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to Conversational Commerce
This ebook will set you up for conversational commerce success. You’ll learn why it’s the new competitive frontier for smart brands and you’ll get concrete guidance on how to build out your customer experience strategy to take advantage of it.
Conversational Commerce
PART 1
Human speech can be considered a kind of coding Miller knew back then that the technology was
language, think of English, Mandarin, or Swahili. possible, but it wasn’t until the graphic processors
Until recently, computer programs spoke a different grew, thanks in part to the gaming industry, that
language -- HTML, C++, JavaScript, etc. With the rise they were able to make those possibilities real.
of speech recognition and other advances, the ways
in which humans and machines speak are starting to The personalization they wanted for customers and
merge, meaning that you, as an ecommerce leader, the scalability they hoped for businesses has now
can leverage the benefits of conversation with the become a reality. AI technologies can now recog-
cost savings of scaling with technology. nize and understand language, and, because of vast
cheap storage, the programs can look at huge data
‘Conversational commerce’ has become a term for sets to parse meaning.
business being done using natural language, linked
with technology to provide personalized help, Platforms will continue to evolve and change, but
context-aware recommendations, and concierge-like the core concept, as stated by Dan Miller, remains
assistance for everything from shopping to traveling the same, “The whole point of ‘Conversational Com-
to scheduling. It’s ChatBots that help us complete merce’ is to put customers in command of the de-
transactions within Facebook Messenger. It’s Alexa vices they use and in charge of the relationships they
giving us an update on when that pair of boots we have with their selected vendors. It starts with strong
ordered will ship. It’s meeting and engaging with assertion of identity and authenticity and moves from
customers on the platforms they use and love. there.”
And it’s where brands need to be.
Dan Miller, Lead Analyst and Founder of Opus Conversational Commerce
Is The Future And The Present
Research, Inc., coined the term “conversational
commerce” in 2013, but he and his team had started
looking at technologies that supported phone-based
Chris Messina, who helped to popularize the term
commerce all the way back in 1985. “We were
and is the Developer Experience Lead at Uber, de-
looking at how some combination of phones and
clared “2016 will be the year of conversational com-
computers were going to be able to answer our
merce.” What he predicted back in early 2015 has
questions,” he said.
now become a reality -- leading brands are already
capitalizing on these channels and leaving their competi-
tors behind.
What does that mean for your brand?
When you master conversational commerce, you’ll
deliver experiences that make your customers feel as
if you hired a personal assistant to help each of them.
Conversational commerce “Not only do companies today need to exceed customer
is the new battleground for expectations, but they need to make it easy for the
customer to do business with the company,” writes
brands that want to excel at Forbes’ Blake Morgan. “Want a powerful customer ex-
delivering industry-leading perience? Simply ask yourself how easy you can make
life for your customers.”
customer experiences.
Recognizing The Conversational
Within this ebook, we’ll show Commerce Around You
you why you can’t ignore it
If you think conversational commerce is still a pinpoint
and we’ll walk you through on the retail horizon and that you and your organization
the building blocks of a will have plenty of time to prepare for it, you’re wrong.
Enabling AI technology is already all around us, helping
customer engagement strat- to make our daily lives and our interaction with
egy focused on leveraging brands easier.
conversational commerce to Let’s say a potential partner emails you for a meeting
its biggest advantage. next week. You respond and CC Clara, who takes it
from there, setting up your meeting over a few emails
with your partner, putting it on both your calendars, and
even reminding you. You might not even have to tell your
contact that Clara isn’t a person, but a bot. And she’s
not the only one scheduling meetings - this kind of tech-
nology is now commonly available and we may see bots
working with other bots to book our calendars sooner
than we expect.
Your 10-year anniversary is coming up, so you want to
plan a quick getaway to celebrate. You text Taylor, and Terms To Know
she recommends locations based on your budget and
hotels based on reviews. She even offers to book your App fatigue: The decline of app popularity, especially
flight for you. You thank her, feeling a bit silly, brand apps, caused by a backlash against too many
because Taylor is also a bot. notifications, the saturated app market, and the need
for updates from both developers and customers. For-
On the way out the door, you realize you’re out of pens. rester Research reports that people spend over 80%
You call over your shoulder, “Ok Google, order me some of their time on their phone is their 5 favourite apps
which tend to be social, messaging and media apps.
pens.” Your Google Home’s Assistant will do just that
from one of over 50 Google Express retailers. “Got it, Artificial Intelligence (AI): An umbrella term for any
ordering pens from Walgreens,” Assistant replies. And ability of computers to perform tasks that otherwise
require human mental capacity, for example speech
without looking at a screen or touching anything, you’ve
recognition, visual perception, language translation,
restocked your home office.
and decision-making.
Clara, Taylor, Alexa (and Google Assistant and Cortana) Automatic Speech Recognition. (ASR): Computer
transcription of spoken language in real time.
sound (mostly) like members of the next big girl group
but, as Will Oremus writes in Slate, they and their ilk are Bot: Any software application that runs automated
actually harbingers of our new digital reality: tasks, called scripts, over the internet.
Chatbot: A software application that simulates a
“Like card catalogs and AOL-style portals before it, Web conversation with a human.
search will begin to fade from prominence, and with it ServiceBot: A brand-developed software application
the dominance of browsers and search engines. Mobile that lives within a messaging or voice-activated chan-
apps as we know them— nel and can provide product order status updates and
icons on a home screen that support customers in making returns and exchanges,
you tap to open—will start among other tasks.
to do the same. In their place Conversational User Interface (CUI): An intelligent
will rise an array of virtual interface that allows for input either through voice or
assistants, bots, and soft- text commands in a style similar to the way humans
ware agents that act more communicate and provides contextual responses in the
same manner.
and more like people: not
only answering our queries, Machine learning: The ability of computer programs
but acting as our proxies, and software to acquire new data and change behavior
accomplishing tasks for us, without additional reprogramming.
and asking questions of us in Natural Language Processing: The interactions
return,” he writes. between computers and human languages.
Evolution
Of Ecommerce:
From Clicks To Chats
Buying and selling online began in earnest in the
‘90s. In 1995, the year Amazon and eBay both start-
ed, the internet existed as 120,000 registered domain
names. Over the next three years it grew to more
than two million. Now, more than a billion websites
are online.
Ecommerce has also expanded by leaps and bounds.
In 2006, ecommerce accounted for approximately 3%
of total US retail sales. So far this year, it’s approach-
ing 10% and represents an almost 15% year-over-year
increase compared to 2016.
While online shopping has become a bigger slice
of the retail pie, the framework of ecommerce has
largely remained the same for most of its history.
The ways in which retailers served their customers,
stayed in touch, and encouraged repeated sales
primarily leaned on established promotional chan-
nels like email and advertising. Even innovations such
as mobile push notifications focused on aggressively
“encouraging” a customer to pay attention to your
brand vs. offering an elegant and seamless oppor-
tunity for the customer to engage with you on their
terms.
But in an era in of Facebook Messenger, Instagram,
Slack and Uber, the old ways no longer work for us-
ers who have become accustomed to being able to
communicate with each other and the world at large
in real-time, across devices, whenever and wherever
Customer Experience As The
they want. As customer behavior evolves, so do their
expectations around B2C communications. Today’s New Competitive Battleground
retail shopper interacts with brands that use the plat-
forms she relies on as fluidly as she does. Whether New digital technology has helped to push customer
she thinks about it in such terms, she wants truly experience to center stage as a key differentiator be-
conversational commerce and despite the difficulties tween leading and lagging brands. A great customer
in creating a seamless interaction, it’s up to you to experience builds loyalty, while a poor one increas-
deliver it. ingly means you’ve lost that shopper’s business forev-
er. While in 2006, 68% of customers with a bad expe-
“You can no longer segment yourself to service prac- rience left a company for good, by 2016, that number
tices that only you are comfortable with,” says Amir had topped 80%. This new breed of customer is not
Zonozi, Chief Strategy Officer of Social Influence at inclined to offer second chances.
Zoomph, an engagement platform. “When a cus-
tomer reaches out to you on Twitter, it needs to be To customers today, convenience and saving time
solved on Twitter. When they reach out to you via is what drives their expectations around customer
email, it needs to be solved via email. Asking your experience is driven by convenience and time sav-
customers to switch their preferred method of com- ings, and they’re looking for the absolute best, which
munication is taking your customer out of their com- means it is personal, on-demand, always available
fort zone and should be avoided unless absolutely and with instant results. Great customer experience
necessary.” takes investment, but the data shows that those
investments pay off. A Customer Experience Im-
pact (CEI) Report shows that 86% of consumers will
even pay more for better customer experience. In an
ecommerce landscape where repeat purchasers are
the only ones that are cost effective to acquire, of-
fers such as personalized service and 24/7 online chat
can make the difference between a brand growing or
atrophying.
PART 2
The
Rise of
Customer
Experience
The Power Shift
Over the last 10 years, a huge shift has occurred in
where customers get their information, how they get
it, and what they’ve come to expect from companies
that offer it. What does the customer is always right
mean today? It means you’ve got to be faster, more
personal, and easier to deal with than ever before.
“In recent years we’ve seen customers’ expectations
grow rapidly as they seek simple and instant 360-de-
gree support,” says Mayur Anadkat, VP at Five9.
“Customer expectations will only continue to evolve,
forcing marketers to keep the customer experience
as top priority.”
Every customer is now equipped with a mobile de-
vice to engage with your digital properties, complain
about or laud your company, and send and receive
messages to your customer support team, 24/7.
Consumers are also getting smarter about filtering realms of a user’s rational, emotional, physical, and
out unwanted intrusions on their time and attention. spiritual self. But customers know a bad experience
In 2015, ad blocking technology reached mass adop- when they feel it. 89% percent of consumers started
tion with estimates as high as 140M people, or more doing business with a company after a poor experi-
than half of US consumers blocking ads. ence with a competitor.
“That means we need to stop shouting at customers “Customer experience is the next battlefield for
and start listening to what they want and need right brands,” says Brian Solis, Principal Analyst, Altimeter,
now,” says Charles Nicholls, SVP of Product Strategy “Those that get it right will not only create long-last-
and Marketing Solutions, SAP Hybris. ing customer relationships but will also earn a signifi-
cant competitive advantage over those that solely
“The consumer buying cycle used to be about the compete on product, price or promotion. On the
simple act of trading goods and services with a other hand, companies that do not master the art of
neighbor,” says Andrew Howlett, Chief Digital customer experience will lose relevance and market
Officer of Rain, a global digital marketing agency. share over time.”
“Now there are ever-increasing touchpoints where
customers expect to be served and delighted. In- Beyond just not buying from your company, your
store, online, mobile, social, smart watches, smart customer is now more empowered than ever to
televisions, connected devices, in the car, in the encourage others not to buy from you. From Yelp,
air, and many more are already available or coming Facebook and Google reviews to blogs, shoppers
quickly.” Indeed, it’s clear that the number of places have a plethora of channels on which to broadcast
customers interact with your brand is only increasing their brand preferences and their words have weight.
every year, as we see more connected devices in and Nielsen found that 83% of consumers trust recom-
out of the home. mendations from friends and family above all other
forms of advertising.
Customers expect more and it’s easier than ever for
them to switch to a competitor if those expectations “Customer expectations are rising, customers are
aren’t met. Innovative companies like Uber, Airbnb, readily sharing their bad experiences publicly,” says
Amazon and those that follow their lead are stepping Chuck Schaeffer, Vantive Media CEO. “Suppliers who
in to give them what they want in exchange for busi- do not deliver rewarding customer experiences are
ness that could have gone to you. being called out publicly in forums and social net-
works that reach thousands or millions of potential or
Customer experience is the product of a customer’s existing customers and have a duration of months or
interaction with your brand, from attraction to pur- years. If a company’s products are chastised by exist-
chase to post-sale customer care across all touch- ing customers, new prospects will clearly steer else-
points. It can be difficult to measure because it’s where and existing customers will take note, thereby
more than the sum of its parts and it affects different increasing their likelihood of churn.”
Buyers are more connected and have more knowl- to skip this step for the sake of speed, but that is a
edge and options than at any time in history. Vendors mistake every time,” according to Joel Maynes and
are a click away, so customers can get what they want Alex Rawson, writing for McKinsey & Company.
in more places. Access to more brands delivering
more and better online information about their prod- “When establishing a link to value is done well, it
ucts, and verified by independent references within provides a clear view of what matters to customers,
the buyers’ social circles, has decreased barriers to where to focus, and how to keep the customer expe-
switching brands. rience high on the list of strategic priorities.
“The only sustainable competitive advantage is to Because their research has shown that customer jour-
know your customers better than your competitors ney performance is significantly more strongly linked
and use that knowledge to deliver a consistent and to economic outcomes than are touchpoints alone,
rewarding CX that keeps customers wanting to come they recommend focusing on the end-to-end cus-
back for more,” says Schaeffer. tomer journey, nurturing deeper customer relation-
ships to strengthen a brand.
Research by Forrester found that “companies that
How to Stand Out from deliver a better customer experience tend to retain
The Crowd And Keep more of their customers, get more incremental pur-
chases from their customers, and attract more new
Customers Happy customers through positive word of mouth.” This
customer experience is mostly likely to drive revenue
Gartner predicts that as soon as this year, as many as up when customers can easily switch business among
89% of businesses will compete mainly on customer many companies and customer experience leaders
experience. What’s more, it is predicted that 50% of stand out from peers.
consumer product investments will be redirected to
customer experience innovations. When it comes to retail, Forrester says that “the
real CX/revenue growth winners will be sellers with
“Customer Experience is the new marketing,” says strongly differentiated concepts that lure shoppers
Steve Cannon, President and CEO of Mercedes-Benz away from competitors with highly engaging experi-
USA. “. . . Customer Experience better be at the ences — think Birchbox, Ministry of Supply, Story,
top of your list when it comes to priorities in and The Trunk Club.”
your organization.”
“Building an unambiguous link between the custom-
er experience and value requires patience and disci-
pline to invest early in an analytic approach. It is easy2017’s Tech-Guided Omnichannel
Customer Journey
Twists And Turns Along
“Hey Google, how do I perfect the Customer Journey
an omnichannel journey?”
Amazon Go: The grocery store without a
“Sorry, I don’t know how to help single employee is now real. The store uses
with that yet.” a mix of cameras, chips, and microphones
to track users and their activity.
Ok, so it’s not that easy . . .
Click to Brick: The idea that stores that
not yet, anyway.
started online are starting to get into physi-
cal space. Brands participating in the trend
of adding an offline component to their
But it’s worth the effort. According to Invesp, online retailing include Everlane, Bonobos,
companies that design their customer journeys with and Birchbox.
omnichannel customer engagement strategies retain,
Same-day Demand: Faster and cheaper
on average, 89% of their customers. Brands that op- are the words of the day when it comes to
erate with weak omnichannel customer engagement delivery expectations. Delivery logistic op-
only retain 33%. tions such as Uber Rush ship to local lock-
ers or for pickup at local stores, which will
The consumer journey has gone from a straight help get products ordered online to the
shot to a Choose Your Own Adventure maze that customer more quickly and less expensively
than ever.
happens any time, anywhere, on one of countless
devices, channels, and social networks. It’s up to Shopper-friendly Return Experience:
you to find the customer where they are and build While you might not be able to swing
free returns, your return experience should
a connection there.
be shopper-friendly, cheap, and fast. You
can expect more items bought online to
To get consumers to fall in love with your brand
be returned to the store, with the help of
today requires a new approach and the tech stack to startups such as Happy Returns, which
support it. Consumers expect you to be where they creates a “return bar” at malls that
are, when they are and with the appropriate tools for aggregates returns.
engagement. As Marc Benioff, Chairman and CEO,
Salesforce said, “AI will become a defining technol-
ogy of the 21st century, just as the microprocessor
was in the 20th century.”Conversational commerce is the animating principle Current conversational channels fall into two main
behind successful omnichannel engagement. It helps categories: Messaging Apps and Voice Channels.
your brand nurture a rich relationship with each cus-
tomer, at every service touchpoint, by using real-time
logistics, big data, machine-learning and AI to give
your customers what they want, when they want it, on
Messaging Apps
the channel of their choosing, on every step of their
journey with your brand. As a result, customers feel Mobile-native consumers are becoming more
known and valued by you, the company that antici- and more accustomed to communicating through
pates their wants and needs. messaging on channels such as Facebook Mes-
senger, WhatsApp, Kik, and, in Asia, Wechat and
Line. They’re not only using them to catch up with
Channeling Your Customers friends, but also to stay in touch with brands, shop,
and watch content. These once-simple programs for
sending text, image, clips, and GIFs are now full-
The last few years have seen a paradigm shift involv- blown interfaces with their own APIs, developers,
ing a whole new class of retail channels. Customers and apps.
are looking for an intelligent, personalized experience
at every touchpoint, perhaps the most important shift The four top chat apps now have a combined user
in digital commerce. base that dwarfs the combined user base of the top
four social networks. Plus, users are likely to use them
Though it’s clear the landscape is changing, it’s hard more often and for longer than most mobile apps.
to tell which road consumers will take. What’s most
important is to be aware of today’s channels, the Since April 2016, when Facebook opened up
ones coming tomorrow and the technology that can Facebook Messenger to allow brands to build bots
help you scale to both and to reflect that in your cus- to operate in the channel, over 33,000 bots have
tomer experience strategy. already been launched. Today, they can help with
product info, order processing, delivery statuses
Laggard companies might be sticking their heads in and exchanges and returns. Tomorrow, they may be
the sand, clinging to their email lists, and hoping it all doling out fashion advice, reminding you to buy a
blows over. Average companies might know conver- gift for your brother-in-law’s birthday and carrying
sational commerce is important, but suffer paralysis on complex conversations worthy of a fellow human.
by analysis with how to move forward. Innovative
brands like Facebook, Amazon, Slack, Google, and
Apple are leading the way to show the rest of them
how it’s done.Why brands are interested?
Spotlight: * Facebook is the stickiest of sites
Facebook Messenger Over 2B active monthly users.
The average American spends upwards of 50
In April 2016, Facebook minutes/day on Facebook’s properties.
announced it was opening * Messenger reaches the masses
up its Messenger channel 1.2B active monthly users, up from 200M in 2014.
Over 1B messages are already being sent every
for developers to create month between Facebook Messenger users and
brands/brand pages.
chatbots that could live within
Messenger and interact What can a Messenger ChatBot do?
directly with users.
It’s been a hit — 100,000 bots Order you a pizza
Resolve your parking Offer Product
ticket (or try to) Information
have been launched to date.
Process a return Help You Practice Your Book Your Next
or exchange Spanish (or French) Flight or Hotel Stay
ChatBots as a sales channel
Able to accept payments natively within Messenger
via Stripe, PayPal, Braintree, Visa, MasterCard and
American Express.
Facebook ads can link directly to a brand’s Messenger
chatbot. A potential customer clicks the ad and
Messenger launches.
ChatBots can send subscription-based and
promotional messaging, but only if the user opts in.Brands love Messenger ChatBots Voice Channels
As Donald Norman said in 1990, “The real problem
with the interface is that it is an interface. Interfaces
get in the way. I don’t want to focus my energies on
an interface. I want to focus on the job . . . I don’t
want to think of myself as using a computer, I want to
think of myself as doing my job.”
Getting the job done, whether it’s finding out the
weather, checking the news, or learning about whales
for school, can now be done with voice channels like
and Pope Francis (no, really) Amazon’s Alexa, Google Home, and Siri, whose voice
can be conjured from iPhones, Macs, and Apple TV.
Even if we were lying on the couch with our eyes
Bots are big business
closed, we could order pizza, turn on lights, or pur-
Facebook Messenger’s 33,000 ChatBots form chase a plane ticket using these virtual assistants.
a major piece of the $4B bot landscape.
According to Tractica, these bot-powered assistants
Almost half of Millennials and Gen Xers have already will soon be in our smartwatches, fitness trackers,
interacted with ChatBots on a messaging app. PCs, smart home systems, and automobiles. The ac-
tive consumer virtual assistant users will balloon from
Annual global revenue from chatbot transactions on
390M today to 1.8B worldwide by the end of 2021.
messaging apps is predicted to hit almost $20B.
“The consumer and enterprise use cases for virtual
digital assistants are proliferating rapidly thanks to
accelerated innovation and scalability of underlying
technologies, such as natural language processing
and artificial intelligence,” says principal analyst Mark
Beccue. “Meanwhile, most of the world’s technology
giants believe VDAs will be vital to their businesses in
the future, and they are investing significant resourc-
es to capture market share at this early stage.”She’s getting more popular
* Amazon Echo sales doubled between 2015 and 2016
Spotlight: and Amazon Prime Day 2017 saw a seven-fold increase
in Echo device sales over 2016 numbers. To date,
Amazon Alexa
consumers have bought over 9M of the Alexa-enabled
Alexa is Amazon’s devices.
* 97% of Echo owners interact with
intelligent voice-activated Alexa daily.
personal assistant. Most And smarter
commonly associated with The number of Alexa skills (tasks you can ask Alexa
the Amazon Echo, a smart to perform) has soared from 1000 to 15,000 in only a
year and shows no signs of slowing down.
speaker, hundreds of
(Almost) anything you can do, she can do better
companies, including
Lenovo, Samsung and LG,
are also launching products Activate your
Order An Uber Get a pizza
controlled by Alexa. or Lyft delivered robot vacuum
Provide an update Track your
Dim the lights
on the weather or Amazon order
traffic
Tell you Track your ecommerce
a joke purchase
Everyone wants a piece of her
Alexa Voice Service is a cloud-based service that
provides APIs to interface with Alexa, which allows
brands other than Amazon to incorporate the Alexa
technology into their own products.What do we ask Alexa to do?
Tried at least once Repeatedly used
84.9%
Set a timer
25.0%%
Soon, you may be able to summon Alexa from a but-
ton on your steering wheel. 82.4%
Play a song
34.0%
Get ready to talk to her through your washing ma- 66.0%
Read the news
chine.
17.0%
45.9%
Forget the remote, in the future you’ll ask Alexa to Control smart lights
31.0%
switch channels on your DVR.
Add item to 45.3%
Haven’t heard a peep from the baby? Check in on him shopping list 10.0%
with Alexa. 40.9%
Connect to
paid music service 17.2%
Alexa will also be in your fridge, setting a timer for
that cheesecake you’re chilling or telling you how to Sources: Experian, Creative Strategies, Statistica
convert ounces into cups.
97% of Echo
owners inter-
act with Alexa
dailyThe 6 Costly
Misunderstandings
about ChatBots and
Amazon Alexa
Retailers are facing a raft of chal- Misunderstanding #1 Misunderstanding #2
lenges this quarter. Amazon captur-
If we build a bot, we have to hand We can only have 1 ChatBot on our
ing more than half of total online
over control of our branded Face- Facebook Messenger channel.
retail growth, customers spending
book channel to it.
88% of their time in only 5 apps, The Truth
and customer acquisition costs The Truth While it is advisable to start with
skyrocketing. It’s understandable You can retain control over your one ChatBot, in order to learn and
some are considering selling the branded Facebook Messenger test effectiveness, you can abso-
farm, and others are quietly fading experience, and be very selective lutely have more than 1 ChatBot
away. For those still in the fight, about the interactions you want running on your Messenger chan-
ChatBots and conversational com- a bot to handle. You may want to nel. For example, you can run a
merce channels are a hot topic of start with a ChatBot only handling ChatBot that handles FAQs and an-
debate — it’s difficult to go a single returns and exchanges, or with your other ChatBot that handles returns
day without stumbling on some ChatBot only handling frequently and exchanges.
kind of new report — and for good asked questions.
reason. But many are feeling con- Deploying a ChatBot to Facebook
cerned about some fundamentals It is up to you — there’s no need now does not leave you stuck for
of the platforms, and how they to ‘hand the keys’ over and have a the future, nor does it mean you
operate. ChatBot drive every interaction. need to build or find a ChatBot that
handles a wide range of customer
scenarios today.Misunderstanding #3 like Linc) have very clear boundar- Misunderstanding #4
ies on what they are capable of do-
Our new ChatBot needs to handle We need to sell our products on
ing, and will hand off customers to
all the inquiries that a customer Amazon in order to make use of the
real people if they see a customer’s
sends our way. Alexa platform.
message is not within their scope
The Truth of skills. The Truth
Your new ChatBot does not have to This is a common misconception,
handle all kinds of customer inqui- For example, a customer asking and is holding many retailers back
ries, and it also does not have to ‘Can I return my blue shirt’ on Mes- from launching a customer service
handle customers without human senger will be handled by a Chat- skill on Alexa. With over 10 million
assistance.The ChatBots that work Bot who has a returns-management Echo devices in homes today, and
best are those which have very skill set. The ChatBot can look up another 25 million due to arrive this
specifically defined skill sets, and the customer’s order details, con- year, Alexa’s platform represents
which are built to be aware of their firm the correct item for return and an emerging channel that consum-
boundaries. prepare a shipping label for the ers are adopting due to its conve-
customer, in real time and without nience.
Facebook Messenger bots can live human intervention. If a customer
in harmony with human agents, says ‘I’d like to change my billing The reality of the Alexa platform is
and indeed with community man- details for my order’, a ChatBot that that there is absolutely no need to
agement platforms like Lithium or doesn’t cover these kinds of inqui- be selling products on Amazon’s
Sprinklr. ChatBots that are built well ries will hand the customer off to marketplace in order to interact with
(or deployed through a platform a human agent, who can help the your customers. More importantly,
customer as per usual. your customers can order directly
from you through your branded
The 6 Costly
Alexa skill, without your oproducts
being available on Amazon’s mar-
ketplace, and without your customer
having Amazon Prime.
Misunderstandings
about ChatBots and
Amazon AlexaMisunderstanding #5 pressing needs and opportunities. Recommendations from analysts
Though some uses of ChatBots today are to start with a specific
If we use Amazon Alexa, Amazon
may be seen as branding experi- and narrow set of functionalities,
gets our customer data!
ments, or opportunistic grabs for in order to go live and start serv-
The Truth media attention, there is a very real ing customers with satisfying and
In a simple answer: Amazon does ROI to be had. Indeed, brands who valuable experiences. Linc’s plat-
not get your customer or order data. have already deployed ChatBots form has commerce-trained AI, is
While the Alexa platform is touted for customer service are seeing built specifically for retail customer
for its natural voice interactions, instant cost reductions that re- scenarios and uses pre-built inte-
and intuitive AI, it is more helpful to turn well beyond their investment. grations and system-agnostic data
think about a comparison with an Beyond immediate cost-savings, connections to avoid the common
IVR telephone system. The Alexa using intelligent exchanges, recom- hurdles and challenges retailers
is more like a telephone handset, mendations and upsells will deliver experience when they work on a
while the intelligence behind the in-quarter additional revenue, and customer service ChatBot. Linc
conversation, including order details reduce return losses. has helped over a dozen retailers
and customer details, are run on launch Messenger ChatBots and
other systems and platforms, sepa- The Most Costly Assumption Alexa skills in the last 6 months,
rate to Amazon’s infrastructure. In and we have provided guidance
These misunderstanding may delay
some cases, this may be built from on best practices while delivering
action, but there is an assumption
the ground up, or a platform like instant cost savings and additional
that could cost you hundreds of
Linc’s may be used to deliver both incremental revenue.
thousands of dollars — the assump-
the AI intelligence, and the order
tion that it’s going to cost a consid-
lookup and handling processes.
erable amount of time and money
to even experiment with ChatBots,
Misunderstanding #6
and that in order to take a first step
That ChatBots today are an experi- with conversational channels you
mental channel, and there is no real need a long term roadmap before
ROI to be seen. taking action.
The Truth The Truth
If you ask around, most folks today Though it is wise to tread carefully
see conversational channels as an with new customer-facing channels
early-stage, experimental area to and technology, many leaders are
consider. But the reality of business shocked when they learn that there
is that a channel that falls into that are already platforms available that
category is pushed to the side, in can deploy a ChatBot and Alexa
the interests of addressing more experience in less than 4 weeks.Best Practices In Cus-
tomer Engagement
At Each Touchpoint
Crafting an experience that will keep customers
PART 3 coming back makes business sense. The cost of
replacing a lost customer can range from five to 25
times the investment of keeping them. Studies by
Frederick Reichheld of Bain & Company, the people
who brought you the net promoter score, found that
upping your customer retention by just 5% can lead
to increases in revenue from 25% to 95%.
“In our research and consulting on customer
journeys, we’ve found that organizations able to
skillfully manage the entire experience reap enor-
mous rewards: enhanced customer satisfaction,
reduced churn, increased revenue, and greater
employee satisfaction,” says the Harvard Business
Review. “They also discover more-effective ways to
collaborate across functions and levels, a process that
delivers gains throughout the company.”Some outstanding industry examples that rely on senger or links to FAQs. 90% of your customers are
conversational commerce to do this include: likely to go to the website before calling or email-
ing, so FAQs and a knowledge base are important.
Texting for towels: Radisson Blu’s virtual assistant, FAQs should be detailed and clear, and written in
Edward, is at your service, from before you check your brand’s voice. Any chatbot should be able to
in to 24/7 during your stay. If you need to ask the resolve common inquiries in real-time, to help en-
time for breakfast or request more towels be sent, sure customers feel satisfied with their interaction.
Edward is there to serve, from the screen of your
smart phone. Use proactive help in areas where customers
get stuck. Be clear about what just happened,
Flight info on the go: KLM now offers all your
(“Item has been added to your cart!”), or what will
flight information right there in Facebook Messen-
happen now (“Your boots will arrive in two days.”).
ger. Flight updates, booking info, and even your
boarding pass are available within the chat thread.
Have a consistent personality to your brand. In
Everything in one app: WeChat, China’s dominant today’s conversational commerce world, you want
chatting app, lets its users run their lives by texting to be casual and personable, but also reflect your
to hail a taxi, order food, and track fitness prog- brand’s unique personality. Getting an email joking
ress. about a high-five for placing your order feels a lot
more human than the robotic ORDER #53759384
According to [24]7, a whopping 86% of customers de- HAS BEEN CONFIRMED message. Make sure you
scribe outstanding customer service as having these have a brand voice document so you avoid sound-
three elements: ing like every other company.
1. The company anticipates their needs.
Go for personalized, consistent interactions.
2. The self-service is optimal.
Across all channels, your customer expects you to
3. They’re able to contact the company any way know who she is and how she’s spoken with you
they want. before. This is a huge challenge, but one that bot-
assisted conversational commerce is quickly turn-
Sounds like conversational commerce to us! ing into a reality. While no platform is perfect (yet),
yours should be able to track previous engage-
How can you reach customer nirvana at each touch- ments a customer has had with your brand across
point? Start with the basics: channels and personalize your communications
with that customer with at least the basic details
Offer helpful self-service content at every you have collected about them (name, birthdate).
touchpoint. Anticipate the questions your custom-
ers will have, and have help at the ready, for ex- Gather and use feedback: According to Esteban
ample in the form of a chatbot on Facebook Mes- Kolsky, founder of thinkJar, a customer strategyconsulting firm, 70% of companies that deliver
Plan For Omnichannel
best-in-class customer experience base it on cus-
tomer feedback. The industry average is 50%, he If your customer experience strategy doesn’t include
says, and of the laggards, only 29% reflect feed- conversational channels, you’re on the verge of trou-
back in their processes. Werner Vogels, CTO of ble. Naturally, a few of these channels will emerge as
Amazon.com, said, “To ensure that a service meets the most likely to be used by your particular custom-
the needs of the customer (and not more than that) ers, but meeting them at all points will allow for the
we use a process called ‘Working Backwards’ in kind of channel-hopping your customers are likely to
which you start with your customer and work your do. For example, a customer at home can ask Alexa
way backwards until you get to the minimum set for her order status. While her dress is in transit, she
of technology requirements to satisfy what you try might receive a delivery notification in Facebook
to achieve. The goal is to drive simplicity through a Messenger. If she needs to return it once it arrives,
continuous, explicit customer focus.” she can hop back to dealing with Alexa again if
she prefers.
Designing A
Customer Experience
Strategy For
Conversational
CommerceDon’t Forget The Data If conversational commerce is the new paradigm of customer experience, data is the engine that drives all those delightful interactions across touchpoints. Your customers are creating data every time they click, swipe, and like --it’s up to you to find it, ana- lyze it and use it to inform customer engagement. Nordstrom, for example, uses sensors and Wi-Fi to track who comes to the store, where in the store they shop, and how long they stay. They also incentivize their Nordstrom’s credit card and rewards program to gather data about their clients. Target is also known for their data-collecting. The mega retailer assigns every customer a Guest ID number, which is linked to their credit card, name, or email address. This Guest ID number becomes a repository of info on a shopper’s past Target pur- chases and any demographic information the com- pany has collected about them and/or bought from a third-party source. Target’s data is so accurate and fine-grained that they were even able to determine a teenage shopper was pregnant (and send her the appropriate mailer filled with baby items) long before her father ever knew. Collecting relevant data, analyzing it and using your learnings to inform which conversational channels make sense for your brand and what types of expe- riences your particular customers seek to have on them is the foundation of your conversational com- merce efforts.
Focus On The Highest-Value Activities Put your energy toward meaningful services that customers already care about. Look at service-oriented features, such as notification capability and on-demand service and support capabilities, to guide the customer journey. Don’t just focus on the “Checkout.” The main benefit of service-oriented conversational channel offerings is the ability to organically drive usage into new channels. For example, a customer might place an order on your website and learn that she can subscribe to order status updates through Facebook Messenger. What she sees as taking ad- vantage of a perk will benefit you by encouraging her toward a channel where your chatbot can take over. ChatBots are best for organic conversation with com- mon use cases, but also provide a sense of person- alization and convenience for the shopper. Customer service should be your core use for this technology to start. Don’t Just Focus on the Checkout.
for highly personal and meaningful re-
Be Prepared For sults. If your bot can’t meet that expec-
Bot-to-Human Handoffs tation, your customer could walk away
disappointed or annoyed.
The great thing about a conversation handled over
text or Messenger is that the customer doesn’t have As the technology improves, and it is,
to know when they might be switching from a bot to even as we write this, you’ll be able to
a human. Bot design in the future will focus on what put more and more of your brand man-
they can do, knowing what they can’t do, and design- agement in the hands of the bots.
ing a bridge to employee assistance that feels seam-
less to the customer.
It’s not just the customer that will be helped by the Authentication
bot, but the employee. It will provide faster informa-
Giving your bot a way to confirm the
tion and better analytics in real time, perhaps then
customer’s identity is key to a truly intelligent com-
parsing information to pass on to the consumer. The
munication that can leverage data from across your
most important aspect of innovation is convenience
other channels. If this isn’t done right, your bot will
for the shopper. They should never have to explain
see each customer as a stranger, negating the oppor-
their request twice.
tunity to provide personalized service.
Start Simple and
Focus On Concepts
Grow to Brand Management
Rather Than Solutions
You can start with bots as a single voice in the cho-
Your customers might be on Kik today but head over
rus of messages from your brand. The long term will
to Facebook Messenger tomorrow. Focusing on the
have bots as representatives of your entire brand,
concepts of conversational commerce rather than
managing relationships with your customers.
today’s hottest medium will help you keep your sanity
and provide an agile approach that can be applied
You can start conversational commerce, however,
to meet your customers wherever
with just a single entry point. You can get your cus-
they migrate. Try not to get bogged
tomers used to interacting with you on the same
down with the details of how to build
channels they use to chat with their friends. You can
for one particular channel, and look
piggyback on the culture of quick and informal com-
instead to use-cases.
munication, but be ready to meet their expectationsTurning
Touchpoints
Into A Journey
Every interaction with your customer is important,
and maximizing the effectiveness of touchpoints has
been a valid business concern for some time. Re-
search from McKinsey, however, highlights the blind
spot in this kind of thinking -- true leading brands
have moved from a touchpoints-focus to a focus on
the holistic customer journey.
Customer journey thinking requires you to step into
the shoes of your customers and see your brand from
their perspective. Their experience is going to cut
across the silos of your business.
“Until you think about that cross-cutting journey,
those silos won’t think about what are they are doing
that impacts the next person’s step or the next per-
son’s step,” says McKinsey director Alex Singla.
The journey includes everything before, during, and
after a customer’s interaction with your brand. For
an online purchase, it includes marketing, shopping,
sales, logistics through to post-sale customer care
and re-engagement. It could be everything fromupgrading a product to purchasing and waiting for a
sweater to arrive. It could be returning a defective prod-
uct and expecting a refund. Journeys can be short and
involve just a few channels, or weeks long and incorpo-
rate switching from social media to email to phone to
chat.
Those that provide “In our research, we’ve discovered that organizations
that fail to appreciate the context of these situations
the customer with and manage the cross-functional, end-to-end experi-
ences that shape the customer’s view of the business
the best experience can prompt a downpour of negative consequences, from
customer defection and dramatically higher call volumes
from start to finish
to lost sales and lower employee morale,” McKinsey
finds. “In contrast, those that provide the customer with
along the journey
the best experience from start to finish along the journey
can expect to enhance customer satisfaction, improve
can expect to
sales and retention, reduce end-to-end service cost, and
strengthen employee satisfaction.”
enhance customer McKinsey offers six steps to looking at the holistic
journey and designing for experience at that level.
satisfaction, improve 1. Step out of your silo and look at your business from
sales and retention, the viewpoint of a customer who wants you to solve a
problem.
reduce end-to-end 2. Try to imagine how the customer moves from inter-
action to interaction.
service cost, and 3. Plan ahead for what the customer needs, expects,
strengthen employee
and wants during each stage of the journey.
4. Pinpoint what’s working and what’s not.
satisfaction. 5. Know what needs to be fixed most and what would
McKinsey be nice to have fixed.
6.Look at the root issues of poor customer experience
and redesign from there.You should be ready to make an investment in these the context of where someone is in their decision
steps. They can take a few months, but the research journey; be able to predict what they’re most likely
shows the effort will be worth it. It is worth noting, primed to do next; and be ready to influence them at
for obvious reasons, that a special project team may the right moment.”
need to be formed around this initiative in order to
achieve the insights necessary to improve the cus- Marketing to customers has moved from the “Big
tomer’s experience. Idea” of the creative concept to the “Big Capabili-
ties” of personalizing and contextualizing messages
As the McKinsey report states, “Companies that ex- to customers across platforms. Analytics and bots will
cel in delivering journeys tend to win in the market.” play a huge role in turning vast data sets into action-
able touchpoints that create a holistic journey.
Mapping Out A As Kristin Lemkau, CMO of JPMorgan Chase says,
Personalized Experience “Achieving personalization at scale is the biggest and
most important challenge for us to get right.”
You can expect an average of seven touches with
your brand before your customer buys your product,
and that doesn’t even count the ever-important
Achieving
customer care and re-engagement. Remember that
your customer wants something from you at every
step, and if you can help them get what they want in
the short term, such as information, you can get what
you want in the long term, such as loyal sales.
personalization
What you’re looking for, according to The Econo-
at scale is the
mist, is a single, best version of customer truth as the
basis for every touchpoint. “A single, best version of
biggest and
customer truth is derived from inputs such as demo-
graphics, psychographics, clickstream or purchase most important
behavior, customer’s devices or locations, the content
they’re viewing, along with myriad other data points.” challenge for us
to get right.
The goal is to harmonize these data into one view of
what the customer wants at each touchpoint.
Jonathan Martin, CMO of Pure Storage, says, “Today,
the primary task... is to deeply understand customer
buying behaviour and intent; deeply understand Kristin Lemkau
CMO of JPMorgan ChaseFeel like a laggard yet? Don’t worry, you’re not alone.
“A lot of big companies are sitting on this, I think
that’s a big mistake,” says Nir Eyal, author of Hooked:
How to Build Habit-Forming Products. “Some people
think, ‘If we don’t have an expert, we shouldn’t even
PART 4 start.’ But every incremental step you can take to re-
duce the amount of work that your company can do,
you’re saving money.”
Building Your
Conversational
Commerce Tech
Stack Do You Go it Alone
Or Outsource?
This is a big decision, and a lot of money stands to be
spent or saved, earned or lost. Do you go it alone, or
do you hire help?
According to Dale Traxler of Practical eCommerce,
one of the best reasons to outsource is the need for
specialized skill. Unless you have the right skill set in-
house and the resources with which to develop and
deploy a complex, robust new platform, it may be
best to outsource.Ask yourself, how familiar your team is with:
Big data management API development
Data science Machine learning
Artificial intelligence Spring frameworks
Analytics Git and Gitflow
Content Management Server-side Javascript and Node.js
SQL composition Front-end HTML
.
Considering the high stakes, technical difficulties, and
the speed at which the landscape is shifting, outside
help could be the smartest way to catch up to the
conversational commerce leaders.
Benefits Challenges
Outsourcing No need for training Communicating culture
SaaS model support Helping vendor understand
your customers
Worry-free
Agile, industry-leading Need to use platform that
solutions offers voice and ChatBot
Fast to deploy pilot
and iterate
Low cost compared
to building
In- House Proprietary solution Time and cost of training
Customization to brand Need for specialized skills
Shared company culture Potential to fall behind
Fighting for top talent
Expensive teamSample Pilot Timeline
A phased approach to allow for testing & learning
Phase I Phase II Phase III Phase IV
White-list Pilot Randomly Selected Full-Scale
Service is only exposed Shopper Pilot Shopper Pilot Long-Term
to white-listed customers.
For example, the white- Service is only exposed Service is exposed Relationship
listed customers can be to a randomly selected
to all shoppers.
selected employees. X% of shoppers.
Are You Channel-Agnostic? around. A true omnichannel approach is different
from just a multiple channel approach; it incorporates
It can be difficult to suss out what’s a fad and what’s an agile sensibility and readiness to add channels as
a revolution. We hope we’ve convinced you that con- needs.
versational commerce is the revolution. As for the fad,
well, that will come in the evolution of platforms your Omnichannel goes beyond traditional media and
customers use. The principles are what matter most: store hours. In a world where your customer might be
speaking in a personal and conversational way to your a mother up with her baby at 3 AM or a family that
customers, and scaling that conversation using tech- skips TV commercials with the click of a button, you
nology. What will change are the tools. That’s why a have to be ready to capture your audience wherever
channel-agnostic approach is essential. they appear.
You want to be channel-agnostic because your cus- With a channel-agnostic approach, you:
tomers are channel-agnostic. With the phenomenon
known as the generation lap, young people will for- Give your customers control of how
ever be hopping away from the channels that are they come to you.
adopted by their parents. You have to be ready to hop
Assist your customers in the way
with them.
they dictate.
Remember that the key tenet of today’s retail environ- Let them do business with you in the
ment is that the customer is in control. They expect most convenient ways for them.
you to come to where they are, not the other way
Strengthen it over time.Are your ready
for the future of
Ecommerce?
It used to be that a company’s abilities to manage exciting opportunities to make your customer feel as
assets, such as factories and inventory, set them apart though she is getting the personalized service of a
and made them successful. But with the digitization small shop owner who’s known her for years, but with
of our world, the focus of success has shifted to the technology that’s scalable to the masses.
battle for managing brands and customer experience.
If you can connect with your customers and get them Let your customers be your guide, talk with them
what they want, when they want it, you’ll be one of when, how, and where they want and step into the
the leaders of 21st century commerce. new world of opportunity that conversational com-
merce presents for your brand.
Help is out there to allow you to better compete, find
your place in this new retail landscape and navigate
the ways into your customer’s heart, mind, and wal-
let. The promise of bots and virtual assistants holdsAbout Linc
Linc’s customer care automation platform powers
the digital experiences that strengthen the relation-
Thanks
ships between brands and shoppers, transforming
one-time purchasers into lifetime customers. Brands,
retailers and CPGs leverage Linc to provide their
customers with exceptional tracking, FAQ, return and
for reading
exchange experiences, and create new revenue chan-
nels via personalized upsells, cross-sells, sampling and
product re-ordering.
The platform ties together the emerging channels
of Voice Assistants (Amazon Alexa, Google Home)
Our team hopes you found this Guide useful, and
and ChatBots (Facebook Messenger) with email, SMS
valuable. We’re passionate about improving the rela-
and a web portal with a single customer profile to
tionship between consumers and the companies that
strengthen the customer care experience and in-
serve them. We’d love to hear about your plans and
crease engagement, customer satisfaction and reten-
ideas on how customer expectations are changing,
tion, reduce service and reverse logistics costs, and
and what newer channels mean for retail.
drive revenue.
All the best.
Linc’s platform uses commerce-trained AI, machine
learning and natural language understanding to re-
solve customer support requests in real-time and
provide personal recommendations, and is built with
Fang Cheng
integrations to work with existing ecommerce, logis-
CEO, Linc Inc.
tics, email marketing, social management and OMS
fang@letslinc.com
platforms.
As the platform of choice for leading brands who
To chat about serving your customers with
want to build stronger relationships with their cus-
exceptional customer care automation, please call
tomers and accelerate their ecommerce growth with
us at 805 245 0624 or email us at info@letslinc.com.
increased customer lifetime value, Linc has served
tens of millions of shoppers, and has an expanding
customer list that includes brands such as Carter’s,
Vineyard Vines, Crocs, GoPro, Hugo Boss, Jockey,
Vega and eBags. Learn more at www.letslinc.com.You can also read
