Chatbots and eCommerce : 9 Best Ecommerce Chatbots from Well-Known Companies
Customer support chatbots are rising in many industries, but ecommerce is a standout.
Juniper Research expects retail buyers will spend $142 billion on chatbots by 2024.
That huge market share suggests chatbots will soon be standard in ecommerce.
Considering joining the trend? You’ve found it. This article discusses:
Use cases for Chabot
Good eCommerce chatbots
The next step to brand chatbot success
Chatbot AI graphic
Key uses for ecommerce chatbots
Chatbots have evolved from scripted responses and decision trees.
They’re better at understanding and responding to clients thanks to AI technologies like conversational AI, machine learning, and natural language processing.
Today, ecommerce chatbots can interact like humans, tell jokes, and be highly efficient.
Thus, AI-powered chatbots are becoming more useful in online customer care.
They can help retail and ecommerce firms reach several aims. Let’s examine each one.
1. Boost sales and conversions
Chatbots engage customers and give personalized service, which boosts conversions and revenue.
Additionally, 61% of US customers are more likely to buy from a brand if they can message them.
Having a chatbot boosts sales simply by itself.
2. Make client experience personal
each ecommerce chatbot may instantly personalize the customer experience by gathering location and interests at the outset of each engagement.
Using the customer’s name and offering personalized product recommendations can improve the customer experience.
3. Answer customer questions
Customer service chatbots are well recognized for answering FAQs.
Bots are faster and better at answering these queries as technology advances.
Use a customer care bot with live chat and video chat to maximize its benefits.
This allows the bot to easily send the consumer to a live representative if it cannot handle the request.
4. Raise brand awareness
Creative, well-built chatbots promote businesses.
A clever bot with a big personality can get press and make an impression.
This increases word-of-mouth traffic to an ecommerce store.
5. Accept reservations and orders
Online bookings and orders are straightforward but might take a lot of time for live agents.
Ecommerce chatbots can fulfill these requests, decreasing contact center workload.
Overall, chatbots speed up booking and ordering.
Their memory of consumer facts such addresses increases the likelihood of repeat business for speedy service.
6. Collect customer data
Everyone knows data is king in marketing—the more you have, the better you can retarget clients.
Ecommerce chatbots are ideal for data collection without disrupting the digital customer journey.
With a few inquiries, they may gather personal preferences, allowing firms to retarget customers with customized adverts.
Top ecommerce chatbots
Below are some of the most inventive and effective ecommerce chatbots used by brands worldwide.
They demonstrate how chatbots may be utilized by many internet businesses to achieve different goals through various use cases.
H&M
H&M created a Kik chatbot to complement its online business.
The bot gives users personalized wardrobe ideas as a virtual stylist. It’s a good chatbot example for personalizing online customer service.
H&M’s ecommerce chatbot starts by asking users to choose between two outfit pictures.
After answering a few multi-choice style questions, the bot swiftly creates a style persona.
It then creates a personalized outfit and displays the total cost.
Users can click on outfits to ‘shop’ or ‘save’ them. If they click ‘shop’, they are transported to the H&M website where they can buy everything with a few clicks.
Visitors can also vote on other users’ clothes. A pleasant exchange for users and plenty of data for H&M on popular items, trends, and customer preferences.
The bot provides a personalized experience, improves the sales process to enhance sales, and gathers important data for H&M’s highly targeted remarketing.
Key takeaway: Chatbots drive sales and collect data to inform sales and marketing.
Customer data collection, tailored experience, and sales and conversions
Lego
Lego, a highly successful toy company, was the first to offer an ecommerce chatbot.
Ralph the chatbot was a hit when it launched for Christmas sales in 2017.
It generated 25% of social media sales and reduced cost per conversion by 71% on Facebook Messenger.
Lego extended the use of its ecommerce chatbot, Ralph, to guide buyers through its massive catalog year-round.
Region, age, giftee hobbies, and budget are used to segment the user. This narrows and personalizes gift suggestions.
Ralph suggests many Lego sets based on this knowledge. Clicking the kit takes users to their Lego shopping basket, where they can immediately buy it.
Within 24 hours, users who fail to complete the process are retargeted with a pleasant Facebook message asking for help.
The simple idea has helped Lego boost sales and conversions.
Ralph is special for his personality.
Combining statements like ‘oh my bolts’ with bot gifs makes it entertaining and conversational. These details set it apart.
The takeaway: Spending time and money on a chatbot with a distinct and memorable personality can pay off.
Use cases: personalization, sales and conversions
Levi
Levi’s ecommerce chatbot provides client service and styling.
Typical customer support features. Users choose from prepared responses (e.g. delivery, returns), and the bot leads them to Levi’s website for the solution.
The virtual stylist is more fun, helping consumers choose jeans by style, fit, rise, and stretch.
Starting with multi-choice body form questions, it proceeds on to preferred look, fit, and occasion (casual or office). The bot suggests personalized jeans.
All recommendations are updated with Levi’s real-time inventory, preventing cart abandonment at checkout owing to out-of-stock items.
The user can also view their pants “styled” as part of an outfit to encourage sales.
We love Levi’s chatbot because it solves a retailer-identified issue.
Helping clients discover the proper jeans reduces sizing-related online returns.
Important: Design a chatbot to solve a business problem, such as too many returns or cart abandonments.
Personalized experience, customer inquiries
Cartoon hand reaching through online shopping bag
Nivea
German body care brand Nivea has the perfect chatbot for simplicity.
Nivea’s face care ecommerce chatbot is straightforward. It helps people identify their skin type.
This is done with three questions. Users can choose four answers each inquiry.
In less than a minute, the user knows their skin type. They receive a link to a Nivea page with skin-care tips and products.
The Nivea chatbot is simple but effective.
By targeting a specific aim and consumer need, Nivea produced a chatbot that appealed to a specific client profile.
Chatbots can be effective without being difficult. DialogueFlow makes it easy to create a rudimentary chatbot with restricted queries and responses.
Personal experience, enhanced sales and conversions
Ebay
Another ecommerce virtual assistant is eBay’s shopbot.
A billion listings are posted daily, thus the bot simplifies shopping.
Start by entering a keyword or phrase to describe your search.
The bot then finds related listings, reducing the amount of products to browse.
Image-based findings are also available. Upload a photo and the chatbot finds similar listings.
Uploading a black high heel photo will result in listings of such heels.
Users can click on items they like to get to the listing.
The bot provides listing recommendations based on past purchases and lets users rate items and merchants.
Overall, the chatbot streamlines Ebay on Facebook Messenger.
It shows how a bot may help clients identify things that meet their needs.
Key takeaway: An ecommerce chatbot helps buyers navigate your catalogue if you sell many products.
Personal experience, customer data collection
Sephora
Sephora pioneered Facebook Messenger and Kik bots for beauty stores worldwide.
Sephora Virtual Artist and Sephora Reservation Assistant, two unique ecommerce chatbots, capitalise on chatbot technology.
The reservation bot shows how a chatbot can link online and in-store purchases.
The bot lets people book Sephora makeovers near them. Built to recognize postcodes and cities, the bot can find Sephora by either.
Users receive confirmation emails in their mailbox after booking.
The bot has an 11% greater conversion rate than Sephora’s other in-store booking channels since it makes booking easy.
The reservation bot is impressive, but the Sephora Virtual Artist is more creative. This bot helps match Sephora lipstick colors.
Just hold your phone to an item or photograph and the bot will detect the color. Products that match will appear.
This works for clothes, cosmetics, faces, and celebrity photos wearing the user’s favorite beauty goods.
This skill takes use of Instagram’s popularity.
Show the bot an Instagram photo of a look you admire and Sephora can help you duplicate it.
Key takeaway: Chatbots may connect your online and offline presence.
Personal experience, bookings/reservations/orders
Unilever PG tips
PG Tips is a Unilever tea brand.
Its UK ads starring Monkey, a tea-loving puppet, are famous.
PG Tips used the monkey’s fame to create a joke-telling chatbot for Comic Relief 2017.
The Facebook Messenger ‘Monkey bot’ told jokes with gifs of Monkey laughing to raise money for Comic Relief.
Users typed ‘Tell me a joke’ and the chatbot answered with a corny joke. Users might donate or share the joke on Twitter or Facebook.
Monkey’s one joke: What’s the most important letter in the British alphabet? T!
During its 6-week run, the chatbot engaged British people, raised donations, and advertised the brand.
Although not the most capable, the Monkey bot shows that an ecommerce chatbot doesn’t need to be permanent or related to sales.
Takeaway: Chatbots are campaign-specific and time-limited. Consider creating a chatbot for upcoming campaigns/releases.
Use cases: brand awareness
Casper
The Insomnobot3000 from mattress company Casper is another inspiring ecommerce chatbot.
With its bot, Casper reinvents bed/mattress firms targeting insomniacs.
Insomnobot3000 is an insomnia companion that works from 11pm to 5am.
Casper VP Lindsay Kaplan said, ‘Some nights, it’s just tough to go asleep, so I think Casper wanted to develop something that’s a friend that keeps you awake at night’.
Without upselling or product suggestions, the bot is just there to chat.
Understanding and responding to typed communications rather than scripted ones is conversational.
This bot’s efficacy should be questioned. Its real impact on Casper?
Chatbot success goes beyond revenue and conversions. While Insomnobot3000 may not be selling, it is raising brand awareness.
Insomnobot 3000 is unique, creative, and amusing, generating news and conversation.
Important: Your chatbot need not offer your stuff. A well-designed chatbot can boost brand awareness.
Use cases: brand awareness
Domino’s
Domino’s has one of the most widespread chatbots.
It aims to make Domino’s ordering easier on Facebook Messenger, Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Slack, and Twitter.
The chatbot makes buying pizza easy and fun, from toppings to delivery times.
It includes Domino’s famed order tracking.
Additionally, the chatbot can recall prior orders.
Customers may ‘re-order’ their favorite pizzas without selecting them, giving their address, or paying.
This encourages repeat orders—why order from another pizza restaurant when you can get Domino’s with a few clicks on your favorite messaging app?
Domino’s ecommerce chatbot emphasizes being where customers are.
Chatbots let customers order, reserve, and buy on their preferred channel.
Remember that ecommerce chatbots must be PCI-compliant to accept payments.
Key takeaway: Order-taking chatbots boost consumer and employee satisfaction. It frees agents and provides fast, trustworthy service.
Personal experience, orders/reservations, sales rise