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With increasing online purchases, ecommerce chatbots have become one of the biggest trends for businesses to follow. As per Gartner reports, chatbots will become a primary customer tool for 25% of business companies by 2027.

So, if you are an ecommerce store owner and looking for a magical touch to keep customers engaged and skyrocket your conversions, you should keep an eye on the increasing role of chatbots in ecommerce.

This blog post covers everything about chatbots in ecommerce, their benefits, the e-commerce chatbots you can use, how they help to keep customers engaged, personalize product recommendations, achieve better business conversions, and examples of e-commerce chatbots.

So, transform your ecommerce store with chatbots that make your clients go “WOW!”

What is an Ecommerce Chatbot?

An ecommerce chatbot is a computer software program that is designed to perform human conversions and interactions automatically. Chatbots for ecommerce are meant to:

• Answer customer queries
• Assist with proper ordering
• Automate sales
• Offer post-purchase support
• Collect feedback
• Connects customers with agents.

These customer conversions with chatbots are founded on predefined conditions, events, or triggers centered around the shopper’s buying journey. These AI chatbots can assist customers immediately and automatically, allowing your business support team to focus on more complicated issues.

Let’s explain an e-commerce chatbot with an example.

You open Gymshark’s website to explore their workout clothes collection. But you are confused about where to start. So you reach them via the chat bubble visible on the website.

As soon as you open the website, you are presented with a question asking how can we help and a set of options to choose from.

Now based on the command you enter, their chatbot presents you the next steps. For example, if you click on “How do I track my order?” the chatbot will display the next options.

This is the most basic example to give you an idea about e-commerce chatbots and how can you use them for customer support.

What Are the Different Types of eCommerce Chatbots?

Chatbot technology is continually evolving to improve customer experience. While there is a lot of work happening on the automation front using artificial intelligence technology and machine learning, chatbots are mainly divided into three types.

Here is a brief overview of these three types.

Simple Chatbots

Simple chatbots are the most basic type of chatbots, that come up with limited capabilities. They are also called rule-based bots and are highly task-specific. This makes them ideal for upfront tasks only.

This shows that the chatbot is built in such a way that it poses questions centered on predetermined options, allowing consumers to choose from the options in your knowledge base so they get answers to their questions.

In such dealings, the chatbot does not consider context or inference from previous conversations or user interactions. Every response that the bot shows is based on the input it gets from customers and is taken at face value.

We will explain this with an example.

For instance, you are going to order a pizza. To order pizza, the simple chatbot will walk you through a series of questions about the size, crust, and toppings you would like to add. It also presents the process of creating your own pizza up until you mention a delivery address and clear the payment.

The second example includes the chatbot that is used for order status. A simple chatbot will inform you about your updated order status or a tracking URL by asking you for the order number.

Smart Chatbots

Smart chatbots are one step more advanced bots than simple chatbots. They are built using technologies like conversational artifical intelligence to understand and deal with human interactions and intent better before responding to them. They emulate human-like, free-flowing conversations by learning from past interactions and predefined parameters.

Their example includes shopping assistants in online stores.

If a customer is looking for products around skin brightening, they can converse with these chatbots seamlessly by choosing their own way of interaction and getting a drop message on the same.

The chatbots are capable of reading, processing, and understanding the message, and reply them with product recommendations from the store that addresses the particular item.

Hybrid Chatbots

Hybrid chatbots are a combination of simple and smart chatbots, designed to simplify complex use cases. They are built to solve rule-based tasks but can also understand the intent and context behind a message to produce a more human-like response.

Let’s revive the pizza example.

A hybrid chatbot would walk you through the same questions about the size, crust, and toppings. So what is special about this?

The chatbot will also ask questions like “What should be the taste of your pizza (sweet, spicy, bland, very spicy).” This is something that was missing in a simple chatbot. The chatbot will use the customer input to make topping recommendations.

Things common about these chatbots include their ability to be customized according to the use case you are going to address.

Ecommerce Chatbot’s Key Uses Cases

Chatbots have come a long way since the days of scripted response and decision trees.

All this has become possible due to advancements in artificial intelligence technologies including conversational AI, machine learning, and natural language processing (NLP) where chatbots are getting better at understanding customers’ questions and responding to them appropriately.

These days, talking to an e-commerce chatbot is like talking to a human, as chatbots have personalities, can engage customers, and they are super-efficient.

That’s why chatbot solutions are becoming more useful in the world of digital e-commerce and online retailers.

E-commerce bots can be used to achieve several end goals. Let’s explore them one by one.

Boost Sales and Conversions

E-commerce chatbots are a great way to engage customers and increase your sales and leads along with making the shopping experience more enjoyable.

As per studies, 61% of US customers purchase products from a brand offering message support through chatbots. This shows that having a chatbot is a great way to boost sales

Including e-commerce chatbots in your chatbot marketing strategy helps you analyze customer behavior, preferences, and history. They can pitch in at the right moment and guide customers towards products they would like to buy, driving your sales.

Personalize Customer’s Shopping Experience

By collecting user data at the beginning of customer service interactions, such as location and interests, e-commerce chatbots make users’ shopping experience more personal.

from using the customer’s name to making tailored product recommendations, personalization boosts engagement, satisfaction, and brand loyalty. Chatbots focus on delivering an experience that keeps the shoppers coming back again and again!

Answer Customer Queries and FAQs Through Round Clock Customer Support

To your surprise, 60% of customers think that long hold and waiting for hours are the most frustrating part of any customer service.

That’s where e-commerce chatbots play their part. They are known for answering customer questions, providing round-the-clock assistance, and resolving issues in real time. This instant support not only saves the customer from frustration but also allows the bot to transfer the customer to a live agent if the bot cannot deal with the request.

All this creates a seamless customer journey by improving customer retention.

Make Booking and Ordering Much Faster

Though dealing with online hotel bookings and orders is an easy task, it can take a lot of time for live agents.

E-commerce chatbots can make booking and ordering much faster by using chatbot fulfillment. This reduces the demand for a contact or customer center.

Moreover, by remembering key customer details such as address information, they enhance the chances of customers returning to them for fast service.

Lower Cart Abandonment

Do you know that the average cart abandonment rate is 69.99%?

E-commerce chatbots reduce cart abandonment rates by fighting like superheroes. They dive in and find opportunities to re-engage customers who are on the brink of making a purchase.

Chatbots help turn abandoners into happy customers by sending them friendly follow-up messages, addressing concerns, offering discounts, or suggesting better alternative products. This they turn lost sales into wins!

Strengthen Brand Awareness

A creative, well-designed chatbot is a great way to promote a business brand.

A fast-witted bot with a strong personality can make press and build a memorable experience. This will redirect more traffic to an e-commerce store through word of mouth.

Integration with Multiple Social Media Platforms

Inoculate the power of social media to your e-commerce store with chatbots!

Small business brands can engage with their customers via social media channels including Instagram, Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and more.

These chatbots can pull content from your social media accounts, share product details, and capture leads from social media platforms. This creates a seamless brand interaction across the digital world.

Collect Customer Data

We all know that having relevant customer data is the king of marketing. The more data you have, the more you can easily retarget customers.

An ecommerce bot is the perfect solution to collect customer data without interfering with the digital customer journey.

By asking a few questions, they can gather information regarding personal preference, allowing businesses to re-engage a customer with highly tailored ads.

5 Best Ecommerce Chatbots to Transform Your Business in 2024

Customer queries consume a lot of support time and resources. Resolving questions quickly using e-commerce chatbots will drive more leads, reduce costs, and ease agents to focus on higher-value tasks.

Here, I am going to review 5 best ecommerce chatbots, which facilitate businesses:

• lower support costs by 30%
• resolve 35% of customer questions or complaints
• provide 24/7 customer support

thus, add a chatbot to your ecommerce platform and resolve most of the customer questions.

Below are some of the best chatbots for ecommerce stores.

Clepher

Meet Clepher, the platform that builds AI chatbot for ecommerce and transforms the ecommerce landscape with its most simple and conversational e-commerce chatbots.

With more than 220 well-designed chatbot templates and cutting-edge tools, Clepher helps enhance your customer experience like never before and makes online shopping a dream come true.

Key Features:

Clepher has the following main features:

• AI-powered Chatbots
• Feature natural language processing (NLP) technology
• User-friendly visual builder with drag and drop function
• More than 220 pre built-in chatbot templates
• Integration with social media channels like Facebook and Instagram
• Its automation capabilities can resolve 80% of the customer queries
• Integration OpenAI makes it stand tall

Chatfuel

Chatfuel aims to deliver e-commerce bots for Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Brands can launch it on their website by integrating Messenger into it.

Key Features:

• drag-and-drop builder with no coding required to build your own chatbot
• 30+ pre built-in templates
• Redirect customers from direct messages or ads into your communication channel
• Integration with Google Sheets, Shopify, Zapier, and more
• 24/7 customer support with 5 minute response time

Cons

Its integration with a third party makes it reliant on another service provider for its WhatsApp features. Moreover, its slow-to-release feature affects its reliability.

Tidio

Tidio is a chatbot that offers human support to resolve customer queries. This chatbot for ecommerce platforms uses Lyro AI to offer more natural and human-like conversations.

Along with answering questions and solving problems, Tidio can also track visitors across your website and allow you to create more personalized offers.

Key Features:

• Dozens of pre-designed templates
• Custom greetings for new and returning customers
• Helps manage live chat, Messenger, WhatsApp, Email, and Instagram chats
• Multichannel visual chat builder
• Easy to install
• Bot-to-human feature

Drawbacks

• No arithmetic support
• Restricted options for assigning chats

Ada

Ada is a great chatbot builder that helps online retailers to revolutionize their customer experience.

With its artificial intelligence-integrated automation, this easy-to-use e-Commerce chatbot platform allows you to build complex conversation flows, without the need for coding. It can also be integrated with social media handles, APIs, and more.

Key Features

• No-code chatbot builder platform
• User-friendly intuitive tool
• Easy implementation with social media handles, APIs, and others
• Multilingual support

Drawbacks

• Not very intuitive UX as per reviews
• Limited customization options
• Poor reporting system

Snatchbot

SnatchBot is a wonderful chatbot builder that uses NLP, ML, and voice recognition techniques to build e-commerce chatbots.

Their chatbots reduce complexity and deliver an exceptional customer experience. And guess what? You don’t need any technical knowledge to know how to build an e-commerce chatbot using SnatchBot.

Key Features

• Wide variety of templates
• No-code chatbot builder platform
• Various channel support

Drawbacks

If you are going to use chatbots for the first time for your e-commerce store, SnatchBot might be confusing.

After analyzing all these chatbot platforms one by one, we can conclude that Clepher stands tall among them. With its 220+ chatbot templates, excellent customer support, and cutting-edge NLP techniques, the platform aims to provide an excellent user experience.

Best ECommerce Chatbot Platform Examples

Check out the best eCommerce chatbot examples and see how they are revolutionizing the online shopping experience.

Sephora

Cosmetic retailer Sephora was one of the first brands to introduce bots on social media handles like Facebook Messenger and Kik.

With its two innovative e-commerce chatbots: Sephora Virtual Assist and Sephora Reservation Assist, it has taken full advantage of the advancing chatbot technology.

Built to recognize postcodes and cities, users can locate the nearest Sephora store to book a makeover appointment and confirm it by getting a confirmation email.

The bot has an 11% higher conversion rate compared to other channels that Sephora uses for in-store bookings. Sephora Virtual Artist helps users color-match Sephora products like lipstick where users simply hold their phones up to an item or image and the bot detects the color and displays the product that matches.

H&M

H&M is a multinational clothing retail brand that developed a chatbot for the messaging platform Kik to complement the e-commerce store.

By acting as a virtual stylist, the bot provides tailored outfit inspiration for every user.

To start the process, H&M’s chatbot will ask the user to select between two photos of different outfits. After perceiving the user’s answer, the bot quickly builds a style persona for the individual.

 

It then arranges a personalized outfit, displaying all the articles alongside the combined price of a complete outfit. Now can click on the outfit to ‘shop’ or ‘save’ the item. If they select ‘shop’, they are redirected to the H&M website where they can make purchases with just a few clicks.

Domino’s

Pizza chain Domino’s has the most widely dispersed chatbots in the market. Integrated with multiple channels, including Facebook Messenger, Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Slack, and Twitter, it makes it easy to order Domino’s pizza from anywhere.

Users walk through from toppings to selecting a time for delivery while ordering pizza from this chatbot. It also has an order-tracking feature. In addition, it saves and remembers previous orders.

Users can re-order their favorite pizza without going through the steps of choosing a pizza. This makes users to return again and again.

Thus, make orders, reservations, and even purchases on your channel of choice by using Domino’s e-commerce chatbot.

Final Words – Build Your Conversational Commerce Chatbot with Clepher

Ecommerce chatbots are revolutionizing the online shopping landscape with their conversational abilities by boosting sales and conversions, answering customer queries, reducing cart abandonment, collecting data and customer reviews, and personalizing customer shopping experience.

So, it’s time to kick-start your ecommerce business like never before with the help of these e-commerce AI chatbots.

Don’t forget to check out Clepher, the ultimate chatbot-building platform that helps you supercharge your ecommerce venture with exceptional intelligence and next-level customer engagement. So, get ready to create a chatbot and accelerate your online shopping experience using Clepher.

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