“Hey, Alexa What is Conversational Commerce”?
Conversational commerce refers to e-commerce that takes place through various forms of dialogue and employs techniques such as speech recognition, speaker recognition, natural language processing, and artificial intelligence.
Chris Messina, an ex-uber and ex-Google employee created the term “conversational commerce” in 2015. Simply expressed, Chris predicted that messaging apps such as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp would be utilized to support online transactions in a more comfortable, conversational manner. One that allows users to connect with brands in real-time rather than just messaging them.
One of the greatest quotes from his 2015 piece is included below
Conversational commerce is about delivering convenience, personalization, and decision support while people are on the go, with only partial attention to spare
To further grasp how things might change for your company, let’s look at how conversational commerce will work in the real world. But before understanding its functioning. Here is a small definition of
How Does it Function in the Real World?
Assume you’ve entered your local app store; what occurs once you step through the door?
Is it possible that someone from the staff jumped out from behind the door and shouted about the 10% off mobile sale?
Do they approach you and hound you for your personal information, such as your email address, phone number, or mailing address?
That has been the major distinction between eCommerce and retail.
For years, online stores have used aggressive sales tactics such as entering pop-ups, exit intent overlays, and spamming email addresses with the hottest deals. They’ve resorted to talking to customers, rarely allowing them an opportunity to express their own issues or steer the conversation in a direction that’s actually beneficial to them. It’s frustrating and commonly ends in a predictable response. It’s also not normal to expect Face to Face sales to happen just by throwing deals at your users. They are created by starting a conversation and offering useful solutions to challenges. Conversational commerce isn’t just reliant on low-cost conversion strategies like limited-time offers or heavy overlays. It’s not about wearing your user down by communicating with them until they ultimately relent and open their wallet. Conversational commerce starts a dialogue with your customers. It asks them how you can assist them so that you may make the most appropriate and useful suggestions for them. Conversational commerce, in its most basic form, strikes me as the digital equivalent of face-to-face customer service.
Customers can utilize apps and platforms such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Talk, and WeChat to not only interact with brands, as they can on Twitter, but also to converse in Realtime. Customers may do everything from requesting basic customer service to obtaining customer support and seeking assistance, and thanks to apps like Manychat and Recart, they can even complete purchases from within the messenger app. The way these conversations are managed is the main difference between conversational and traditional commerce. It’s all instantaneous, to put it that way. Users send a message, and the brand responds quickly, either with a live person or with automated chatbots that can analyze keywords to choose the most relevant response.
For more information on chatbots read this why chatbot is the future of marketing? (link)
Popular examples of Conversational Commerce
Uber
Uber, one of the industry’s pioneers and leaders in the ridesharing space, has announced plans to allow consumers to hail an Uber ride via Facebook Messenger. Users can use this approach because Uber provides $20 in credit for trying out the service, chatting with drivers, and paying for rides over Facebook Messenger. However, they are unable to arrange a ride using this platform. To persuade the user to do so.
With 700 million monthly active users, Facebook is a well-known social networking platform. In the China region, the corporation experimented with something new and distinctive. WeChat now offers a variety of services in addition to the regular functionality, including online food ordering, fitness tracking, utility bill payment, movie ticket purchase, and so on.
What was the end result? Over ten million Chinese firms have signed up for WeChat accounts. Rather than establishing a smartphone app or a website, they chose to manage their business using WeChat.
Conclusion
We hope that the above-mentioned points have persuaded you of what conversational commerce is and how it works in the real world. Now it’s up to you to improve the quality of your future marketing strategy.
Conversational marketing has been proven to be greatly useful for both you and your customers throughout the entire online customer journey, from visitors looking to educate themselves to prospects looking for information on your products to current customers needing assistance with a new purchase.
Do you still have concerns? With our eCommerce and marketing services, we at Stellar Digital are always ready to assist as many brands as possible. Simply mail us at stellardigital.in.
