Chatbots are transforming all industry verticals from eCommerce to healthcare. In this blog, we will talk about how chatbots are changing the Retail industry.
How are chatbots changing the retail industry?
A study by eMarketer reveals that 67% of millennial internet users buy products and services from a brand that has implemented chatbot technology. Today, the retail industries are in heavy competition, striving to stay as the best go-to place in their customers’ minds. The only way to achieve that goal is to provide an enhanced customer experience. It has been even more difficult in this pandemic situation. So retailers are reaching out to chatbots to maintain their integrity & assist their customers in a more personalized manner.
Some of the key benefits of chatbots include the following:
Save a lot of time
With the help of chatbots, the customer’s time is saved, and the customer gets instant help anytime & anywhere. Also, Companies can retain their customers by improving customer satisfaction. The customer support team can focus on more critical tasks. Hence, chatbots save & reduce the time for both customers & companies.
No more wasting time searching for answers through all possible websites; chatbots make it easier.
Effective Cost Ways
Chatbots help in significant cost savings in the retail industry. Owing to the chatbots’ fantastic ability to address the problems of multiple consumers at the same time, the companies’ labor costs are reduced as the management need not recruit customer representatives to answer simple inbound questions. Customer service stays the best with the help of chatbots. Besides, the customer service representatives can upskill themselves and focus on more productive work that can further enhance the customer experience and increase the revenue of the company.
Customer Satisfaction
The biggest strength of the retail industry is to maintain its brand value by consistently offering services to customers. Chatbots never fail to satisfy the customers; they always increase the customer engagement rate. When Aspect asked customers to rate their experience with chatbot technology, the results were:
- Friendliness (65%)
- Ease of Use (65%)
- Speed (62%)
- Interaction Success (55%)
- Accuracy (55%)
Another aspect of the retail industry is that they constantly try to keep the customers engaged and satisfied. Chatbots provide customer needs & meet their expectations instantly, which makes them the most effective technology in the customer support domain. Moreover, they offer best-in-class support, rapid response, proper solution, and, most importantly, 24/7 assistance, which human agents cannot provide. Chatbots are very beneficial in every aspect of the retail industry.
Impacts of chatbots on the retail industry
Chatbot technology is the important key to personalized client management and high-value customer experiences. Meanwhile, chatbots help retailers to compete with big players like google and amazon.
This is the near future of online shopping, where everything takes place digitally through rule-based and AI chatbots. The chatbots can read messages, automatically browse through already purchased history, and help analyze customer behavior, which results in offering customers a range of products to their taste. Hence, chatbots achieve a new level of targeting capabilities than customer support representatives.
Chatbots always keep the customers engaged; as we know, they can be deployed on multiple platforms, such as Facebook Messenger, SMS, email, Instagram, and browsers, which the customers are already using.
How do chatbots always keep consumers engaged?
- Helps to make frequent purchases,
- Makes the customer know about the offers released by companies
- Sends updates about new product launches
- Increases the reach of the retail brands, even the newly established ones.
Examples of Chatbots for retail
The primary role of chatbots in retail is intelligent broadcasting, increased conversation rate, enhanced customer support, and platform integrations.
Chatbots in the retail industry send automated alerts, such as personalized promotions, offers on a particular day, news, etc., to customers via push notifications. Over interaction with customers, the retail bots gather vast data about the customers. Those data help in analyzing the preferences of the customer’s choice, which enables in providing more personalized services to the customers. In case of any issue in the digital shopping zone, chatbots can quickly assist with customer queries & will give a better solution.
Below are a few examples of how chatbots can help e-commerce:
Staples
As we know, some of the company supply stores use many customer platforms to offer customer product suggestions based on their previous order history. Staple chatbots can also make customers finish a purchase effectively.
Sephora
Sephora’s chatbots offer customers makeup tips and product suggestions based on their personal quiz answers about their makeup routine and redirect them to the Sephora app or its website to purchase the products.
It doesn’t stop there; it also has a Facebook bot called Sephora Virtual Artist. These retail bots allow users to see what products look good on them by applying virtually through the user’s selfie feature.
H&M
Here comes the most popular brand, “H&M,” on the bot platform; the retail bot asks questions about the user’s style & preferences. With this info, the retail bot of H&M creates an individual fashion profile for each user and provides an outfit suggestion, which results in seamless buying experiences.
It has other attractive options; users can also design outfits of their choice and vote for other users too! Due to this feature, the retail bots led to an outstanding shopping experience.
Now, it’s clear that chatbots are more than computer programs in e-commerce; they end up creating helpful & interactive shopping experiences.
Role of AI Chatbot in Retail
AI-powered Bots allow & do more than interaction. AI bots are automated assistants for support, lead generation & to build omnichannel experiences via websites and virtual assistant technologies like google assistant & Alexa. Using AI bots, retailers and customers can book appointments, sell products, collect contact details, and build relationships through messenger.
Let’s look at the best chatbot platforms that are redefining how companies do business online.
- Chat360
- Manychat.
- Landbot.
- Flow XO.
- Amplify.
- Botsify.
- Imperson.
- Chatbot Builder.
- Boost.
- Bold360.
- Ada.
- Vergic.
- Watson Assistant.
Chat360
Chat360.io is one of the best no-code chatbot builders that revolutionizes customer support and services. Intelligent chatbots can increase conversion rates and sales by answering customer queries in real-time with no delay. They offer the best customer support on multiple messaging platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and websites.
Why Chat360?
- Drag and Drop chatbot builder
- Can respond to queries from the target audience of different geographical areas
- Secured data storage and transmission among teams
- Templates by industry (which are completely customizable)
- Actionable insights and reports.
Manychat:
It is a bot platform established on Facebook messenger for e-commerce services. It helps in growing small businesses by making all the complicated stuff easy.
Features of Manychat:
- Can build relationships with customers quickly through proper interaction.
- Can easily book appointments, sell products, and create relationships through Facebook messenger.
- Those complicated leads can be converted into simple & personalized experiences.
- Manychat bot platforms connect to tools such as Google Sheets, MailChimp, & Zapier.
Landbot
It is an AI tool that helps you to store data, convert leads, and maintain and customize the client’s journey. The Landbot allows customers to manage & interact on the messaging streams.
Features of Landbot
- The Landbot tool helps in designing, deploying & analyzing customer strategies.
- It leads to engaging and seamless interaction with clients.
- It automates the design conversation for WhatsApp, & Facebook messenger.
Flow XO
Flow XO is an automated AI software that helps you to engage & converse with your customers across all social platforms, websites, and applications.
Features of Flow XO
- You can easily invite new clients by sending greetings via e-commerce websites.
- This retail bot gathers user details by their past activity.
- Flow Xo is one of the best bots that accepts payments by identifying a product.
Amplify
It is a new-generation artificial intelligence chatbot tool that offers customized & purposeful messaging platform experiences.
Features of Amplify
- Amplify chatbots provide branded virtual assist bots.
- Easy to create & manage our own virtual assist bot.
Botsify
Botsify is a bot platform where you can create automated chatbots online without any hurdles.
It is one of the best platforms where that helps in increasing sales & reduces manual work.
Features of Botsify
- It helps in cost-cutting by reducing the number of customer support representatives.
- The Botsify bot has a tree view, enabling clients to quickly understand the details.
- Can create a slack bot within a few minutes, followed by a few rules.
Imperson
Imperson provides chatbot solutions that convert a customer lead in an automated way and also offer an authentic customer chat experience.
Features of Imperson
- Imperson bot AI tool gives you a guideline for recognizing the right personality & voice.
HubSpot Chatbot Builder
It helps you to manage the customer, plan meetings, and rate your conversation. HubSpot chatbot builder has 200 integrations that can be personalized based on the company.
Features of HubSpot Chatbot Builder
- HubSpot chatbot builder is one of the top AI chatbots that offers unlimited customized conversations.
- It is integrated with Gmail & Outlook, & provides email tracking to know your leads.
Boost
Boost is an AI chatbot that leads to an increase in the customer experience because of the inbuilt language processing tool. This tool provides 100+ live virtual agents, 10m+ interactions, and 1000+ certified trainees.
Features of Boost
- Anyone can create dynamic & realistic conversations at scale.
- You can pre-add the solutions for up to 2500 queries by converting each basic stuff to complex industry-related issues.
Bold 360
Bold 360 is one of the powerful chatbots that supports businesses to deliver better customer experiences.
Features of Bold 360
- Bold 360 helps agents & customers by giving them the best-personalized customer service.
- It offers all the tools to the agent in order to deliver better experiences.
Ada
It is a customer-serviced AI-powered tool that solves customer inquiries very quickly. Ada is one of the best chatbots that provides On-demand answers to all customer inquiries.
Conclusion
Chatbot technology evolves throughout the retail industry, which helps in personalized assistance and convenient shopping, and provides a focused marketing approach too! Chatbots, or also chatterbots, are intelligent assistants, and they have changed the whole business targets in a better & fast way. But, remember, we have seen only a part of its impacts; there is more to come in the upcoming days.
Soon, these bots will set a new benchmark in the e-commerce websites and retail industries.