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Conversational commerce is the phenomenon of customers interacting and shopping with brands through chat and social apps. Customers spend a good amount of time on these apps—and they spend a good amount of money on them too.
According to Juniper Research, for example, global spending on conversational commerce channels grew by an incredible 63% from 2021 to 2022. And with this trend being projected to continue upward until at least 2025, it’s clear that conversational customer engagement is the future of commerce.
Why do customers love conversational commerce? Their familiarity with their favorite chat apps is clearly one reason. But brands that prioritize a customer-centric business model have also found ways of leveraging these apps’ conversational nature to improve the eCommerce CX, and in turn increase customer goodwill and sales.
Here are three ways in which conversational commerce can enhance CX and how you can implement it in your business.
How Can Conversational Commerce Enhance CX?
1. Let Customers Shop With You on Their Preferred Channels
Start the customer journey on the right note by making it convenient for customers to shop with you. While customers can browse products on a website, they may not have a good CX if the website is difficult to navigate.
In contrast, chat app channels provide a user interface that customers are already familiar with. By setting up a brand presence on chat apps popular with your customers, you empower customers to shop with you on whichever channel they prefer and know how to use like a pro.
When you provide such enhanced customer touchpoints, the CX becomes effortless. You also pave the way for more customer interactions and purchases, word-of-mouth recommendations, and possibly even repeat orders!
For example, let’s say you sell gift baskets for special occasions. Carrie texts Megan to invite her to her upcoming baby shower. Megan sends Carrie a quick congratulatory text, then seamlessly switches to a chat with your brand—in the same app—to order Carrie a gift basket.
Your brand’s intelligent chatbot processes the order instantly and sends Megan a confirmation message. And just like that, her gift is on its way!
Satisfied with such a smooth CX, Megan knows she can rely on your brand to fulfill her future gift basket needs—and that when such a time arises, you’re just a text away.
2. Better Serve Customers With Personalized Interactions
While establishing a presence on your customers’ preferred channels is a good start for enhancing CX, take things further by personalizing the customer journey.
Don’t forget that people typically use chat apps to interact with others who personally know them. To provide a warm and meaningful CX, you’ll likewise want to foster a sense of human interaction and personal touch when communicating with customers on chat apps.
Look into customizing the marketing campaigns and support messages you send to customers via these apps. By now, addressing customers by their first name is standard practice. But apart from that, you can further tailor your communications based on your customers’ profiles and order history.
For example, a customer, Calvin, may have previously indicated his interest in learning about your clothing store’s offers for shirts but not those for pants. This is your cue to:
text him about upcoming discounts on shirts, and
exclude him from texts promoting pants.
By tailoring your customer interactions in this manner, you improve the relevance of your communications and keep customers interested in engaging with your brand for longer.
3. Help Customers Get Quicker Answers
Whether they have a pre-sales question or need post-sales support, customers want answers fast—and they perceive email communication as being too slow. With customers used to quick replies via instant messaging apps, they may prefer to chat with your brand on such apps to enjoy shorter response times.
And this is your brand’s chance to shine. By deploying chatbots, your customer service team can offer automated, self-service solutions for customers to resolve simple queries on their own. These chatbots can also be programmed to chat with customers using informal language—just like how friends talk to each other!—to maintain the personal touch.
Chatbots also increase the speed advantage by being operational 24/7. Customers don’t need to wait to reach out during fixed support hours, but can get immediate assistance no matter the time of day. And nothing can be quicker than that!
Implementing Conversational Commerce: Things to Consider
On Which Channels Will You Implement Conversational Commerce?
Be strategic with the channels for which you implement conversational commerce.
While you have no shortage of channels to choose from, shortlist only the ones popular among your customers. After all, if you’ll be expending resources to support certain channels, then it pays to focus on those that enjoy higher usage.
Not only that: with customers comprising the “C” in “CX,” you’ll want to take the conversation to your customers rather than making them go through hoops to chat with you.
When you do so, you stand to reach more customers—who may also feel more valued as you’ve made the effort to engage them on their preferred channels. In turn, they may be more inclined to shop with you instead of another brand that generically treats them as a faceless individual.
If you are doing business in Southeast Asia, then WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Viber are just some of the popular chat app channels in the region worth implementing conversational commerce on.
Learn more about these channels, and pro tips for offering customer support on them, in our guide to providing exceptional customer service on chat apps.
Which Tools Will You Use?
CM.com develops a wide range of tools that make implementing conversational commerce a breeze.
For example, Mobile Push provides a no-code solution for delivering personalized push notifications to customers. Integrable with a wide range of chat app channels, Mobile Push enhances the CX by helping you tailor marketing communications based on your customers’ profiles, location, order history, and more.
As for enhancing support conversations, our Mobile Service Cloud customer service software offers a scripted chatbot that can instantly answer simple FAQs. Contributing to a convenient CX, these support chats will take place on your customers’ preferred chat apps, letting them chat with you as if they were talking to a family member or a friend.
If you regularly receive more complex support questions, Conversational AI Cloud is a worthwhile investment. This AI chatbot harnesses natural language processing (NLP) to:
capture and process user input, and then
provide an appropriate response using friendly language for a humanized CX.
Being capable of self-learning, Conversational AI Cloud helps deliver automated responses that only improve in quality over time. It also provides insights into customer intent that can prove valuable for refining the CX.
Our AI chatbot solution can be implemented on any channel of choice as quickly as within a few weeks. For example, online insurer Onlia was able to get its AI chatbot up and running in just six weeks.
Conversational AI Cloud is also undoubtedly effective: just take it from fashion retailer Missguided, which reported a high AI chatbot engagement rate of 80%. The brand also reduced its support contact and costs by 14%.
Increase Conversions With Impactful Brand Conversations
Whether in sales, marketing, or customer support functions, conversational commerce has become the norm. And this is unsurprising, given its ability to enhance CX throughout the customer journey.
To tap on the full potential of conversational commerce, brands will need to employ the right solutions that turn the humble chat app into a channel for customer engagement and conversions. We’ve covered a few of these solutions here, but especially recommend taking a look at Conversational AI Cloud if you’re keen to elevate CX with the power of AI.
Explore Conversational AI Cloud in more detail here to learn how it can help you provide a seamless and delightful support experience on your customers’ preferred channels.
