payments, the chances of conversion rates are lower. Today, organizations are coming up with custom features in order to integrate eCommerce solutions which can extend to conversational platforms.
Taking an example of our own Subway and MasterCard. They have already launched a feature where the customers can pre-order and pay for the orders via Facebook Messenger. The chat-bot helps the consumers choose nearest Subway outlets and customize their order. The bot also provides health information related the food the users order and comes along with response buttons for assisting users choose the sandwich ingredients. The customers can select Facebook’s payment gateway or MasterPass (Payment service by MasterCard) without leaving from Facebook Messenger.
Another great example is T-Mobile App, where consumers can chat with the agents using Facebook Messenger or standard SMS texts. Checkout the image below to learn more:
Does your eCommerce solution handle conversational commerce and financials?
You cannot stay away from the rapid technology advancements. We live in tough competitive market and inorder to grow your brand, it’s going to be a tedious and a challenging task. Your brand needs to beat the competition quickly with these advancements. Your eCommerce solution needs to be flexible by integrating with third-party applications. Apart from chat-bot integration, handling of financials would be of a great priority. Get in touch with our experts to learn more about x2x-eCommerce and experience the top-class integration suite for your eCommerce and ERP solutions!