New study provides insights into the increased use of chatbots and messaging apps in retail.
As customers increasingly turn to technology to showroom, price compare, and search for the best deals, retailers need to be responsive to these new consumer behaviors. One way that retailers are trying to better connect with their customers is through the increased use of chatbots and messaging apps, according to a new study from [24]7, a provider of chatbot and human agent assistance for retailers.
Consumers are turning to chatbot technology as it becomes more integrated within their personal lives and evolves to provide better, more efficient and engaging customer service.
Scott Horn, CMO of [24]7 stated, “Messaging apps are incredibly valuable for retailers looking to enhance relationships with consumers, particularly millennials.”
The study, titled, “A Retailer’s Guide to Chatbots, Live Chat, and Messaging,” found that nearly one-third of consumers (28.9 percent) prefer chat tools over phone (28.7 percent) or email (27 percent) for interacting with retailers (jumping to 37 percent for millennials).
Other findings include:
The findings demonstrate that retailers need to be flexible enough to meet the needs of their customer segments via the channels they prefer and already use in their everyday lives. Less than a quarter of millennials prefer email (23 percent) or phone (21 percent) as methods to contact retailers. Retailers who adopt channels such as Facebook Messenger is a strong path to this demographic.
Convenience (15 percent) and access to conversation history (10 percent) were the top reasons customers cited for using messaging apps, while the top concerns included security and privacy (28 percent) and distrust of third-party apps (12 percent). One in five consumers also said that instant order updates via messaging apps are the best way to improve their online shopping experience, second only to location-based coupons on mobile devices (24 percent).
And providing an effortless checkout process is still crucial to driving completed sales, as 13 percent report that they would abandon a shopping cart if they could not find answers to their questions, while 15 percent say that incomplete or inaccurate product information is a serious roadblock. Chatbots can provide a more seamless checkout process and save some transactions that might otherwise be abandoned.
The study asserted, “Although chatbots cannot resolve transactional hurdles at purchase like price and delivery, they can help customers find desired information, fill out fields based on prior purchases and answer queries. With the right solution, anything more complex can be escalated to a live human agent.”
