What is chat commerce? Chat commerce is a way for companies (mainly retailers) to use the full potential of online conversation to sell their products and services, through messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Instagram or their own website chat. The strategy is also known as conversational commerce.
It doesn’t matter whether the conversational experience is delivered to a potential customer through a chat app, a chatbot, a voice assistant, or through a messaging platform.
As long as customer communication is personalized, helpful, and moves the consumer faster toward closing a sale, it serves its purpose.
The strategy takes advantage of both chatbot automation technology and the personalization of human service, bringing consumers closer to brands.
Chat-commerce grew rapidly after 2020 (with the pandemic) when companies closed their doors and people went home and buying and selling relationships had to migrate “by force” to digital channels.
Companies and people started using messaging apps to: present products, provide customer service, run promotions, and close real sales.
According to a study by Accenture, from July 2020, 83% of Brazilians already used WhatsApp to make purchases and 59% did so at least once a week.
Does my company need to join chat-commerce?
The answer is probably YES!
We have long lived in a commodity economy country email list where brands compete with each other to offer the best products at the lowest prices.
This race was not easy, however.
Amazon has already captured nearly half of the US e-commerce market share, leaving much less room for smaller players.
Here in Brazil there is also a large concentration of sales in a select group of the main retailers.
Does this mean the odds are stacked against you if you’re not a global giant and can’t afford to sell cheaper without hurting your business?
Not necessarily!
Recent trends show that it’s not products or how to use ai in social media for an smm specialist prices that have the biggest impact on conversion. But rather the positive customer experience a brand provides. Furthermore, data shows that over 80% of customers are willing to pay more for a better experience.
Fortunately, you can put a new spin on the customer experience using a very old but still relevant commerce strategy.
Simply put, by starting a friendly conversation with your customers, you can improve the experience and consequently close more sales.
The term conversational commerce (chat-commerce) gained bulk lead popularity in 2015 thanks to a Medium article written by Chris Messina. An American blogger and inventor of the hashtag. In his post, Messina drew attention to the trend of selling products and services through messaging apps.
This shift towards messaging platforms was caused and is still favored by the growing number of users . WhatsApp is the number one messaging app with more than 2 billion active users worldwide. With approximately 120 million accounts in Brazil alone.
Messenger has fewer users, around 1.3 billion, but it is the most popular app in the US market. It is followed by Chinese-owned WeChat, with 1.2 billion users and also Instagram ( with around 66 million users in Brazil ), Telegram, and many other smaller players.
These numbers have made brands realize that the cheapest and most successful way to connect with their potential customers is to meet them where they are. In other words, they don’t need to be forced to visit a brand’s website.
Here’s an important point! Our customers ask:
“How do we get people to leave WhatsApp and visit our online store.” The answer is: if customers are on WhatsApp, let’s create ways to sell there! But to offer the best experience to customers, integrate with the systems your company already uses. Provide combined service between automation and salespeople, and have metrics and indicators. It is necessary to invest in a platform (software) that allows this conversational technology.
Additionally, chat commerce allows brands to compensate for the lack of a personal touch in their online stores. This applies not only to the lack of a physical store associate. But also to the type of content that customers get. Often times, online retailers (in a standard e-commerce store) have to choose between matching their content to users’ tastes or optimizing it for search engines.
In the latter case, an eCommerce store can achieve higher rankings and increase traffic. However, SEO-friendly content can be boring and impersonal.
On the other hand, chat commerce allows brands to compensate for this gap. It allows you to focus on SEO requirements while still personalizing your commerce and sales experience.