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Statista has published a study that covers the B2B company approach to creating a marketing strategy. Unsurprisingly, 46% of all respondents chose social media as their go-to method, while 41% prioritized personalization and 39% put effort into video marketing.

What’s also interesting in this study is the fact that roughly 20% of respondents expressed interest in AI and automation, and conversational marketing.

More and more companies are discovering how challenging it is to meet the needs of modern consumers. Changing trends and emerging competition encourages businesses to seek solutions, and a decent number of brands believe in automation.

Defining Ecommerce Chatbots

Online stores can implement chatbots directly on the website as well as their social media channels, such as Messenger and WhatsApp, with the intent to automate certain processes.

Chatbots are AI-based smart systems that replace real people in customer service. Because the process is automated, a chatbot system can cover more ground by interacting with multiple customers simultaneously. There is no need to dedicate different customer support reps when an online store has chatbots.

It is also worth noting that chatbots work both ways. While providing shoppers with relevant information, a chatbot also takes something from every interaction and learns in real-time, further improving its capabilities. 

How Chatbots Boost Sales

Seeing how the goal of running an ecommerce business is to make money selling goods and services, most people reading this article are probably interested specifically in what chatbots bring to the table.

There are multiple ways chatbots improve sales while also working as an excellent customer support solution for an ecommerce site.

#1 – Data Collection

There is no need to think of chatbots as tools for conversation. Choosing the right chatbot also opens opportunities to collect and process relevant data. 

How consumers interact with specific products (do they click on the description pages, comparison charts, etc.), what they submit to the chatbot, and what they want to see more of are a few examples of valuable customer interactions that can be translated into more sales when enough data is collected and processed by a chatbot.

#2 – Feedback

Alt image text: utilizing data collected by a chatbot

Online stores have to collect shopper reviews and publish them to build trust and establish authority. If someone stumbles upon a product page but sees no prior customer feedback, the odds are that they will not bother completing the transaction.

Meanwhile, a product page that is full of reviews brings a clearer picture, and if the feedback is positive just like Flatiron school reviews has, it encourages more sales. The problem is persuading shoppers to actually leave a review, even if they had a positive experience.

Chatbots have a feature to collect reviews by reaching out to shoppers. Ecommerce store owners can set up a system to send reminders and follow-ups to encourage reviews with the help of chatbots.

#3 – Personalization

According to Accenture, more than 90% of shoppers are more likely to stick to stores that offer personalized product ideas.

As a whole, personalization plays a prominent role in building relationships with customers, and chatbots are no slouches when it comes to personalization.

Personalized conversations boost customer experience. By collecting data via interactions with a customer, a chatbot follows a pattern and establishes the next steps it should take while interacting with the shopper. 

A positive interaction leaves customers happy, especially when they receive helpful guidance while also feeling like an individual. And a happy shopper is more likely to become a returning customer or someone who recommends the store to their friends and family.

#4 – Storytelling

A persuasive sales copy is often a difference-maker for ecommerce businesses. Selling via storytelling is considered a form of art, but finding a solid copywriter is not that simple.

In a way, chatbots can replace copywriters, but not in terms of offering persuasive sales copies. Another form of persuasion is the utilization of visual content, and chatbots are smart enough to decide when they need to hype up a product with the help of education or fun GIFs, images, and infographic for brand visibility improvement to hype up the product.

Customers find it easier to engage with visual content. These days, the average person does not have the best attention span, so reading a wall of text is off-putting. On the other hand, the story is different with visuals. And speaking of stories, visually telling one can be something a chatbot excels at, which leads to better customer engagement, and that translates to, you guessed it, more sales.

#5 – Efficient Support

One of the best things about chatbots is the fact that they work around the clock. 24/7 availability is an expectation among modern consumers. If they can shop in a store regardless of what time it is, they also expect that there is someone on customer support ready to provide help.

Since chatbots respond instantly and have no need to take a break, they show superiority over real human customer support. Establishing two-way communication and providing customers with guidance leaves shoppers with a positive experience.

Sure, there might be instances when a chatbot might take a while to process the question and come up with an answer. However, as far as providing solutions to frequently asked questions go, there should be no issues provided that the chatbot is properly optimized.

#6 – Lead Generation

Some chatbots come with lead generation automation. As soon as a customer leaves a comment or interacts with content on the website or social media, this customer is then moved to the automated flow. If you are planning to buy real Twitter followers, you may not need to do that. As chatbots are quite helpful to get the audience’s attention, it gets easier to increase the follower count.

A chatbot sends a message to the customer and poses relevant questions. For example, if a store is selling perfume, a chatbot might inquire the shopper what kind of perfume they are looking for, what their budget is, whether it is a special occasion, etc. As soon as the customer answers, a chatbot can then share relevant sources that answer these questions or provide answers directly.

Closing Thoughts

Customer support automation, feedback collection, and lead generation are some of the notable chatbot features that ought to be utilized more.

A thriving ecommerce store can take its business to the next level with the help of chatbots, whereas a struggling business that has nothing to lose might gain a big boost and forget its