Although the term conversational commerce was first coined almost a decade ago, its popularity in all types of business marketing and communication has skyrocketed in recent years. Although sometimes relegated to the world of artificially intelligent chat bots, business texting plays a major role in its practice and success.
What is conversational commerce? Before you figure out how to use this unique and powerful method of engaging customers and clients, it is important to understand what it is and how it actually functions. As the name implies, this type of commerce deals with a conversation between the consumer and the brand that once them to buy products or services. It provides amazing service because it takes a lot of the potentially aggravating parts of the customer journey out of the hands of the customers themselves.
Why People Like Conversational Commerce
People are busy, overwhelmed with information, impatient, and sometimes lazy, too. Instead of an insult to consumers everywhere, this short list clearly shows new expectations in customer care and the shopping process itself. Conversational commerce engages people in ways that make them feel good, and that is at the top of the list of all desired brand interactions.
Busy? No matter what a person has to do during the day – work, school, family responsibilities, and socializing – they may view online shopping or searches for service providers a drain. Directly messaging a company for recommendations or answers to questions without searching through Google or the website itself makes sense for their busy lives. Best of all, with integrated text message capabilities, they will get answers sent to their phone while they are tackling other activities.
Overwhelmed with information? Five million websites on the Internet may tell a person how to hire the best plumber or which athletic shoes will help them prevent blisters. How are they supposed to read through this information and make an informed decision before their sink overflows or they get injured?
Consumers trust recommendations from trusted sources more than anything else. This starts with their friends and family, extends to follower groups on social media, and also includes trusted brands that have a track record of providing quality products and services in the past. If your organization can build that trust, your conversational commerce process will cut through the overwhelming amount of data and bring clarity and satisfaction with the consumer.
Impatient or lazy? These are just ways of putting a negative spin on the above problems. In the end, it does not matter if your target audience once what they want now or does not want to do the legwork to research everything themselves before making a decision. This is where you and your business texting and chat app communications come in. When you can transform these emotions of frustration and laziness into connection and confidence, everyone wins.
How Business Texting Aligns With This Method
Fast responses matter most when it comes to answering questions or making recommendations that keep consumers interested. With the help of a business texting chat widget on your e-commerce or service provider website, people have an immediate way to get in touch with you for any reason. When they get a quality response, they feel valued as an individual. It makes the best first impression of your brand.
The features available from the best landline texting platforms like ours at Text My Main Number offer everything you need to engage in conversational commerce with the human touch that people desire. It may start with multi-level integrated text responses in an automated fashion, but having actual service representatives engage in the conversation and is the best idea for overall satisfaction.
Chat Bots and Automation vs. the Human Touch
Almost every website that sells products or services includes a link the bottom that says something like “Ask us a question” or “Try messaging.” Businesses invite you to start a conversation with them because they know that is what you want. With increasing frequency, you get a chat bot when you click one of these icons. These AI systems have improved dramatically in the past years and are quite proficient at delivering accurate answers from a database of information.
Despite their technological advancements and convenience when online shopping, automated answers lack something important that consumers want these days. They do not only look for fast information. Search engines can provide that. They also look for personalized service with in-depth recommendations or answers to specific questions. The moment the robotic customer service makes a mistake or fails to deliver is the moment you lose potential revenue or a good review.
This problem started back when customer service phone lines began using automatic menus and responses. A full 88% of people in a Clutch survey expressed their desire for human communication above all else. The same goes today for business texting and chat apps.
In the quest for increasing convenience and speed, nothing at this present time beats the phone in your pocket when it comes to communicating with companies. More people access the Internet with their phones than ever before, and text messages have become the preferred mode of interaction in both social and professional situations. It makes sense to expand this focus to conversational commerce as long as you have the appropriate landline texting platform to back you up.
Chat bots and AI systems are getting smarter and more effective all the time. However, nothing frustrates consumers more if they failed to get the information they want and need because of these things. People still want to communicate with other people rather than robots regurgitating scripts and sometimes ineffective answers. If your brand’s customer service team can effectively man the phones to answer customer and client text messages promptly, you may find your reputation skyrocketing. However, automated responses still provide benefits over lack of any response at all.
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