Chat Commerce: How Brands Can Effectively Turn Conversations into Conversions

Customers are at the heart of every business. To keep up with ever-changing patterns of consumer behaviours, brands need to continuously renew their business strategies and operational systems, especially in the digital age.

Today, the old adage of “customer is king” has taken on new significance.1 Customers are now demanding more flexible, personalised, and ‘customer-centric’ services, which naturally means that interacting and staying engaged with customers at every purchase point has become of utmost importance. It is no longer enough to just create a pleasant after-sales journey for your customers. Brands have to rethink their customers’ full end-to-end experience.2

Great experiences build connections, strong connections create loyalty, and loyalty drives business results. To align themselves with customers’ needs, brands must consider factors such as convenience, speed, trust, flexibility, new experiences, and platform integration.3

Oftentimes, the experiences that do the best job of making — or breaking — emotional bonds between customers and brands are service interactions with brand representatives.4 In fact, customer service experiences have drastically transformed over the past years due to the ease provided by technological advancements. According to a survey by Mindtree, 40% of customers make a purchase due to favourable interactions with a sales associate, whereas only 28% make a purchase without any interaction.5

These observations demonstrate the importance of the human touch in the digital age. The shopping experience is no exception; customers require reliable and seamless services. Up-and-coming features known as conversational commerce, or chat commerce, are perhaps the best way of creating a personal and smooth customer journey.

According to a 2021 report by Liveperson,6 77% of consumers worldwide are more likely to make a purchase if they can browse or obtain answers through messaging. Furthermore, they are also more likely to seek immediate communication with a business in order to make their business, preferring to do so via brands’ messaging channels. 

This communication has to be interactive, responsive, and personalised, according to Gupshup. Specifically, 64% of customers want messaging to be interactive, 57% rated responsiveness as the most important criteria in customer support, and 91% desire this support and communication to be personalised.

With the personalisation and convenience that comes with direct channels of communication, doors for online transactions to happen are more open than ever. Direct communication between customers and sellers is now aptly accommodated through e-commerce with its constantly evolving technology. 

This practice was coined as ‘conversational commerce’ by Chris Messina in 2015.7 The human interaction facilitated through conversational commerce, or chat commerce, has elevated online hospitality and service without requiring a physical presence. It has also brought consumers one step closer to the support and attention usually provided by a sales associate of brick-and-mortar stores. Personalisation is also higher, due to the historical information that online channels provide, such as data about the customer’s location, purchase history, and so on.

The open-ended nature of chat commerce allows consumer loyalty and engagement to be built, turning conversations into transactions in a split second by leveraging the power of personalised experiences. Brands are better-positioned to respond to a high volume of simultaneous inquiries and orders, while monitoring customer service activities at the same time. On the financial end, chat commerce helps reduce operational and manpower costs. The use of auto-response features, such as by providing a pricelist or FAQ, leads to higher efficiency in task completion and sales recap. 

For consumers, the benefits of chat commerce are similarly plentiful. Those who use chat platforms regularly can easily and swiftly meet their needs, especially with automated chats, since waiting time will be drastically shortened. Additionally, chat commerce replicates an offline consultation process with the added practicality of a personalised online experience. The use of chat commerce further shows that the brand is credible, able to keep up with current trends, and provides the highest level of service, thus increasing consumers’ trust.

Disclaimer 

SIRCLO neither provides regulated advice nor guarantee results. The materials we convey reflect general insight and best practice based on information currently available, and do not contain all of the information needed to determine a future course of action. Such information has not been generated or independently verified by SIRCLO and is inherently uncertain and subject to change. SIRCLO has no obligation to update these materials and makes no representation or warranty and expressly disclaims any liability with respect thereto.

References

• https://www2.deloitte.com/za/en/footerlinks/pressreleasespage/making-sure-that-the-customer-is-king.html

• https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/nl/Documents/technology/deloitte-nl-next-generation-customer-service-433846-next-gen-service-point-of-view-article-3.pdf

• https://www.deloittedigital.com/content/dam/deloittedigital/us/documents/blog/offering-20200630-research-emotion.pdf

• https://www.retailtouchpoints.com/topics/digital-commerce/the-next-generation-of-e-commerce-will-be-defined-by-3-key-elements-convenience-speed-and-trust

• https://alerttech.net/importance-of-human-touch-in-shopping-journey/

• https://liveperson.docsend.com/view/rhdtj85vsmiifi88

• https://medium.com/chris-messina/conversational-commerce-92e0bccfc3ff#.7o7uk01vn