Today 87% of shoppers start their journey online. Before a potential customer interacts with a salesperson, company representative, or steps inside a store, they start by looking online for information, colors, sizing, overall look and answers to their questions.
This is the brand’s first chance to make a strong first impression. Stellar reviews, detailed product descriptions and multiple photos found on a brand’s web site may not be enough to address a potential customer’s questions. In some cases, even the flashiest web site isn’t enough to help a potential customer come to a purchasing decision, and if the customer leaves without all the answers they need, that can be a lost opportunity.
AI has begun to help retailers seize the opportunity to create a lasting bond with a customer by immediately engaging with them as soon as research begins. Investing in repeat customers is critical for establishing brand loyalty and growing your online business. Retailers without AI as part of their online presence are essentially leaving the store unattended and allowing those potential customers or repeat customers to freely walkout. AI can give retailers a way to field customer questions, address concerns, co-browse to matching items and guide customers in a comprehensive way. So how is next-generation AI technology boosting customer engagement?
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It starts with a family of AI ChatBOTs interacting with your customers when you’re not there, and it evolves from each interaction.
For instance: It’s 2 a.m. and a customer is searching for a watch that fits her needs, but has questions beyond the typical parameters. It’s the week before Christmas and a husband is searching for a diamond pendant for his wife, but knows nothing about the jewelry industry. Without guidance, a husband buying jewelry realizes he’s having real trouble finding the right gift for his wife, and a watch buyer who wants to know specific product details can end up frustrated if the FAQs don’t answer her questions.
Web sites using next-gen AI can effectively address these concerns and challenges. AI would serve a watch buyer with answers and navigate her to the best page to view a watch she has questions about. AI will help the spouse shopping for something unfamiliar, like jewelry, providing confidence in the right decision for the gift.
A customer’s first interaction with a brand can be a deciding factor in whether they make a purchase, and has a profound impact on their future brand loyalty. That is why engaging the customer at the earliest possible opportunity is essential. The next generation of AI technologies is going to propel some retailers ahead of the pack by allowing them to establish a strong, long-term relationship with customers based on excellent experiences and responsive customer service.
Websites that utilize AI ChatBOTs can engage customers 24/7 and help answer questions in a personalized, detailed and efficient way. Moreover, customers who were served through AI-enabled live-engagement had a 54% increase in their average order value. When you compare conversion rates of those who took the self-service route with those who had been exposed to AI-enabled live engagement, the latter group had a conversion rate that was 3.5X higher.
It is not enough for the AI ChatBOTs to understand the question being asked of them. To be next-gen and improve customer engagement, they need to be able to understand intent. Understanding intent is how an AI ChatBOT addresses the need behind the question being asked, but also endeavors to understand the customer’s expectations.
Customers might be looking for a more personalized experience, where the BOT already has information about their past visits, buying/shopping habits, wish list, or return visits to the same item. On the other end, your customer may want something simpler from the BOT, like they want to know the closest store location, business hours, any current sales or to find a specific product.
A next-gen AI ChatBOT is able to differentiate between intents and deliver the kind of experience your current and future customers are looking for.
On top of understanding the needs of your customer, you need a few more key components for an effective AI ChatBOT:
- Access to your customer journey and data analytics
- Deep integration with your knowledge base
- The ability to co-browse and screen share
- A seamless transfer between your AI ChatBOT(s) and live agents, whether they are text chat, phone-based chat or video chat channels.
When you want to build an AI ChatBOT, consider the following roadmap:
- Build a basic customer journey with an AI ChatBOT to demonstrate value.
- Begin adding features such as co-browsing to guide your customers to the right product(s) or a particular place on the web site.
- Once your AI ChatBOT has seen success, begin mapping personalized journeys for higher-end products and larger purchases.
- Begin tuning your journey to mitigate unnecessary agent intervention for the customer, while creating a seamless pathway to reach the agent if the need arises.
AI ChatBOT technology is rapidly evolving to be an essential component in customer engagement for all businesses with a web presence. They are helping customers find specific information more quickly, facilitating a customer’s connection to a live agent for help, navigating a customer to quickly find commonly requested information including store hours, co-browsing to the right item for purchase and meeting all prospective and repeat customers online whenever they need live assistance.
Market leading companies that want to dominate their market while driving greater revenue, increase brand loyalty and provide superior customer service must leverage a platform that includes AI, chatBOTs, text chat, video chat, co-browse, screen share and the use of multiple cameras to ensure their digital engagements are seamless for their web visitors of all types..
AI ChatBOTs are helping to bring the in-store experience to life on the web while increasing AOV, conversion rate, first call resolution and brand loyalty.
With over 25 years of diverse international experience in nearly every facet of software, Priya Iyer, Chairman and CEO of Vee24, is a proven, high-growth entrepreneurial CEO with a leadership philosophy centered on engaging clients and employees to build industry leading SaaS software platforms and delivering exceptional stakeholder value to achieve sustainable competitive differentiation.
