11 Ways How Conversational AI Enhances CX At E-commerce Stores

Intelligent and timely communication is critical for the success of D2C businesses, as they steer towards innovative customer engagement strategies. E-commerce websites face massive competition from similar brands. By 2023, the D2C business is expected to grow by $174.98 billion, with more brands competing for their share of customers. About 50% of businesses in the UK enjoyed revenue growth from D2C product sales during lockdowns caused by the pandemic. The only way to make businesses stand out amidst competition is to enhance user experience using conversational messaging APIs .

Introduction

D2C businesses sometimes focus efforts and investments more on product ideation and marketing instead of making their virtual stores more engaging and consumer-centric, all while maintaining simplicity throughout the buying process.

While customers love top quality products, their online experience has to be engaging and accessible for them to complete their purchases. If the online store experience does not meet their expectations, then customers are likely to shift their brand loyalties.

To guarantee that an e-commerce website caters to the requirements of a user, it is essential to understand user behavior and the real-time dynamics that impact their decisions. The cost of acquiring and preserving valuable customers is skyrocketing because brands only focus on outbound experiences and are yet to step up with creative ways to simplify inbound user journeys across virtual platforms.

Personalisation, gamification and simplicity are key to success with E-commerce brands. Do you want your brand to be the go-to choice for your customers? Contact Gupshup to boost your e-commerce business revenue through personalized user journeys enabled by the intelligent conversational messaging API.

Bring Your D2C Website To The Mobile Device

There’s a big difference between mobile adaptation and making mobile-first websites . With interactive conversational AI platforms, your store is readily accessible and can be visited almost instantly using store bots. Rather than getting lost in a maze, users can now browse through your mobile store to directly view your products using their favorite messaging apps.

When users receive targeted product suggestions, they are more likely to make a purchase. Gupshup can create an exclusive store chatbot for a wide range of businesses.

Lets see some examples of how conversational AI helps simplify CX at D2C e-commerce stores.

1. Simplify Customer Acquisition

With a proactive approach, you can introduce customer conversations. You can easily convert window shoppers into loyal customers with an interactive chatbot. With a targeted approach, you can recommend products based on their requirements.

2. Encourage Purchase To Turn Clicks To Sales

Often online shoppers may simply browse your website and subscribe/sign up without purchasing. Following up with leads is now simplified with the Gupshup D2C chatbot . Personalized product recommendations, real-time support, and tempting discounts provide a compelling user experience. You can keep track of subscribers and encourage them to purchase products based on current deals and browsing history.

Cart abandonment is one of the major challenges for e-commerce websites. With smart messaging powered by conversational AI , you can remind customers of the items in their cart and support them in completing the payment.

3. Make Product Discovery Easily Accessible

When your brand sells multiple products online, customers are overwhelmed by the choices. They also have to click through multiple links on the website to finalize the products for purchase. If the customers know what they are looking for, they can use a chat-based ordering service that enables customers to find, select and buy products from the website directly. Your product discovery is enhanced through WhatsApp chatbots and store bot, and customers can shop at your online store easily!

4. Cut Customer Waiting Time With Instant Replies

One of the effective ways to encourage customers to purchase online is to make sure they are not kept waiting. Instant communication is a smart way to engage customers’ interests. Right from the point of entry to the payment gateway, the conversational AI solution from Gupshup understands the customer’s mindset, builds messaging that is relevant, and does not wait for your customer to approach you. Your D2C brand can directly approach them and highlight new products to engage with them.

5. Boost Sales With Personalized Deals and Discounts

Bringing daily deals and offers directly to customers helps in boosting sales and upselling of products. Through a unified conversational messaging API from Gupshup , time-sensitive offers are presented easily for customers to choose from. Coupons, product recommendations and tempting deals are every customer’s delight.

6. Integrate Multiple Messaging Platforms For Ease of Access

When customers access your store chatbot and make a purchase, SMS notifications are automatically sent through Gupshup’s chatbot interface. Mobile authentication and verification of users can be easily carried out with a single unified API from Gupshup. Increasing communication channels between customers and brands is a smart way to convert a single sale into a long-term customer journey.

7. Provide Expert Consultation

Your customers can consult experts for product recommendations based on their preferences. A hassle-free, engaging experience builds customer confidence and helps in preserving their loyalty to the brand.

8. Integrate Social Media Platforms Into A Single Interface

Businesses can effectively leverage social media to attract customers and sell their products. For example, brands can market their products on Instagram and chatbots can be developed using the Instagram DM feature for customer engagement. Likewise, WhatsApp Commerce is increasingly popular of late. Gupshup is a pioneer of creating state-of-the-art solutions powered by conversational AI using the Messaging API for Instagram and WhatsApp Business API , Facebook Messenger, among several others.

With conversational AI, you can make your e-commerce store entirely accessible through social media platforms. It is now possible to create a virtual store without a website. The time and money you could spend on creating your brand website can instead be used in marketing your virtual store products to mobile customers.

9. Provide Excellent Customer Support With Human Interaction

The most important aspect of the e-commerce business is prompt customer support. Gupshup helps you support customers with real-time support, besides allowing them to track their orders using the chatbot; SMS integration is enabled to provide order updates to the customers. However, when bots are unable to answer any of the questions posed by customers, a smooth transition of the chatbot control to a live agent is also enabled, without impacting the customer experience in any manner.

10. Real-Time Billing & Order Tracking With SMS Support

Once again, the key aspect to be borne in mind is to ensure that the customer is not kept waiting for updates.

11. Improve Post Sales Support To Establish Brand Loyalty

A good, hassle-free user experience is what customers look for online. Your business can establish brand loyalty by supporting customer queries with real-time messaging and valuing their feedback.

Conclusion

Lending a conversational touch to customer engagement is a must in today’s times as businesses ought to sell experiences to buyers, along with products to boost brand loyalty. AI-powered chatbots prove to be effective as they tend to serve the customers effectively throughout the purchase life cycle. Gupshup’s conversational messaging API enhances every aspect of the buyer experience right from lead generation until post-sales support. Your D2C store can be easily accessible and more engaging for customers through conversational messaging on mobile devices.

Schedule a free demo from Gupshup to drive customer engagement and boost sales revenue. Alternatively, try one of our bots for yourself; scan the QR code in the images above.