What trends do you think have marked e-commerce in 2019 and will be key during 2020?
Personalization, Customer Engagement, ChatBots, and AI have definitely been top topics in 2019.
For e-commerce, the lack of personal interaction with the customer is one of the major issues and causes of cart abandonment. This is the reason why more and more e-commerces are focusing on offering a tailored experience through tools like live chats, chatbots, AI etc in order to merge online and in-store customer journeys.
I’m a big fan of Sarah Doody’s (UX designer and consultant) sentence “The path to conversion is not about clicks but about conversation”, which says a lot about the importance of engaging with customers during the purchase process.
In fact, we shouldn’t forget that while in a brick-and-mortar store there will always be a shop assistant attending the customer, answering questions and actively suggesting products, in the online experience, the customer is often “abandoned”, and if no one is there to answer questions, the most probable situation is that he will jump to another shop with clearer descriptions and a better service.
AI and chatbots:
IMO, despite the fact that chatbots have marked a tendency this year, a tool like that is a double-edged sword because, on one side, they avoid your customer service agents to waste time answering FAQ, but on the other side, if the customer is not clear that he’s interacting with a robot, the experience can be quite frustrating. That’s why the best formula is to combine a live chat with a chatbot. This way, agents can focus on actively suggesting and showing products, answering specific questions and sell more, while a chatbot is answering questions about delivery, payment methods etc etc
Trends 2020:
In 2020 I believe the tendency will be:
- Acquiring more consciousness about the importance of having a personal shopper in e-commerce,
- Improving the responsiveness of the webpage, since the number of purchases made with mobile devices is constantly increasing,
- Using videos instead of written product descriptions to boost purchase intention and drive more conversions.
Can you explain to us in a few lines what Oct8ne is and what needs does it solve?
Oct8ne is the first hybrid live chat that integrates the e-commerce catalog, which aims to increase the online store’s conversion.
Its visual support allows the agent to show images and videos of products in real-time and interact with them. Furthermore, the panel displays also the history of products seen by the customer, so the agent can easily implement cross-sale and up-sale techniques.
The software has also two more innovative functionalities:
- Add to cart button
- Check-out button
This way the agent becomes a personal shopper, guiding the customer throughout the entire purchase process, which translates in more conversion and less cart abandonment.
As mentioned above, Oct8ne is a hybrid, and by hybrid I mean live chat and chatbot. This combo turns Oct8ne in the perfect tool to convert your customer service into a powerful sales force.
How can a service like yours boost conversion? Do you have any figures?
Engaging with customers, assisting and guiding them until the check-out drastically reduce cart abandonment percentage and highly boost the e-commerce conversion. Customers like Miro and Textura are two of Oct8ne’s success stories. Thanks to our live chat these e-commerces have boosted their conversion up to 30 %, reduced cart abandonment and the return rate.
What is a good customer service? How does it help E-Commerce merchants with converting consumers?
A good customer service focuses on establishing relations with customers, and customer retention because these two factors will help your brand to gain trust and loyalty.
What mistakes do you see that are usually made in online stores? How would you correct them?
Nowadays, the competition online is so wide that you must offer outstanding customer service if you don’t want to lose potential customers, because the user is just one click away from jumping in another shop if the answer he needs is not immediate, in real-time. Phone calls and emails should be considered as an alternative communication channel for the customer, because in the era where all communications (also in personal life) are so fast, it’s clear to me that in an online store a chat is a must.