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Online shopping is more fun now than ever before!
Just imagine a situation where a personal assistant walks you through the endless product options, gives you personalized recommendations, and helps streamline your entire purchase journey.
This scenario is no fantasy anymore. It has become the reality of today’s digital age.
Thanks to online shopping bots, the way you shop is truly revolutionized. Today, you can have an AI-powered personal assistant at your fingertips to navigate through the tons of options at an ecommerce store. These bots are now an integral part of your favorite messaging app or website.
Shopping bots have added a new dimension to the way you search, explore, and purchase products. From helping you find the best product for any occasion to easing your buying decisions, these bots can do all to enhance your overall shopping experience.
With online shopping bots by your side, the possibilities are truly endless.
In this blog, we will explore the shopping bot in detail, understand its importance, and benefits; see some examples, and learn how to create one for your business.
But before moving ahead, let’s first get started with understanding what exactly a shopping bot is…
A shopping bot is a specialized computer program that can assist buyers in their online shopping experiences. Built using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning algorithms, these bots can give automated support, offer scripted responses, and work like virtual shopping assistants.
A business can integrate shopping bots into websites, mobile apps, or messaging platforms to engage users, interact with them, and assist them with shopping. These bots use natural language processing (NLP) and can understand user queries or commands.
More importantly, a shopping bot can do human-like conversations and that’s why it proves very helpful as a shopping assistant. The primary reason for using these bots is to make online shopping more convenient and personalized for users.
The shopping bot is a genuine reflection of the advancements of modern times. These bots have changed the way shopping is done. They have as much value for businesses as for shoppers. More so, chatbots can give up to a 25% boost to the revenue of online stores.
Let’s look at some of the importance of shopping bots –
The arrival of shopping bots has enhanced shopper’s experience manifold. These bots add value to virtually every aspect of shopping, be it product search, checkout process, and more. When online stores use shopping bots, it helps a lot with buying decisions. More so, business leaders believe that chatbots bring a 67% increase in sales.
Here are the key benefits of shopping bots –
More e-commerce businesses use shopping bots today than ever before. They trust these bots to improve the shopping experience for buyers, streamline the shopping process, and augment customer service. However, to get the most out of a shopping bot, you need to use them well.
Let’s look at how to use a shopping bot –
Building a shopping bot was once a complex task, but not anymore. Today, you even don’t need programming knowledge to build a bot for your business. You can create a bot without writing a line of code. More so, there are platforms to suit your needs and you can also benefit from visual builders.
Here is a step-by-step guide to creating a shopping bot –
When you plan to create a shopping bot, you have two options: frameworks and platforms. With a chatbot framework, you will need a program to set things up, customize it, and make it specific to your business needs. With a chatbot platform, you will get a DIY model where a visual builder guides you through the steps. Plus, there will be templates to choose from for the chatbot.
Now that you have decided between a framework and platform, you should consider working on the look and feel of the bot. Here, you need to think about whether the bot’s design will match the style of your website, brand voice, and brand image. If the shopping bot does not match your business’ style and voice, you won’t be able to deliver consistency in customer experience.
So, make sure –
You will find plenty of chatbot templates from the service providers to get good ideas about your chatbot design. These templates can be personalized based on the use cases and common scenarios you want to cater to.
You can select any of the available templates, change the theme, and make it the right fit for your business needs. Thanks to the templates, you can build the bot from the start and add various elements be it triggers, actions, or conditions.
When the bot is built, you need to consider integrating it with the choice of channels and tools. This integration will entirely be your decision, based on the business goals and objectives you want to achieve.
You can integrate the chatbot with many channels, including –
If you are building the bot to drive sales, you just install the bot on your site using an ecommerce platform, like Shopify or WordPress.
It’s also possible to connect all the channels customers use to reach you. This will help you in offering omnichannel support to them and meeting them where they are.
Simple rule-based chatbots have limitations. They can’t understand complex customer queries. When you use pre-scripted bots, there is no need for training because you are not looking to respond to users based on their intent.
However, if you want a sophisticated bot with AI capabilities, you will need to train it. The purpose of training the bot is to get it familiar with your FAQs, previous user search queries, and search preferences.
Once the bot is trained, it will become more conversational and gain the ability to handle complex queries and conversations easily.
Getting the bot trained is not the last task as you also need to monitor it over time. The purpose of monitoring the bot is to continuously adjust it to the feedback. Only this will help the bot work optimally.
After deploying the bot, the key responsibility is to monitor the analytics regularly. It’s equally important to collect the opinions of customers as then you can better understand how effective your bot is.
Broadleys is a top menswear and womenswear designer clothing store in the UK. It has a wide range of collections and also takes great pride in offering exceptional customer service. The company users FAQ chatbots so that shoppers can get real-time information on their common queries. The way it uses the chatbot to help customers is a good example of how to leverage the power of technology and drive business.
Domino pizzas need no introduction. Maybe that’s why the company attracts millions of orders every day. To handle the quantum of orders, it has built a Facebook chatbot which makes the ordering process faster. Using the bot, customers can order a pizza from “Anywhere”. So, you can order a Domino pizza through Facebook Messenger, and just by texting.
H&M is a global fashion company that shows how to use a shopping bot and guide buyers through purchase decisions. Its bot guides customers through outfits and takes them through store areas that align with their purchase interests. The bot not only suggests outfits but also the total price for all times.
Building a shopping bot was once a complex task as it involved coding and in-depth technical knowledge. Things are quite different now as powerful bot builder platforms are available today.
With REVE Chat, you can build your shopping bot with a drag-and-drop method without writing a line of code. You can not only create a feature-rich AI-powered chatbot but can also provide intent training.
More importantly, our platform has a host of other useful engagement tools your business can use to serve customers better. We have video chat and co-browsing software for visual engagement. These tools can help you serve your customers in a personalized manner.
You can also use our live chat software and provide support around the clock. All the tools we have can help you add value to the shopping decisions of customers.
The arrival of shopping bots has truly transformed the way people shop. They have made shopping more fun, both for customers as well as for businesses
At REVE Chat, we understand the huge value a shopping bot can add to your business.
With us, you can sign up and create an AI-powered shopping bot easily. We also have other tools to help you achieve your customer engagement goals.
Start a 14-day free trial, no credit card required
Praveen Singh is a content marketer, blogger, and professional with 15 years of passion for ideas, stats, and insights into customers. An MBA Graduate in marketing and a researcher by disposition, he has a knack for everything related to customer engagement and customer happiness.
As a writer and analyst, he pours the heart out on a blog that is informative, detailed, and often digs deep into the heart of customer psychology. He’s written extensively on a range of topics including, marketing, AI chatbots, omnichannel messaging platforms, and many more.
Mr. Singh also has a passion for subjects that excite new-age customers, be it social media engagement, artificial intelligence, machine learning. He takes great pride in his learning-filled journey of adding value to the industry through consistent research, analysis, and sharing of customer-driven ideas.
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