What is Conversational Commerce and How Fashion Brands can use it to Increase Conversion Rates
Customers are everywhere. What sets apart a good brand, is its ability to be able to connect with customers in a nonintrusive manner. In a world where people are glued inseparably to their smartphones, it makes perfect sense to reach out to them where they like to hang out. The two places that your customers are currently hanging out are Social media and Messaging apps. Brands are using the social media route of meeting potential customers in a major way, but the messaging apps route seems to be underutilized.
Enter conversational commerce! Conversational commerce is the conversations that happen between brands and customers leading upto a sale. Conversational commerce is usually powered by an artificial intelligence (AI) assistant or humans, or sometimes both.
While your customers might discover your brand on a social media network, they might discuss it on a messaging app. According to a recent study Business Insider, number of monthly users on messaging apps have surpassed social media networks.
Conversational commerce may be in it’s infancy phase currently, but you will have an added advantage over your competition if you familiarize yourself with its basics now.
It is a blend of mobile commerce and social media: Conversational commerce encompasses all the interactions related to consumer engagement and conversion, between brands and customers. A tweet, a chat on Facebook messenger, sharing a buying link on Twitter, sharing an offer or addressing a complaint on Whatsapp or a buy button on Instagram, ecommerce search queries solved by Apple’s Siri, Google Now and Microsoft’s Cortana are all examples of conversational commerce in action.
Add a personal touch to your conversations with customers: Conversational commerce is perfectly aligned to your customers day to day activities. It is almost zero effort on the part of your customers, you are not asking them to read a page long blog post about your brand or asking them to download unnecessary apps. The convenience alone makes it a total hit with online customers. Imagine a customer type on Facebook messenger or Whatsapp ‘I need a black shirt for next week, priced approximately at $200’. He receives a personalized recommendation based on the size, color and delivery time all taken into consideration in a few seconds. The recommendation comes with a shoppable link and shipping tracker so that the payment and shipping hassles are taken care of. All of this without leaving a conversation window on social media or a messaging app.
A personal shopper experience that allows you to upsell or cross-sell: The social media accounts of customers already have a lot of their interests and preferences out in the open. Imagine a process where you can use all this information to streamline a selling process to serve the needs of your customers in a personalized way. There are paid conversational commerce platforms like iAdvize, that help you detect contact opportunities if you want to approach conversational commerce in a more proficient manner. A customer feels at home when using social media or messaging apps thus there won’t be anything unnatural about upselling or cross-selling in an environment which creates such an intimate proximity with a customer.
Word of caution though, conversational commerce is a time-consuming process. You are giving your word to your customers, about a long-term commitment to support them and make their shopping experience a personalized one. Commit to it only if you have the resources to handle the process from start to finish.
Since 2004 Netgains has been building fashion e-commerce website & running effective fashion digital marketing campaigns for fast-growing as well as established fashion brands. Our expertise in fashion eCommerce ensures that your brand and products are delivered to your customers in a way that makes them buy. Get in touch today!
