The sun is starting to shine on local main street businesses again. With COVID-19 restrictions easing in many areas, consumers are starting to shop in-store again. But what does this mean for the online brands and stores that consumers moved to when brick and mortar businesses were closed?
The marketplace has become considerably more tech-savvy and geographically spread-out. Consumers have grown accustomed to having more selection without additional costs or efforts on their part.
The advantage online retailers have reached for is customer experience (CX). It’s a key way to differentiate your online shopping experience when pricing, deals, or branding aren’t enough to help you step out from the crowd.
Win the online shopping experience with automation
As people begin to migrate back to in-store shopping, they’ll be reintroduced to brick-and-mortar’s natural advantage — the sales associate who provides every individual a unique shopping experience.
Now most would agree that imitation is the best form of flattery, but it is hardly feasible to match every online visitor to a remote sales associate instantaneously. On the other end of the spectrum, launching a simple FAQ chatbot can sometimes do more harm than good because so much about the customer experience hinges on your products, prices, deals, orders, shipping status and reviews.
Luckily, there's a solution that can help your ecommerce experience stand out — bots. Designing experiences with a flexible conversation design lets online retailers build advanced bots that not only compete with sales associates, but have the opportunity to exceed that hands-on experience.
How is this possible:
- Context: having access to all customer information immediately (user location, current orders, past orders, previous reviews, products in cart, etc.);
- Asynchronous: interact with the user via web chat, SMS, social or voice at any time of day they find the most convenient;
- Consistency: control the message and the outcomes by creating a user experience that is consistent for all shoppers so you can be comfortable in knowing that every person is receiving the customer care.
While there are many other factors that make conversational AI unique in solving this problem, it is important to recognize that this is a long-term and evolving investment. To start, begin with common use-cases and create simple workflows by connecting your bot with the tools you're already using.
Bots. Beets. Brick and Mortar.
In honor of Meya's new Shopify integration, we take a look at how the fictional place of Shrute Farm ("The People's Choice for Beets") uses Meya and their own Shopify store to create an online experience that is unique to the user while respecting the existing business workflows as they are designed today.
This video shows how an existing customer can see their current orders, status, and how to cancel an order as the bot retrieves the data in real-time with the Shopify platform.
This bot is built and designed with Meya and Shopify.