Shopping bots are nifty tools that are created to simulate a customer service representative replying to customer’s messages. What these do is that they have a set reply for any type of questions thrown at them. These are useful for eCommerce websites and online businesses that need to constantly reply to their customers. These free up the business owner’s time as well as save him money in hiring employees that can do the same. Here’s how a chatbot works. As a person interacts with it, it imitates human behavior in different forms. It can be done through text, voice, video and others. From here, it taps its knowledge database that is usually stored in a separate server. It then performs the process of information lookup, customer service, consultation, education and others automatically. This process allows the chatbot to return the information necessary to answer the question of the user.
True to its name, it is a robot that acts like a human being to connect with customers. It helps businesses by talking with customers all around the clock without the need for hiring customer service representatives. This allows business owners to be by their customer’s side anytime – always ready to answer any of their questions. Chatbots solves the problem of instant gratification that customers need. When they need to ask something, they want to have their questions answered right now. They don’t want to wait for office hours. They certainly don’t want to wait for someone to come online. They need the answers now. With chatbots, business owners are able to do this even if the business owners or employees are not physically present in the office. However, it seems that the adoption of chatbots is still a growing trend. There are still some customers who don’t like them. According to the Reality of Retail Tech Report by GPS Shopper, while 21% think that chatbots can somehow improve their shopping experience, 59% still don’t want to use them.
Still, chatbots have other purposes that it can fill. First, it can be used to advertise product promos. Instead of hiring a person to cold call prospects (which are usually not welcomed well), it may be better to have a chatbot do that instead. Also, chatbots are quite good in making recommendations. Some customers just need to know the bestsellers or need to know the product that will suit their needs. Chatbots can sort customers based on their needs and make the most appropriate recommendations. While we are in the process of learning more about chatbots, it seems that the best way to learn more about them is to see some examples. Because of this, I have gathered a short list of some of the best chatbots I found online.
PART 1: Easy-to-Install Bots
Let’s start with a list of bots that you can install in your website. Some of these bots can be customized to fit your needs.
If we are going to talk about eCommerce, then we should definitely include Shopify on the list. Shopify is the leading eCommerce solution online. It allows you to create an online shop in an easy-to-follow interface. It helps you create an online shop in just a few clicks. Shopify also has a messenger system that integrates well with Facebook. With it, users can browse through online catalogues as well as get product recommendations on the fly. Aside from that, it can also receive orders as well as give shipping confirmations to customers. It can also forward customer service requests. What makes this messenger so special is its ability to pull products from the store. If you have a shop on Shopify, this tool will just scrape the product descriptions along with its images for easy retrieval.
Another chatbot that integrates well with Shopify is BotCommerce. This chatbot answers product questions and can talk with customers considering order changes and returns. Aside from that, it can also have a custom welcome message, it can give order details as well as shipping tracking information and answer some frequently asked questions. It is important to note that BigCommerce is not only for Shopify but for Magento as well.
If you are familiar with online communication tools that doesn’t require any money, you may be quite familiar with WeChat. On the surface, the tool will seem like an ordinary communication tool that allows you to add, text or call people. But it can also be used for business. One of the ways you can use WeChat as a chatbot is to use it for marketing. You can add people and message them directly about a particular product or promo. Since messages are done in a personal manner, the chance of closing a deal is always higher.
If you don’t want to use an ordinary chatbot, you’ll love Letsclap. What this does is it modifies the chat experience by allowing the user to customize certain aspects. These aspects include the images, audio, location and chat text. Doing this allow you to add a unique touch into your chat bot. This way, it will not be similar to just about any chatbot that you see on the Internet. Aside from customization, Letsclap also has the capability to recall past conversations. This allows for easy message retrieval in case of some inquiries. It is able to search for messages quickly and effortlessly thus freeing the need for a virtual assistant to do the customer service for you. Let’s face it. Coding a custom chatbot from the ground up may seem good but it is just way too complicated. Letsclap allows you to create your unique chatbot without all of that. Letsclap works for different messaging platforms such as WeChat, Telegram and Facebook Messenger.
If you’re looking for something that acts like a human being communicating with customers or prospects, Magic is for you. True to its name, this bot can do anything from placing orders to setting travel plans. Since it can do so much, it is one of those shopping bots that are worth investing in. According to experts, Magic is the best tool to start learning the idea of conversational eCommerce. If you are new to the idea of adding chatbots into your website, you may need to install Magic first. Why? Well, Magic is one of those all-in-one chatbots that can do anything. It may not be free but it allows you to understand how your prospects will respond if you have a chatbot installed in your website. Also, Magic Bot is scalable. This means that you can adjust it to your customer’s needs. Instead of having some set questions, you can easily adjust the questions to even accommodate difficult ones.
If you know Yellow Pages, you’ll know that it is a directory for businesses created so that prospects can find the businesses that matters to them in one place. This used to be a big bulky book that is shipped to homes but now, businesses can just be searched online. With this in mind, Yellow Messenger is born. This is a bot that takes care of transactions without the need for a human being to record them. It can book flights and even buy tickets for movies and it can charge credit cards or mobile networks. But there’s a downside. It seems that Yellow Messenger is one complicated chatbot. It is not one of those bots that you need to host yourself. If you know nothing about that, this is not for you. The good news is that the bot is very flexible. I have never seen a bot that can go with just about any type of communication app or channel. It can be tailored for Facebook Messenger or Skype. And it can even help you build your own stand-alone app.
With over 300 million users including Sephora and Kim Kardashian, Kik Bot Shop is a community of merchants that creates and sell chatbots online. The best part? This shop orients new users into the wonderful word of chatbots. This allows them to easily configure and install a bot in a manner of minutes even if they don’t know anything about cURL, JavaScript or Python.
PART 2: Shopping Bots
In this section, you’ll discover some bots that eCommerce website owners are already using. Instead of giving you a list of bots that you can use like the one above, this will provide you with examples of bots that you can imitate.
When you hear the word ‘operator’, the popular landline chatbot comes to mind. But this is a different kind of operator. Instead of saying ‘Hello Operator’, it recommends products based on the times. Its goal is to streamline global online shopping with a group of experts recommending what to buy. Right now, it is geared towards consumers who want to buy products from the US. CelebStyle If Operator depends on experts for recommendations, CelebStyle is different. Instead, it depends on celebrities. You can ask the bot about a certain celebrity’s style by inputting its name. Then, you will get visual results. This way, you can easily scan through the styles and select the ones that you like. In this age when Instagram and YouTube are quite popular and more and more people are drawn into visual elements like pictures and videos, it is more important to have visual recommendations instead of written ones.
Can’t find a gift for a loved one? 5GiftsforHer helps in that area. Hosted in Facebook Messenger, it allows users to search for keywords or ask the ‘shopping guide’ for recommendations. What the bot does is it scans Amazon for Quick Picks. From there, is allows users to rank these based on shares, comments and wish lists. Simply put, it automates product recommendation so that a person can find a gift at the quickest time possible.
Want a product assessment assistant in a chatbot? Roobot can do that for you. What it does is it taps an online database that has millions of shopping items. From there, it compares items and brands in terms of price and price drops. This allows you to get the best price for the item that you want to buy before you buy it. And it displays everything in a classy way. First, it creates a catalog based on its online search and have conversational prompts and suggestions for this.
Need help with your wedding? No problem! BlingChat is your personal online wedding planner that helps you with all of your wedding-related purchases. What you’ll love about this chatbot is that it provides more than just suggestions. It also communicates with the audience in a ‘humanlike’ way. Needed It may be a good habit to search for the items that you want to buy before you buy them. But not everyone has the time to do that. With Needed, you can just ask the bot to do that for you. With a shopping list on hand, it will search through all local advertisements and sellers in the quest to find the best deal for you. It takes into different factors such as price and location into consideration allowing you to view only the best and affordable products that will suit your needs.
If there are bots for products, there is also a bot for hair. This is what Madi is all about. It helps you choose the right hair color for your personality. First, it asks you about the shade that you want. Then, it will ask for your photo. From there, it will generate the best hair color for your skin color and your desired shade. Neat, right? This is just another example on how chatbots can help consumers.
Shopping for clothes can be quite complicated. You will need to ask for the customer’s desired style, colors and sizes. With that in mind, H&M created a chatbot that gives the user multiple choices for each design. This gives the user plenty of room for creativity. This along with data on chat and shopping habits are considered when making recommendations. Do you think your eCommerce website can use a Chatbot? Tell me all about it below.
I have recently just started seeing these Chatbots on all the major sites. When did this trend start? I see that it can be really effective these days since most people have smart phones and purchase from mobile devices.
The main thing that I see with these ChatBots is that they can really increase your customer engagement by keeping your customers tied into your brand.
Letsclap seems to be really unique as you can really customize the experience. Most other Chat Bots have just a standard interface that does not have many customization options.
Great overview and list. I have seen these Bots all over the place but have not known much about them.
One tactic with the bots is to give people access to exclusive deals that they cannot see anywhere else.
All of these bots seem really easy to use and setup the key thing is coming up with a strategy on what information you will be delivering to your customers and prospects. I think the main thing is to keep the information fresh and interesting.