These numbers show that commerce has an apparent engagement issue. So why is this the case?

Retailers & brands being resistant to change. Customers are inundated with products and messages in much the same way that they have been for years. There is a reason for this, though – it is difficult to scale personalised engagement. Many businesses simply do the same thing and the result of doing so becomes lowered consumer response rates. To be relevant to today’s consumer, businesses should avoid the product-push approach and instead move toward meaningful engagement at the times when consumers are actively wanting a product.

Myopic focus on traffic generation. The majority of a business’s budget usually gets spent on generating traffic to a website. There is an ingrained belief that the marketer’s job is done because a user has visited a site. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Consumers have endless choice at their fingertips – once they have visited your site, they will continue researching and evaluating their purchase before actually completing the sale. The focus, then, should be on optimising the traffic that has come through the site by way of genuine, relevant and helpful guidance and engagement.

Undervaluing the importance of human touch. Human elements such as personalisation, interactions, and assistance in the moment haven’t reduced in importance as a result of online shopping. They are just as important as ever and businesses should incorporate human touch into their digital funnels to minimise customer effort and guide them along their purchase path.

Remaining stagnant and adopting sluggish attitudes are no longer options in the retail environment. Machine learning and deep learning are more readily accessible and companies are able to create highly intelligent and more engaging interactions by:

• Having a two-way conversion in order to listen and comprehend actual needs, tastes and context;
• Blending technology with human skill and real-time assistance; and,
• Providing customers with what they actually want in that particular moment.

The need to bring these personal, direct experiences to the digital customer journey could not be more urgent. Intelligent AI systems, digital assistants and adaptive technologies are imperative for delivering experiences that make a customer feel heard and cared for.

Conversational ecommerce – the next phase of online shopping

Conversational ecommerce is not a new concept but it is fast emerging as the way that businesses bring 1-to-1 engagement into the online shopping experience. This is especially relevant in a post-covid world where businesses have needed to evolve and rely more heavily on online shopping.

Conversational ecommerce gives customers the direct, personalised support that they were used to before ecommerce captured the spotlight. It supports a consumer to become more engaged and likely to purchase.

What creates an effective conversational ecommerce experience?

1. Ask questions

If your goal is for a consumer to let down their guard, open up with their wants, and to release their fear of purchasing you’ll need to let down your own and become involved. It doesn’t matter what you are selling, people have a resistance to buying when they are being blatantly sold to. This is true even if they want to buy it. The key to getting that engagement with consumers is to ask questions. This paves the way for a conversation about why that particular customer came to your site today.

2. Asking the right kinds of questions

Conversational openers like “Can I help you?” or “Hi, I’m [a chatbot name]. How may I help you today?” need to be banished.

These questions are closed and only provide for yes or no answers. When money is in the picture, the answer is more likely to be “no”.

Questions that cultivate more meaningful engagement are those that:

• Are specific in detail and have a focused subject. Examples:
  – What type of phone do you have?
  – Are you after more memory or speed?
• Give consideration to context, in addition to intent. Examples:
  – What are you getting this device to do?
  – Who is going to be using this device?
• Allow customers to think about their unique wants. Examples:
  – Is this benefit more important or this benefit?
  – What are your concerns?

3. Including an element of psychology

Salespeople have a knack for improving their questions after every encounter with a customer. They learn to identify behaviour cues, comprehend context, and use previous experience combined with elementary psychology to guide how they direct future conversations with consumers.

Through the use of AI and machine learning, businesses are in a position where they can replicate these customer experiences via digital channels.

McKenzie & Willis, for example, use a bed assistant that asks questions and helps people find the right bed based on their answers. Tait Communications offer a ‘Build your own radio” tool which helps consumers identify what radio best suits their requirements. ProtectCrete‘s concrete treatment assistant guides a user through questions to hone in on what treatment option will deliver their project outcomes.

Want to see more examples? Check out this selection of Shop Assistant digital sales assistants.

The post Conversational Ecommerce & The Power Of Asking Questions first appeared on Online Shop Assistant.

When going thru this process you should ask yourself the following questions.

What is the value of the product.
Generally speaking the price of the product should be of high enough value that the customer is happy to invest time in the selection process.  This could be $150 for some. As well as having a minimum product value, there are some products that are of such a high value that a relationship with the seller is required to scope out the customers requirements.

What is the cost of selecting the wrong product.
Selecting the wrong product impacts both the customer and the supplier. From a customer perspective there is the sheer annoyance of wasting both time and money which isn’t ideal. From a supplier perspective there is a cost in the shape of returns and lost credibility.

For suppliers, monitoring your returns is a good way of measuring deficiencies in your selling process, whether this is online or in store.

How technical is the product
The more technical the product the more valuable guided selling can be. With technical products customers won’t be familiar with the terminology used and the benefits associated with the technical specs. If you’re using an attribute picker and the picker has some technical questions then this should be replaced with a guided selling interface.

What is the purchase cycle for the product
If the purchase cycle of your product is irregular then the chances are that the customer isn’t knowledgeable about the product. If it’s a regular purchase the customer should have sufficient knowledge to select the correct product.

Is your product an emotive purchase filling want more than need?
When thinking of products that have an emotive element to their consumption, think fashion. I buy it because I like it. No need to engage the site users in a guided selling manner here. What is useful in this instance is an attribute picker. I am after a green floral shirt…please show me what you have.

Here goes a brief list of product categories that would benefit from Guided selling…
Adhesives, Beds, Cameras, Camping equipment, Home Appliances, Fasteners, Financial services, Fitness equipment, Outdoor tools and machinery, Power tools, Printers and Office equipment,  Sports Equipment,  Insurance, Skin care..to name but a few.

And if none of the above makes any sense then the acid test is…if you went into a physical store and needed to engage with a salesperson to select the correct product…then Guided Selling is appropriate for your product category.

The post Guided selling…Is it right for your product category first appeared on Online Shop Assistant.

Sure, e-commerce is growing in popularity, but US Census Bureau stats from the third quarter of 2016 show e-commerce sales only account for 7.7 percent of total retail sales in the USA. That’s hardly competition for offline.

In fact many online stores have started up retail outlets, including the biggest of them all Amazon.com, hoping to put the focus on selected products, add the human-touch back into shopping and stand out from the online crowd.

And it’s pretty clear people still go crazy for Black Friday and Boxing Day sales, when they could easily have done their shopping online and avoided the punch-ups!

Why is this? Why do people still prefer to shop in a physical store?

The difference is offline still provides a better quality experience. When someone walks into a shop they are 400% more likely to buy something than when they arrive on a website. Not only are they more likely to buy, they are also more likely to feel happy with their purchase, generally because a shop assistant has helped them pick the best product for them.

This means most e-commerce stores just don’t deliver the level of experience or satisfaction that a physical store can. Some items can be easily bought online but other things need someone to help the customer choose and make them feel like they’ve made the right decision at the same time.

E-commerce stores sure try to provide a better experience. But offering what they call “personalised selling”, showing you options based on your previous buying habits and history completely misses the point when you’re shopping for that difficult aunty or favourite nephew. Asking for help from someone who knows the stock and how to match that with a real person is more-than-often a better way.

So, is there a way to do this online?

There sure is. By helping the customer interact with your product catalogue in a more intuitive way than simple searches, customers will not only be more likely to buy, they will feel more satisfied with their purchase, and be more likely to come back. This is called getting better quality conversions.

There are a number of ways to do this, from live chat to using social media, but the more cost effective bang-for-buck technique is guided selling.

Guided selling takes the customer through a cleverly thought-out, interactive pathway where the result is the best choice for the customer. It’s very cost-effective per sale but usually costs a fair bit to implement in software development.

Not any more. By using Shop Assistant Create, you can improve your conversion rates and sell online like you’ve never done before. Check out this improvement in conversion rate and average sale from a well-known Australasian appliance retailer using Shop Assistant guided selling for just one product category.

Evidence from their Google Analytics above shows them getting 113.8% better e-commerce conversions than the average for the whole website. Better than organic or paid search or any other method of bringing customers to the site. And they are getting higher average order value too.

Guided selling can make a huge difference to your online sales. Find out more here…

The post How to fix poor e-commerce conversion rates first appeared on Online Shop Assistant.

I heard in the news that Walmart recently paid $3 billion for an e-commerce website start-up named JET.com to help them combat Amazon.com.

I’d never heard of this site as they don’t do much promotion in New Zealand, but it looks like most generic e-commerce sites look, pretty much selling everything you can think of.

Thanks to a recent burglary, I’m in the market for a new watch, so decided to give it try.

These guys have a pretty good range, so I typed “mens watches” into their search box and browsed through the first two pages, spotting one I liked the look of.

It looked like this.

All black case with a black leather strap, and very stealthy.

So imagine my surprise when I scrolled down the page and saw this underneath the features and specifications info about my watch.

I might also like? Right, so, out of their vast catalogue of men’s watches I pick an all-black, leather-strap model and they think I might like to see a silver watch with a blue face, a bi-tone with a metal strap, an all-gold model, and an all-stainless watch. And they’re all chronographs. How useless is this?

I know for fact they have other similar-looking watches to the one I picked in their catalogue, so why aren’t they showing me some other variations of my choice here? This is what a shop assistant in a store would do.

This is not just a failure of web design, it’s a failure to use the simple technology of having things in a database. You see, I know they have categorised their stock in various ways because they provide this ridiculous filtering system at the top of the page for me to “narrow down the search”.

The hilarious thing is that if you use that filter to say, only show square-face watches, when you select a model to look at the site still shows the same bunch of dumb “You might also like” watches below it. And most of them have round faces!

If a shop assistant did this to me in a shop, I’d walk out. I now have no confidence jet.com gives a damn about me as a customer. They’re just using a shot-gun approach to selling and hoping for the best. Good luck with this Walmart, because you aren’t going to compete very well with Amazon.

It’s no wonder e-commerce sites like this have very poor conversion rates, sometimes as low as 1-2%. No retail store could survive on those odds.

There must be a better way, and there is. Guided selling technology replicates the process a real shop assistant would go through to narrow down the choices to show me something I actually might want to buy. This isn’t rocket science, but clearly many e-commerce stores are happy to exist on such poor returns. It doesn’t have to be that way.

Find out more about how guided selling works and how it will improve your conversion rates.

The post Dire recommendations … you won’t like this! first appeared on Online Shop Assistant.

Online guided selling tools are fast becoming mainstream. So much so that simply having one is no longer a competitive advantage. Knowing when and how to best use guided selling is the key to outperforming your competitors.

Guided selling is a dialogue in which shoppers are asked what their requirements are, and a product is recommended to them. It works best when you want to educate shoppers on a complex product or service to help them make a purchase decision. It’s great where customers are unlikely to have a clear preference in mind beforehand – and is unnecessary for simple purchases.

A good guided selling tool needs to immediately engage a customer, and build a relationship, just as a sales assistant would. For best results, your guided selling system will:

Solve a problem for the customer. Design your questions to find and fill a need. If your questions are designed to promote less relevant features or products or for covert market research, your shopper will smell a rat.

• Engage your customer quickly. It takes less than 15 seconds for your page visitor to decide to stay or leave. Show from the outset that you will guide them through the sale at every step, and make it easy – just as a salesperson would do.
• Establish a rapport – ask the right questions, in the right language. Explain why the recommended product was chosen. It’s reassuring and helps customers feel confirmed that the decision is the right one.
• Unlock inventory. Guided selling is an educational approach. It’s okay to make your shopper aware of a huge product range, but don’t show them irrelevant things, and reassure them that you’ll whittle down the selection to find exactly what they need.
• Avoid introducing an attribute picker, or a filter. They’re for people who know what they need. Guided Selling is for people who don’t yet know, and want to learn more.
• Recognise that omni-channel shopping is a key to the future. Customers research and choose products in a combination of online and in-store decisions – and on their smartphones while they’re in the store – which is old news by now, but it does mean that your guided selling programme should be mobile-friendly and must integrate seamlessly into your website.
• Be human. This is often the hardest one to get right, but is crucial. Your guided selling system should have a human touch; it must be personable and real – just like a good salesperson.

To wrap up: when you add a guided selling system, make sure that you don’t settle for just another widget. You should, in fact, be adding a personable salesperson to your website.

Guided selling pioneers such as Wired Internet Group have the experience and expertise to guide your web team towards best-practice guided selling with a human touch, plus optimising and measuring its effectiveness. While you have the knowledge to ask the right questions, speaking to an expert will help you trounce your competition.

Try a Live Shop Assistant Demo

Photo by Sara Carter.

The post How to design a successful guided selling experience first appeared on Online Shop Assistant.

As shoppers, we all respond differently to different salespeople, from wanting to open our wallets, to wanting to bolt for the door.

That is because both shoppers and salespeople are somewhere on the continuum of extrovert to introvert. We range from being outgoing and talkative to withdrawn and reflective, and anywhere in between.

The classic salesperson is charming and persuasive, imparting knowledge while being super-bubbly. An extrovert. This person definitely has sales strengths. (Although shy shoppers may feel uncomfortable with this person.)

Introverts would seem to be on the back foot, maybe even hiding behind the counter. However, marketing research is increasingly showing that while introverts find approaching customers more challenging, they tend to be better at generating trust. They ask about a customer’s needs, and take the time to listen and understand.

There is also a recently discovered, but remarkably numerous species: the ambivert. Neither introverted nor an extrovert, but displaying features of both, the ambivert salesperson provides a warm greeting, a friendly face, good knowledge, and great listening skills.

So what does that mean if you are wanting to sell goods online? Particularly, goods that need a human touch when being sold?

Shop Assistant is designed to be the perfect ambivert. It is warm and friendly, and asks the right questions before recommending the perfect product. At the end of the process, customers feel they are understood. That’s really important in choosing or recommending a specialist product.

As the saying goes, you have two ears and one mouth — and it pays to use them in that proportion.

Try a Live Shop Assistant Demo

Photo by hotblack.

The post Sales, personality, and ditching the stereotype first appeared on Online Shop Assistant.

Live chat on a website is kind of like a blind date. It can go spectacularly well, or spectacularly badly. And if it goes badly, you are likely to end up with a worse opinion of a company than if you had never used the chat feature to start with.

According to Forrester Research, only about 18% of web users ever use live chat support. They are also more likely to request it than to respond to a pop-up box. What can go wrong, besides poor uptake? Slow responses, sub-standard answers, and bad spelling by online chat assistants can make a negative impression. Some customers hate live typed conversations as they’re self-conscious about their own poor spelling or slow typing.

Additionally, online sales staff need tip-top training so they can respond quickly and accurately. This can be a tall order if the company has a large and complex product range, or high staff turnover.

Slow or unhelpful online chat responses can infuriate and alienate customers like nothing else. Google “bad live chat support” and you’ll find transcripts aplenty to prove it. Live chat support can be limited by a company’s business hours, and is dependent on staff being available.

Website live chat software works best for relatively simple enquiries, such as travel bookings. Anything more complex, and results tend to be highly variable, with the online conversation taking too long for customers’ comfort.

Guided Selling may be the answer for a business wanting to guide online customers through a complex or technical decision process.

Guided Selling tools, such as Wired Internet Group’s Shop Assistant, is designed to help customers reach a quick and clear product choice from large or complex lines. It brings manufacturers one step closer to their customers without alienating retailers, and can even be plugged into a retailers’ site. It can easily be kept up to date with new product lines, is available 24/7, and gives genuine recommendations – based on product facts, not demographics, or what other people bought.

Website live chat software is not a silver bullet solution for helping customers to buy or do research.

Guided Selling, on the other hand, gives the clearest and most helpful advice on purchase decisions with multiple factors. And unlike online chat, Guided Selling is reliable, cost-effective, always has the best product knowledge, and never pops up to chat when it’s not wanted.

Experience Guided Selling: try a Live Shop Assistant Demo

Photo by Anna Saccheri

The post The perils of online chat support first appeared on Online Shop Assistant.

Wired Internet Group’s Mike Baddeley says modern retail has seen the loss of the manufacturers’ product knowledge in the sale process. “Connective Retailing,” he says delivers this knowledge to the consumer through the retailers’ different channels.

Wired Internet Group works closely with manufacturers and retailers to restore consumer connection and to rediscover the market.

When the retailer, the manufacturer and the consumer are brought together, there is an increase in product knowledge, affinity, brand value and retail sales.

Connective Retailing uses Shop Assistant technology to ensure a better fit for the specific needs of the consumer, resulting in a quality product differentiation, relationship trust and a satisfied customer, rather than a one-time price only purchase.

Consumers increasingly want an authentic experience which includes understanding more about the source of the product and knowing why it is the best-fit for their specific requirements.

There was a time when the manufacturer could speak directly with the consumer. It enabled the manufacturer to answer specific usage questions, understand consumer likes/dislikes and ensured that the consumer always had access to the latest information about products and services.

As long-distance shipping became viable and product diversity grew, so did the separation of the manufacturer and the consumer.

It was thought that mega stores and more product selection would be good for all parties, whereas the reality is that consumers are often overwhelmed with choice, retailers are constantly investing in product education and manufacturers are no longer connected with the consumer.

Physical stores remain popular because the consumer can touch the product, they can get the item immediately, and they can verify the product’s suitability. In the absence of accurate in-store product information, consumers have taken to the internet to search for manufacturer details that should be available at a retail level.

Connective Retailing adds expertise and confidence to the consumer retail experience, whether that is in-store or online. The brand representation remains unified across all channels and as a result the consumer is better informed and more confident re product suitability, and more likely to purchase the product or service.

Connective Retailing brings the retailer, the manufacturer and the consumer closer together.

Mike Baddeley is managing director of Wired Internet Group. Retailers using its Shop Assistant sales tool are Myer, Farmers, Best Buy and Smith City.

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The post Connective Retailing restores age-old link with consumers first appeared on Online Shop Assistant.