AI agent-powered chatbots or AI agents have taken over e-commerce businesses as efficient tools for engaging customers throughout various touchpoints of their journey. Previously, chatbots were boring and could only give customers predefined answers to certain queries.
But now, they are more advanced, even facilitating two-way conversations, answering customer queries, and giving them personalised recommendations. AI support agents even automate support ticket generation and escalate only complex issues to human agents.
Today, 60 per cent of organisations have already integrated generative AI into their marketing efforts, and 37 per cent are actively implementing it. What about you?
If you have not implemented AI chatbots, now is the time to do so, as they can have many benefits for your business.
Let us explore what an AI chatbot is, its benefits, and six use cases in the e-commerce landscape.
What is an AI Chatbot?
An AI chatbot is a AI program that can interact with customers through different platforms. For instance, it can assist customers through e-commerce websites, social media, and messaging apps. It can answer your customers in human language and even help them shop by offering them personalised recommendations and discounts.
Early chatbots were simple and followed some rules. They used "if-then" logic and looked for keywords in customer questions to give set answers. Now, AI agents-powered chatbot advances like Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Natural Language Understanding (NLU) help modern chatbots understand questions better. This allows them to have more dynamic conversations and detect customer emotions.
Today, e-commerce businesses use many types of chatbots for customer engagement.
Types of E-commerce Chatbots
- • Website Chatbots : Website chatbots engage with customers visiting an e-commerce website. These customers usually seek an assistant for product discovery or order tracking. These bots can provide detailed responses to basic inquiries, ensuring strong frontline customer support.
- • Social Media Chatbots : E-commerce businesses can offer support beyond their websites. They can help customers on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Chatbots can answer customer questions. They can suggest products and also share promotions.
- • Messaging App Chatbots : Do you know that WhatsApp boasts almost 3 billion unique active users worldwide? Messaging app chatbots let you contact your customers on WhatsApp and similar services and offer competent assistance. They make your customer interactions feel more like talking to a friend to them rather than a business transaction.
AI Chatbots and AI-Agent-powered Chatbots (AI Agents)
Suitable for handling simple, repetitive tasks.
They understand context, provide personalised responses, and anticipate user needs based on previous interactions.
Benefits of AI Chatbots
in E-commerce
24/7 Customer Assistance
Cross-Channel Communication
Automates Routine Tasks
Personalised Experience
Multi-Lingual Support
AI Chatbots Customer Service
AI agents-powered chatbots can handle customer queries without interruptions and offer assistance without delay. Therefore, you can be available 24/7 to offer efficient assistance to all your customers. In other words, they can cover for human agents during off-hours.
Cross-Channel Communication
E-commerce customers expect a consistent and cohesive experience across all touchpoints. AI chatbots can integrate with different systems, such as an e-commerce platform, social media accounts, CRM software, etc.
They then gather data from all these sources to maintain the context of the conversation without needing the customer to explain it. For example, if a customer starts their interaction on a social media platform and then moves to a messaging app, a chatbot can easily pick up the conversation without the customer repeating it.
Automates Routine Tasks
An AI agents-powered chatbot in e-commerce can automate routine tasks like handling customer queries, offering uninterrupted support, and processing orders. Therefore, human agents can work with complex issues that require critical thinking. This streamlines the operations of e-commerce websites and even cuts down operational costs.
Personalised Experience
AI chatbots can help you offer a personalised experience to your customers. They can personalise communications across channels and suggest product recommendations to your customers.
Multi-Lingual Support
E-commerce businesses' customer base might not always be well-versed in English. Therefore, it is important for them to ensure that they can offer customer support in other languages as well. AI chatbots make this possible by providing support in different languages from across the globe.
Tired of repetitive support tasks? TechMonk automates ticket generation, order updates, and FAQs.
6 Use Cases Of E-commerce AI Agents-Powered Chatbots
AI chatbots have different use cases for businesses. Here’s the result of a survey conducted in the United States on how customers would use a chatbot if it were available.
1. Customer Service Agent
If a business is known to offer good customer service experiences, then 68 per cent of customers are willing to pay more for their products. Therefore, impressing your customers with exceptional AI customer service brings in more revenue.
AI chatbots in e-commerce ensure uninterrupted customer service is available 24/7. Moreover, they give accurate and consistent responses to customers across different channels. They can effortlessly respond to frequently asked questions and guide your customers through the sales process.
2. Assist Product Discovery
E-commerce chatbots also provide personal shopping assistance for your customers. They engage with your customers in an interactive way, helping them find products through personalised recommendations. It can also compare similar products to help customers understand them better. As a result, e-commerce customers can make purchase decisions effortlessly.
For example, consider a beauty brand using AI agents as a shopping assistant. The bot interacts with customers in a personalised way, offering beauty recommendations and skin care tips that align with their preferences. It can use AR technology that lets customers virtually try on different makeup looks to be more sure of the products that they purchase online.
3. Managing Returns & Orders
E-commerce chatbots can give your customers real-time updates on their orders. They can also notify them of expected delivery schedules and related updates. In addition, chatbots can help customers return, cancel, and replace orders.
4. Gather Customer Information & Feedback
An e-commerce chatbot can collect customer feedback. It can use surveys, polls, and rating systems. This helps a business understand customer opinions on products before and after purchase. It also shows if customers are happy and if they would recommend the business.
With this feedback, businesses can see areas for improvement. They can use an AI chatbot to catch negative comments early. This way, businesses can fix issues before negative comments are posted online.
5. Promotes Sales & Discounts
Discounts and timely promotions are essential for any e-commerce business to drive more sales. Intelligent AI agent-powered bots can analyse a customer's past purchases, preferences, and browsing behaviour. This data lets them personalise the offers to align with the customer's requirements. Sharing these promotions with your customers increases sales for your E-Commerce business.
Consider a beauty brand with an AI chatbot. The chatbot would look into the customer's preferences and give them personalised discounts on products that they are interested in. This would improve the chances of the customer completing the purchase from the beauty brand.
6. Upsell & Cross-Sell
An AI chatbot is also an efficient tool for e-commerce businesses to upsell and cross-sell products with customers. They can suggest complementary products to customers during a purchase or inform them of special offers that would suit their purchase.
Businesses can also use AI chatbots to remind customers of abandoned shopping carts. Offering them special discounts on the items in the cart can also help reduce the abandonment rate.
7. 2-Way Conversational Campaigns
Today, most campaigns are one-way, with no interactive communication between the customer and the business. However, with today’s AI agent-powered chatbot, e-commerce businesses can answer their customers' queries in real-time, answering their questions and giving them personalised offers.
With two-way conversational campaigns, you can meet customers' expectations, making their experience convenient and offering satisfying customer service through different channels. This increases the impact of your marketing efforts and deepens customer relationships over time.
Best AI Chatbots in E-commerce Examples
Here are the top AI chatbots example in e-commerce.
1. H&M: Virtual Stylist
H&M is an important clothing retailer that has a noteworthy chatbot on its website that acts as a virtual stylist. The chatbot keeps itself updated with customers' needs through a short quiz with pictures sent to customers.
It uses the data from the quiz to offer personalised suggestions to meet customers' interests. This saves customers time as they don't have to browse through different products.
In addition, the chatbot remembers the customers' preferences for future interactions. Moreover, it retargets the customers with more suggestions they might like.
2. Kiehl's: Facebook Messenger Bot
Kiehl's is a beloved cosmetics brand with a fantastic AI chatbot on the Facebook Messenger app. This messaging app chatbot acts as a recommendation engine and customer service agent. It assists users while they search for cosmetics based on product types and skin concerns.
The social media messenger bot also personalises the customer experience. If new users of the platform are unsure which products would suit their interests, the bot can assist them. As a result, it drives sales and builds a happy customer base.
3. DeSerres: Personalized Suggestions
DeSerres is a well-known Canadian art and leisure supply chain company. Their website features a noteworthy e-commerce AI chatbot that effortlessly engages with an increasing number of customers across different channels.
The AI chatbot provides personalised product recommendations to customers. The chatbot also gathers information on customers' preferences. Then, it uses the data to recommend products and offers. Users can then proceed to purchase the item.
Offer Unified Customer Experience Across Channels With TechMonk’s AI Agents
TechMonk is a first-of-its-kind agent-as-a-service platform powered by full-stack customer engagement tools for e-commerce. It is built with both companies and customers in mind, ensuring user-friendliness and simplicity.
TechMonk’s AI agents come with intelligent search capabilities that let your customers discover products quickly. In addition, it drives sales by offering personalised recommendations based on their preferences. Our AI agents for e-commerce continuously learn from user actions and feedback to refine product suggestions and encourage users to make purchase decisions.
For e-commerce businesses, TechMonk is a must-have asset. It lets you assist your customers through email, WhatsApp, and the website. It helps them find products, track orders, and raise tickets. If the issue is complex, the customer is transferred to a human agent.
A unified inbox allows the human agent to access the customer's details and conversations across platforms. In addition to the conversations, the inbox gives the agent access to customer details, order details, and ticket information.
TechMonk's AI Sales Agent is also essential to your WhatsApp commerce. Customers can access your product catalogue on WhatsApp, add items to the cart, and complete payment on WhatsApp. They don’t have to visit the website to purchase a product.
Our AI agents also pave the way for two-way conversational campaigns. When customers ask questions when they receive marketing messages on WhatsApp, it gives them the right answers and nudges them to continue the journey as per the campaign and then assists them throughout the journey, facilitating product discovery and offering personalised recommendations. The bot can also answer all their queries and give them personalised product offers.
That's not all.The AI support agent can help them track orders and assist them with product cancellations. It will also collect valuable customer feedback after purchases, which can be used to improve product and customer intelligence.
Need custom AI agents? Build it with TechMonk’s AI agent builder without coding. You can design tools to empower AI agents and assign these agents specific roles throughout the customer journey.
Wish to know more about how our agentic platform powered by full-stack marketing tools can benefit your business? Get on a call with us now!
Provide instant and accurate replies, enhancing customer satisfaction with TechMonk's AI agents.
Takeaway
AI chatbots are not a factor of the future, as most organisations are already successfully adopting and making the most of them. Still, you can expect AI chatbots to come with a lot more benefits and use cases that will make your customer journey even better in the future.
As of now, AI chatbots strengthen customer service and help e-commerce businesses personalise user experiences like never before. They can assist customers with discovering products and improve the purchasing experience as shopping assistants. AI chatbots can also manage returns and orders, saving time for both the support agents and the customers.
FAQs
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