The digital world frames and sets the pace for most of the world today. Nothing happens without involving, in one way or another, a connection to the Internet, a viral content, an activity on a professional or general public social network, the sending of an email, etc. And for all these activities, these actions, it is necessary to intervene, as a user, and to interact with interfaces. These interfaces are open doors to the world and allow users to obtain the information, services and products they need, sometimes even before they know they exist.
But digital and all these interfaces are not synonymous with dehumanization: as digital is transversal to all industries and services, it brings a growing number of people to work with these tools and means of communication, marketing and commerce. There are therefore relationships that are created through screens, more or less direct exchanges between humans, via machines, the web and networks. These relationships are strong, persistent and are maintained over time through brands and their production, thanks to human intervention.
However, the acceleration of online commerce, the need for visibility and performance online, and the tension that exists in this context, pushes many companies to invest in a relevant and efficient IT relay. This is the case with the explosion of the use of chatbots. We will see here, through some specific functional examples, how chatbots have been accompanying the online commerce revolution for a few years now.
Online commerce: some simple principles of its general functioning
To discover the advantages of chatbots in online commerce, you first need to understand the framework in which they have been gradually implemented. E-business was practically born with the internet, but for a long time it was technically and functionally limited. Or rather, innovations, at different levels, have allowed it to take a major place in the use of the Internet. It is the end of the 1990s and the 2000s that saw its explosion and the advent of major players who are mostly still present today. We think in particular of Amazon or Rakuten who have created a new model from scratch.
But online commerce is not limited to these brands: from the moment you place an order and make a payment on the internet, it is ecommerce. That goes for your streaming music subscription, your latest video-on-demand rental online, or booking your accommodation and airfare for next summer.
Millions of shopping opportunities of all kinds have become possible thanks to technical, functional, graphical and ergonomic optimizations of websites and applications worldwide. E-commerce is all about that: it’s not the nature or depth of the catalogue that counts, but the experience offered to the prospect and the customer.
Chatbots for ecommerce: for everyone benefits
Chatbots are robots whose role is to replace humans, and to accelerate or even improve the results of the missions for which they replace them. In the field of e-commerce, chatbots are legion. They wear different hats and play different roles, just like the members of a marketing or sales department in a company. The latter are still there, but can focus on a set of higher value-added tasks.
Gains for the online retailer: how to optimize its economic results
On paper, chatbots represent the best of both worlds: revenue and expenses. From the point of view of costs and expenses, they perform permanent, repetitive and low value-added tasks, for a derisory cost. Between the expenses related to development, configuration, implementation and maintenance, we are far from the economic burden represented by an employee with similar functions: salary, expenses, lesser working hours, etc.
At the same time, the use of chatbots maximizes revenues. Indeed, both in terms of conversion and pure sales, they improve the revenues of any e-commerce activity. This is especially true when they are identified, recognized, accepted and used daily by users. As we said, their added value can be quantified at several levels: whether in pre-sales, in the prospecting phase, in sales or in after-sales customer service, robots represent a significant part of the optimization of sales revenues and expenses.
The benefits for buyers: real support at every stage of the purchasing process
Whether selling swimming pools, clothes, cars or organic jam, robots excel in their role. And buyers can attest to this.
Whether it’s when a problem has not yet been identified and verbalized, or later when it’s time to refine their thinking. When it comes to buying or making an after-sales complaint, chatbots are reliable replacements.
Based on secure and durable technologies, powerful and often self-learning programs are placed in the position of interlocutor for visitors of websites and applications.
Capable of exchanging and dialoguing with humans, according to clearly established themes and scenarios, or conversely relying on their experience and artificial intelligence algorithms, chatbots are excellent advisors. Whether to inform, guide or take into account customer feedback, chatbots are marketing and sales weapons that are now indispensable to any company.
If we add to this the international dimension, both in terms of time zones covered and the ability to exchange in all languages, we understand the prerequisite and the imperative degree of their presence in any online sales system.
So a chatbot is always a good idea!
The risk-opportunity balance of such an investment is definitely in favour of setting up a chatbot. And this is of course true for the marketing of online services: from making an appointment to drawing up a quote, including rating the service after completion: the robot takes care of everything.
The question is not so much to know if you should initiate a chatbot project for your online sales site, but rather to know on which objectives this new functionality of your site will be affected. As is often the case in IT, a scoping and functional documentation phase will allow a serene implementation, limiting the number of back and forth and thus maximizing the chances to quickly put the chatbot online. It is this optimization of design time that will shorten development and implementation times.
