One of the best ways to increase your sales conversions is assisted commerce. In fact, studies show that as many as 44% of users have questions before they decide to make a purchase. Using conversational AI in assisted commerce helps to detect when users need help so that they are comfortable following through with their purchases. This boosts your conversions by as much as 20%, and you can increase your order value up to 60% by combining assisted commerce with conversational commerce for checkout. 

What Is Assisted Commerce?

When a customer walks into a store and a sales clerk helps them find the products they are looking for, they are engaging in assisted commerce. Ecommerce has been thought to offer an inferior experience for customers because this feature hasn’t always been available. However, assisted commerce seeks to fix that problem. 

Customers are looking for ecommerce sites with two way conversations. For example, conversational AI can automatically detect when customers are looking for or would benefit from assistance. If a customer has an item in the shopping cart, it can send a message to ask if the customer has any questions. Based on the response, it can detect whether the customer needs a live agent. The entire conversion is saved for the live agent to ensure a seamless transition. 

What Can Assisted Commerce Do?

When you use assisted commerce, you will have a dashboard where you can keep track of all conversations with customers and users. This makes it easy to create user carts, offer discounts, initiate checkouts and more. 

You can send a product in a message to your customer, along with instructions to respond, “Buy” if they want to make a purchase. Through conversational commerce at checkout, you can answer any questions your customer may have and help them complete the sale. 

You can also send your customers product cards to make it easy for them to shop. You might send a product card with a special offer, and tell them to respond, “Buy” to make the purchase. If your customer responds with, “I have a question,” assisted commerce can respond and hand off the message to an agent. The agent will be able to see all of the activities of the user so that they know how to respond to any questions. 

The way that assisted commerce helps is by sending personalized marketing messages that include buttons for assistance and can respond to cue words. This helps your company provide customers with the assistance they need when they need it. 

How Is Assisted Commerce a Key Use Case for Conversational Commerce?

The term conversational commerce was first used in a Medium post written by Chris Messina in 2015. He was talking about technology that created a customer ecommerce experience based on messaging and voice technology. The idea was to connect customers with brands through a more customized experience. 

Today, conversational commerce technology gives customers an efficient and simple experience that they want from a company. It is becoming more popular to make purchases and learn about new products through popular messaging apps, and consumers are spending more time on them than ever before. This is significant because one study found that 69% of consumers say that the ability to message a business builds their confidence in the brand. 

The key to conversational commerce is the fact that interactions are human-like. People go to physical stores because they can interact with people there, and now this is possible online. Studies show that customers are more likely to complete purchases in store than they are online because they can get advice and ask questions at the store, which gives them confidence to buy. 

Bringing conversational commerce to your online sales provides the missing link in assisted commerce. Customers have buttons to press if they have questions, and assisted commerce is intuitive and can detect when a customer needs help and start the conversation. As a result, businesses that use this technology are seeing more conversations and satisfied customers. 

The Benefits of Conversational Commerce

The main benefit of conversational commerce is being able to offer the personalized attention to customers that they expect from a brand. It offers customers a superior experience in the following ways. 

1. It Brings the In Store Assistance Online

When a customer enters a store, they are greeted and know that someone is available to answer any questions. They can learn more about products and get recommendations for other products that they may need. Customers appreciate the personalized experience, and conversational commerce offers this online. It brings the assistance from the store to message apps and online, and customers can be greeted when they are browsing and learn that someone is there to answer any questions. 

2. Customers Get Personalized Recommendations

Conversational commerce is a type of assisted commerce that gives customers a personalized experience. You can send custom recommendations to customers based on their browsing history, or you can give them options based on what they are looking for. As you learn more about what they like, dislike, want, and need, you can tailor your recommendations to them. 

You can send messages to customers with product selections, and they can respond, “Buy” if they want to make the purchase. They can also ask questions or share that they are interested in something else. This technology makes the experience seamless and a customer can speak directly to an agent who can see the entire customer conversation history. 

3. It Offers Support When Customers Want It

Conversational commerce offers your customers support when they want or need it. Customers expect simplicity and don’t want to work hard to find support. You can have a button for assistance that is instantaneous, and the technology intuitively anticipates when customers may need help.  

Final Words

As more businesses are looking to boost their online sales, customers are looking for assistance that is simple, convenient, and available at all times. Conversational commerce offers the ability to provide the assistance customers want and need, and it boosts conversions and makes customers happy.