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Got a chatbot for your eCommerce store yet? See, with more people connected to the internet every day… And a pandemic that’s practically forcing people to live online. Lots of people find themselves shopping online as well. Yup, eCommerce is here to stay after getting some significant boosts in recent years and reaching new peaks in 2020. But, with more people flocking over to your store, contemplating to buy your products… you got to ask yourself the following question:

“Can the Customer Service of my eCommerce Store Scale?”

See, more people online checking out your products and services is terrific… But, it doesn’t mean jack if you can’t handle all the traffic that’s coming in. Let alone deliver your products, but, that’s a different story altogether, though. In this article, we’re taking a look at the easiest way to counteract a massive influx of customers bombarding your store… an eCommerce chatbot. 

A Chatbot for eCommerce

A chatbot, in essence, is a little program that helps automate certain areas of your business. Many people actually refer to a chatbot as the Swiss Army knife of your business. Why? Well, it’s your multi-purpose buddy that helps with various tasks in your business—with the primary goal to streamline your customer engagement service. 

Plus, concerning the picture illustrated earlier, it’s also your best option to cut costs. With a chatbot, you press overhead while you’re scaling your business to the moon. As a result, you will save a lot of time and increase the sales of eCommerce store(s). 

Another benefit is that you’re making customers happy with a bot that’s trained to quickly answer questions they may have. Nothing is more frustrating than being ready to buy… But, not getting an answer to your question fast enough… Some people find this enough reason to shop somewhere else. A bot that’s quick to answer questions can save these types of customers, making sure they shop with you. 

Some of the benefits of having an eCommerce chatbot:

• Save on costs and time.
• Boost sales and conversions
• Drive more conversations
• An efficient customer experience 

A Trend In eCommerce That’s Here to Stay

As mentioned before, eCommerce is booming. But how do you stay ahead of the competition? Well, one of the most recent trends may be your answer to setting up your online shop to scale; a Messenger chatbot. According to Modern Retail and BigCommerce, this trend has to do with 1 driving force. The force being, artificial intelligence, or in short, AI. But, there are other trends as well. Next to chatbots, the trends include on-site personalization for individual experiences… And, of course, mobile shopping. Luckily, a Messenger chatbot helps with this too. Let’s dig into the reasons why you should consider adding a Messenger chatbot to your store.

Reasons Why Your eCommerce Needs A Chatbot on Messenger

As an eCommerce store owner, you know that online shopping does not work linearly. Next to there being several channels you can list your products, there are also use many channels for advertising your shop. Plus, there are also various ways for customers to shop as well! Prospects may use their email address, an app, or social media. Not to mention the other countless impersonal ways to shop. Impersonal being the keyword here… It’s why innovators are introducing a new way to connect products to shoppers, introducing; conversational commerce. 

Conversational commerce is undoubtedly possible with the help of platforms like Facebook Messenger. In fact, over at Clepher, we recommend using a Messenger based bot over any other bot. Something we will elaborate on later in this article. That said, though, some big businesses are already taking advantage of Messenger chatbots. They include Sephora, Staples, and H&M. 

With a chatbot on your e-commerce store, it means shoppers can head over to the chatbox (usually) in the lower right of the page… Or the little pop-up that asks, “Hi, how may I help you?” to get started shopping. Some shoppers are already saying it’s comparable to a store clerk asking you if you need help. You know, someone who can show a shopper where they can find the items. A chatbot, in essence, brings back offline personalization to the online world.

Without further ado, here are the main reasons why your eCommerce store needs a chatbot on Messenger:

1. A Remarkable Customer Experience With Engaging Conversations

Like mentioned before, it’s like having a store clerk… Or, sales agent if you will, that’s speaking to your potential buyer. What’s cool is that you can even add quizzes and trivia about your store. And so, gamify the shopping experience. Plus, you can also include videos, emojis, and GIFs into your texts using a Messenger chatbot. Of course, this is just scratching the surface.

Pro tip: Give your chatbot a name. By doing this, you create a persona that further establishes your brand. Making it easier for users to remember the chatbot experience they had, and so, remembering your brand.

2. Reduce Your Operational Costs

80% of customer questions are usually repeated questions. How cool would it be to have an eCommerce chatbot answer those questions? This way, you only have to ‘program’ your chatbot once, and it’s good to go forever. As a result, you free up time for your support agents. This ‘extra’ time can improve the quality of support for people who need human attention. Or, you could let one of your support agents go, saving on some monthly expenses. 

3. Automate Your Business

Today, if your business is not yet automated, you’re lagging far behind… And, no, automating a few welcome emails doesn’t count. As mentioned before, a Messenger chatbot to your store helps reduce the time spent responding to questions from customers. Yup, a chatbot can definitely help improving response time. But, there are several other applications of Messenger chatbots. Think of following up with a customer—increasing customer satisfaction rates, or, improving conversions and qualifying leads.

4. Qualify Valuable Leads

This takes me to this point; Qualifying Leads. This is actually such a looked-over thing in business that it just deserves its own spot in this list. You’ve read earlier that chatbots can qualify leads. And a chatbot on Messenger could not be more qualified to do this in your business. 

What you can do is to send prospects to your Messenger chatbot right from your ads. Once a prospect clicks on your ad, the chatbot opens up. It immediately starts to qualify them by asking all sorts of questions. The chatbot can then filter leads into different segments or buckets… Handing over only the hottest leads to the sales agents. 

What’s cool is that bots can gather information in a very conversational way as well. I.E., the bot can start by asking for a job title, this way, you’re able to figure out if the lead is a decision-maker.

5. Enhance Returns On Ad Spend with your eCommerce Chatbot

Speaking about ads, the perfect Messenger chatbot will improve your Return on Ad Spend (ROAS). Especially if people come in from an ad that’s leading to your Messenger chatbot… You can use follow-ups and broadcasting to remind your bot subscribers to take action. There’s a lot of money to make in the follow-up messages and having people subscribed to your chatbot… This means you now have an additional way of reaching out to prospects. Yup, an ad can only do so much, but tie it to a chatbot, and it can recommend products, do follow-ups, and more. 

6. Personalization of Customer Experience

Personalization and trust go together. To build trust, the business must take care of and nurture customers. Business owners should make customers feel like they’re the most special person in the world. You do this, right? Well, whether you do or not… A chatbot can offer a personalized experience. A chatbot listens to what your customers are saying. And because chatbots have access to profile data. It helps them to customize the message even more. Even data from previous conversations can be used to make future responses unique instead of repetitive. 

7. Cart Abandonment

Yup, I said this before, but it’s so important I’m going to say it twice; there’s money in the follow-up. Look. Using a checkbox plugin below your Add To Cart button helps to recover previously lost sales. Using this Messenger Plugin, you can send over sales data to your chatbot… And with your bot knowing when the sale occurred or not, it can follow up. Meaning, if the sale didn’t happen, the bot can send a reminder 60 minutes after a person first added an item to a cart. Reminding them, they still got something sitting in their basket they can checkout… Ka-ching! 

8. “Stalking” on Messenger 

A “personal stalker”, that’s how I like to call our chatbot. Why? Well, because when someone talks to our Customer Chat widget on our website… They’re marked as a Messenger subscriber of our FB page. This means that even when they leave our website, we’re still able to reach them through Messenger. Whether that’s via the Facebook website on a desktop, Messenger, or via the Messenger app on their phone… Sending a simple follow-up will definitely get their attention. And this can be instant because they enabled Messenger message notification… Or later because they’re logging in to Facebook at the end of the day to check their feed. One of the reasons why Messenger sees 82% open rates on average… Suck on that Email!

eCommerce chatbot: Final thoughts…

If you’re expecting a bunch of traffic, or you just want to make sure you’re ready before your store explodes… It’s time to innovate and automate your eCommerce store today with the help of a Messenger bot. Have it speak to your customers as if it’s you talking to them. You won’t regret it! 

OH, BTW – here at Clepher, you can choose from over 200 templates… We probably have one for your industry too? This should make it even easier to get started now.

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