9 Ways eCommerce Chatbots Can Boost Sales And Lead Generation

As online purchases are increasing, the growth of e-commerce chatbots has exploded. Thanks to these AI-driven chatbots that can understand human queries and interact with customers.  

These AI-powered chatbots save time and effort, handle multiple customer complaints, enhance customer experience, and connect brands with customers. It makes it easy for you to manage your online store. 

When your business becomes a big ENTITY, it becomes a challenging task for you to engage your customers and keep yourself updated with all conversations.  

This is where e-commerce chatbots will help you satisfy your customer’s needs and create pleasing shopping experiences. 

Chatbots act as a powerful weapon for businesses to convert a lead into a prospective customer. Studies state that when a lead gets a response within 5 minutes, the conversion rates will soar up to 100x.  

Consider an example of an e-commerce brand like eBay that uses a virtual shopping assistant to answer shoppers’ questions and provide instant responses. 

The digital agent makes the shopping experience more engaging, and customers don’t need to do endless scrolling on the feed to find the best product. 

When such brands can harness the power of innovative technology, you too can use this to take your business to the next level. 

In this blog, you will learn a lot about what e-commerce chatbots are, why investing in them is a GOLDMINE for your business, and ways through which it can double your leads and 3x your sales. 

Let’s dive right in.  

A Sneak Peek Of eCommerce Chatbots 

AI chatbots for e-commerce act as virtual helpers for connecting brands with customers. They work round the clock to provide continuous support to customers, answering their questions and suggesting products to them.  

Such AI-powered technology uses Natural language processing (NLP) to understand human input and then come up with hyper-personalized responses. It provides a human-like experience, and users won’t feel as if they are talking to a bot.  

E-commerce companies are slowly adopting this technology just like other businesses or industries.  

AI chatbots these days are gaining a lot of importance because they drive sales for e-commerce companies and assist customers in finding e-commerce deals on the go.  

According to Founder and CEO OF Zebra Intelligence, chatbots in e-commerce make online shopping more fun and less tiresome.   

From the stage when the user gets to know about your brand to making a purchase, he/she goes through various stages and collects information about your company.   

If the right information is not available at the right time, the visitor gets lost in between before he/she becomes your final customer. 

So, effective implementation of e-commerce chatbots is required for handling customer queries, providing prompt replies, personalizing the conversation, offering personalized product recommendations, or upselling products to existing customers. 

But this is just the start as we are going to cover it in more detail.  

Why Does Your Business Need To Invest In An E-Commerce Chatbot? 

Here are a few reasons why investing in an e-commerce chatbot is a MUST-HAVE decision for your business-  

1. Engage your customers  

The introduction of e-commerce chatbots transforms the way customers interact with each other. A study from Gartner states that by 2027, chatbots will serve as the primary source of the customer service channel.   

In this digitized world, AI-powered chatbots act as a next-revolution frontier because their advanced algorithms help businesses in doing more relatable and human-like conversations.  

It is a WIN-WIN for businesses that have a scarcity of human resources as they can now handle a huge chunk of customer queries. 

These chatbots not only provide instant responses to customers, but they actively take part in entertaining multiple customers at the same time.  

2. Adds more personalization  

AI chatbots take your business to the next level by providing personalized experiences for customers. 

There’s no doubt in saying that every shopper has a different customer journey.  

A chatbot that provides personalized responses makes the customers more satisfied than one that is trained on pre-determined answers.  

Research indicates that nearly 4 in 10 customers intend to make more purchases when they get personalized shopping experiences. 

When they feel special, they are likely to make frequent purchases from your site. 

Because a chatbot can collect customer information and track browsing history, it can offer tailored product recommendations by notifying the customers as and when fresh stock arrives, when it goes out of stock, or suggesting alternatives that meet their needs.  

3. Reduces cart abandonment rates  

Most e-commerce store owners struggle with reducing cart abandonment rates.  

This happens when customers land on your site, add items to a virtual shopping cart, and leave it right away.   

Studies from Baymard Institute state that 70% of shoppers abandon their carts which means 3 out of 10 consumers left their items unpurchased.  

This is where AI chatbots ensure that fewer customers abandon their carts and most of them complete their purchases. 

Moreover, an e-commerce chatbot can retarget those customers by notifying them about what products have been left in the cart and reminding them to complete their purchase by bringing them back to the store.  

4. Provide post-sales support  

Your digital agent’s job is not to draw in more customers, but rather providing post-sales support is super important these days.  

Your e-commerce business will shine when chatbots can handle orders and returns. 

The purchasing process becomes smoother with chatbots as customers can track their orders and get real-time updates.   

9 ways how e-commerce chatbots can increase sales and generate more leads  

Here are a few ways through which AI-powered chatbots help businesses generate leads and increase sales-  

1. Personalizes customer shopping experiences  

Customers these days want to shop for brands that bring personalized products to their feeds. Modern customers are always looking for personalized content at their fingertips.  

Not to worry anymore because AI chatbots solve that puzzle for you.  

Integration of chatbots in e-commerce sites collects information about customer demographics, keeps track of their browsing and purchasing habits, and then comes up with targeted product recommendations. 

This way, these AI chatbots enhance the overall shopping experience of customers and convert browsers into customers.  

When customers get personalized product recommendations, they are more likely to return to your site and make future buying from you.  

H&M, a clothing giant, used an e-commerce chatbot to personalize customer journeys and bring them down the funnel.   

As consumers have become more style-conscious, this digital stylist (AI chatbot) asks a series of questions to know the tastes and preferences of customers.  

After knowing about user style, the chatbot sends images of 2 outfits allowing them to make a better choice.  

Hence, this styling agent saves hours of scrolling and provides them with the perfect items they are looking for.  

2. Provides round-the-clock support to customers  

In this fast-paced world, customers want instantaneous responses and round-the-clock support. 

Unlike your customer service team, chatbots never get tired of answering the same question and allow the support team to focus on solving tasks that demand customer touch. 

Relying on a customer support team can be an expensive affair initially, rather you should go for an AI chatbot that makes your customers feel important no matter at what stage of customer journey they are in.  

As chatbots provide them with prompt replies, customers tend to interact more with these AI agents because an answer to their question is just a click away. 

They solve customer queries and clear all the clutter that customers might have in their minds be it related to shipping times, product availability, or return policies.  

This makes the lead generation process easier. 

For Instance – Zinus, a mattress brand introduced an AI bot named Zuri for providing instant responses to the most common customer queries such as – Where is my order? How do I apply for a warranty?  

Thus, it streamlines customer journeys by solving their queries on the go.   

3. Saves your cost  

AI chatbots for e-commerce businesses save their costs as they can automate routine tasks that a larger customer support team would otherwise do. The cost of investing in a chatbot is quite less than hiring a customer rep. 

Studies state that chatbots help e-commerce companies by saving 30% of service costs and 20% of labor costs every year.  

Additionally, a report from Gartner states that this conversational AI will save $80 billion in costs by 2026 and continue to improve your customer experience. 

So, investing in human agents is not a viable option when e-commerce chatbots can handle multiple tasks simultaneously. 

Unlike human agents, you don’t need to bear the costs of training employees, paying them salaries or extra incentives. Chatbots can seamlessly handle a voluminous number of queries at a minimal price. 

4. Simplify your lead qualification process  

Not all visitors that land on your website are your leads. This is where e-commerce chatbots come in place to help filter out qualified leads for you.  

A report from Drift states that companies that have integrated chatbots on their websites closed 55% of high-quality leads. 

Using AI chatbots for your business helps you solidify your lead generation strategy because they collect customer data by asking specific questions about users in the conversation. 

These bots then can filter out leads using advanced AI algorithms (based on buying intent and interests) and tailor their marketing campaigns accordingly. 

In nutshell, if a customer lands on your website and adds the product to the cart but does not make a purchase. 

Then you can use a chatbot to address their concern by sharing tempting offers or promo codes that can help them complete their purchase. 

5. Assist customers to navigate products easily  

An extensive product catalog is important, but when you guide a customer through the product catalog, that makes a big difference.  

An interactive product catalog makes the shopping experience more exciting.  

An e-commerce chatbot facilitates the speedy discovery of products using advanced search and filter options.  

Thus, customers can narrow down product choices based on product attributes, price ranges, or other attributes. When customers can find products easily, it leads to a higher conversion rate. 

Moreover, AI-powered chatbots can display product videos and descriptions so that customers can get clarity on how the product would look in real-life scenarios.  

This gauges customer interests, and they are more likely to convert into future customers.  

6. Upsells and cross-sells  

The E-commerce industry has become highly competitive and to maximize the bottom line of business, online stores are leveraging chatbots for upselling and cross-selling. 

When having a conversation with a client, a chatbot can recommend upgrades or complementary items based on the purchasing history and preferences of customers.   

This way, businesses can make more profitable sales by convincing customers to go for extras. Hence, it increases the client’s original purchase.  

Businesses can even leverage chatbot technology to display upsell promotions promptly especially when customers add products to their favorites or when they are just about to complete their purchase.  

In such a case, AI-powered chatbots can take customers down the funnel by offering incentives or discounts and turn them into high-paying customers.  

When customers get personalized or related product offers that meet their needs, they are likely to buy new items increasing in average order value. 

Consider the example of the Sephora beauty assistant (chatbot) that takes care of user needs and preferences by asking a few questions.  

Then, it suggests related or complementary products to users based on what they choose.   

If the user selected an eyebrow shade, then the chatbot would upsell mascara that matches that. 

7. Nurturing leads  

We know that lead generation seems to be a time-consuming task for you, but with technologies such as AI chatbot, it becomes easier for you to manage. 

Chatbots can smoothen your lead nurturing process by providing personalized information to the lead.   

In the case of e-commerce, the chatbot acts as a virtual buying guide that assists customers by answering product-related questions. 

It even suggests personalized product recommendations that meet customer needs and even guide them on how to make a purchase. 

A property investment chatbot named Asuntoyhtyma integrated chatbot on property portals and guided customers through a series of steps on how to reach out. 

So, the company created 2 separate contact forms – one is used for receiving rental requests and the other is used for viewing property.  

With the help of the AI chatbot, the company was able to get 300 leads, which is comparatively more than compared to traditional channels.  

8. Comes with rich analytics  

Another use case of integrating an e-commerce chatbot is that it provides a treasure of information which then helps businesses to enhance customer experience. 

These digital agents keep a record of every customer who visits your website, sees who makes a quick purchase, or who abandons their carts. 

Modern chatbot these days comes with rich analytics features that enable businesses to tap into preferences, buying habits, and customer behavior. 

By using such information, you can fine-tune your marketing and lead-generation strategies accordingly.  

With such real-time insights, you can target the right set of customers with the right messages.  

Based on real-time customer data, companies can focus all their efforts on new product development.  

Thus, this next-generation technology unlocks a pool of benefits to help you win customer hearts and convert your interested buyers into customers. 

Tidio chatbot powers exceptional capabilities in helping businesses know who is on their site and what they are doing.  

This chatbot conducts surveys to gather feedback from customers.  

The AI-powered chatbot even helps businesses track how many people are browsing on their website and then notify customers with new offerings which attacks the customer pain points.  

9. Chatbot tells stories to sell products  

 Everyone loves stories and when innovative technology tells stories, customers feel connected and engagement rates soar. 

When a chatbot uses stories to educate the customers and then presents a list of products, it grabs customer attention and skyrockets your engagement rate. 

Users love to buy from brands that add a personal touch and narrate stories that create unforgettable experiences for them.  

And chatbots use interactive elements such as video, gif, and audio to connect with the audience by not being too salesy all the time. This way, closing deals become more effective.  

KLM Royal Dutch Airlines introduced a bluebot chatbot that lets users view tickets, know about their flight status, view flight information, etc. 

The bot uses a storytelling element to guide customers through the booking process. It does not throw back a list of options to sell a product.   

The bot sells experiences and experiences sell products.  

Wrapping up 

In this era of digitalization, your business can thrive when you engage with your customers at a granular level. Today, e-commerce chatbots are not merely digital agents, rather they have become a lead-generating tool for businesses.  

These chatbots have become so important for online stores from the time when a customer first comes in contact to the stage of guiding them.  

The blog has given you enough details of how you can leverage this innovative technology to achieve the desired outcome- 

• Drive more conversions  
• Fine-tune your marketing strategies  
• Manage your store with ease  
• Saves the cost of hiring customer agents  

At BigOhTech, we have technical nerds who are proficient in creating AI-powered chatbots that bring you closer to your customers.   

Having served 20+ industries, we know how to create innovative solutions for your business that transform the way customers interact with you.  

As an AI chatbot development company, we create powerful bots that use advanced NLP/NLU capabilities to do seamless interactions with customers.  

Need help in creating profitable e-commerce apps for your online business?