Artificial intelligence (AI) and ecommerce are now as mutually dependent as bread and butter. Digital commerce has embraced AI technology to satiate consumers’ hunger for rapid, responsive service from merchants as well as great products. It doesn’t matter if the response comes from a human being or automated chatbot; in fact, the latter is often preferable because they answer questions quicker.
This article explains how AI is changing the ecommerce landscape for website hosting. We outline the AI-driven technologies and endless plugins allowing merchants to design the utmost in sophistication for the customer experience.
This article outlines four crucial ways that AI serves merchants: facilitating better provider-customer relationships, automating pricing, personalizing the shopping experience, and creating content. Example AI tools are also provided.
1. Building Customer Relationships Through Chatbots
Chatbots were a rapidly growing communication channel used by brands in 2020, according to a study from Drift. These AI bots have friendly faces and are available 24/7 to satisfy consumer desire for immediate answers to their questions. Bots emulate a conversation with a human expert only with faster results providing intelligent, AI-based information within seconds.
Chatbots are part of a movement called “conversational commerce,” which combines virtual tools with other forms of communication to improve the customer experience. Chatbots can provide technical support, provide order and tracking information, and answer questions about products and services.
According to the Drift study, Ecommerce merchants who use chatbots strengthen their customer relationships through personalized customer engagement, generate better leads, and can generate 670 percent return on their AI investments.
Maxbot: Chatbot Builder WordPress Plugin
Maxbot WordPress Chatbot Builder allows you to create a chatbot that both responds to customer queries and collects data on those queries to inform your business decisions. For example, the software shows text responses that you create from the WordPress backend, displays FAQs, and permits users to email merchants or leave their phone numbers when they need support.
For more on WordPress and WooCommerce, read, “Looking for An eCommerce Platform? 15 Things Merchants Should Know Before They Commit to WooCommerce”
Innue: AI Chatbot With Facebook
Innue is a chatbot for businesses with a Facebook page. According to Hootsuite, Facebook is the most-used social media platform in the world, so reaching and interacting with customers on this channel is huge. Moreover, the Innue chatbot communicates through Facebook Messenger, which people use on their favorite devices—mobile phones. Because people carry their phones with them all the time, brands can be in constant contact with their customers.
Support Board
Support board is a plugin for WordPress websites. It features AI bots and a chat system so merchants can engage directly with consumers and respond to their queries using saved replies, which eliminates the need for manual support and data entry. The add-on integrates with Slack and Google Dialogflow. Employers can also share media files and update the conversation history in real time.
WooCommerce Chat Bot and Marketing App for Support Board
This add-on for Support Board extends the capabilities of Support Board. Merchants can send follow-up messages to consumers, abandoned cart reminders, and cross-sell through the chatbot.
2. Automated Pricing
There are so many factors that go into product pricing. Merchants must consider their production and marketing costs, overheads, the supply chain, market demand, the economic environment, and their competition when pricing products. Not only that, but merchants must also factor in their payment gateways, chargeback management and prevention costs, and the cost of managing fraud.
What if someone could gather all the pertinent data for all the relevant factors, process it, analyze it, and develop the perfect pricing strategy? AI does this and even automates price changes.
Perhaps most importantly, price adjustments that respond to consumer choice and preferences—such as increasing the price on unpopular products and reducing prices on popular items—can improve profit margins and increase customer loyalty.
Dynamic Pricing & Discounts Lite for WooCommerce
Dynamic Pricing & Discounts Lite for WooCommerce is a plugin that automates discount-based prices of any product or category. Merchants decide on the conditions and rules for applying different discounts and configure the settings. Merchants can set BOGO offers, add coupons to products, apply shipping discounts, and set up season sales and Black Friday pricing.
Related: “How WooCommerce and Magento Are Tackling Fraud Protection”
3. Personalized Customer Service through Virtual AI Assistants
The merchant-consumer relationship can be further enhanced with personalized services through AI assistants. These virtual assistants (VAs) guide visitors to your site and help them find what they want. Offering visitors a personal assistant will keep them coming back.
So, what’s the difference between a chatbot and a virtual assistant, and do merchants need both?
Both chatbots and VAs can answer questions and perform tasks, but VAs can perform more complex tasks, such as responding to a scenario that involves fraud and guiding a customer through the steps to take. A virtual assistant might engage in casual conversation and have artificial emotional intelligence capabilities. For most businesses, a chatbot is sufficient to respond to basic queries from customers, but for those who want to go one step further and provide a more high-end, customized experience. An AI assistant does the trick.
WP AI Assistant
WP AI Assistant allows web developers to set the virtual smart assistant’s appearance, functions, and behavior. The assistant can show elements of the website, redirect the customer to specific pages, and send the discussions and data to admin by email for analytics.
4. Content Curation
The right content can drive potential business to your website. Clear and informative product descriptions can increase conversion rates. Marketing emails sent to a target audience, or personalized for individual customers, can strengthen merchant-customer relationships and extend a brand’s reach. AI solutions can create that content and deliver it automatically with barely any financial or time costs for the merchant.
Content Bot AI Writer
The AI Content Plugin for WordPress creates a human-like conversation for your blogs and product snippets. This technology also writes articles, generates page headlines, and rewrites and changes the tone of sentences.
However, merchants need to be aware of the pitfalls of AI-generated content and make sure their content is screened for accuracy and bias to protect their business reputation.
ABtesting.ai: Landing Page Optimization
How effective a landing page is on a website will determine how long a visitor stays and whether they pursue a purchase. ABtesting.ai works across WordPress, Webflow +, Wix, and other website builders. This AI technology provides the best combination of design, copy, and call to action for landing pages, suggests changes, and tries them out with A/B testing to determine which have the best conversion rates.
Driving Data-Driven Decisions for Better Strategy
In today’s digital age, business strategy decisions must be based on data. But AI and machine learning solutions don’t just collect data for merchants, they apply the data, make predictions based on historical events and consumer behavior, and suggest changes that will optimize workflows, policies, and, ultimately, profits. Moreover, these business solutions are inexpensive and easily integrated with existing infrastructure.
AI and machine learning also enhance the shopping experience for the customer. Chatbots provide immediate answers to problems, and virtual assistants treat the customer like a VIP, guiding them to the product they need to solve their problems.
AI and ecommerce are now as mutually dependent as bread and butter, and the consumer is hungry for more from this menu judging by the current rate of consumption on ecommerce sites.
Cartis Payments is a payment solutions provider that ensures streamlined transactions for merchants and their customers. Cartis-supplied products simplify payments, protect against fraud, minimize processing hassles, and boost cash flow using cutting-edge technology, a deep understanding of the software industry, and personalized one-on-one support. Contact Cartis today for the payments tools you need to grow.