Have you put a salesman in your customer’s pocket yet?

Remember the time when you used to walk around a big store. You always have that creepy feeling that someone is watching you and following you around. Well, it turned out that someone was. He or she would catch you off-guard at the end of an aisle with big ‘Hello’ followed by a ‘May I help you?’. Even though you would tell them that you are perfectly fine and can help yourself, they would try everything they could to be your concierge on your shopping spree. Irritating as it was, turns out a lot of people found this service especially useful.

Fast forward to present day, where smartphones, social media and dating apps are fast replacing real-world human contact. A world we are increasingly getting closer to everything and yet distancing ourselves from real contact. It makes you wonder, what happened to the salesman? That ever smiling, always polite, gently persistent being who insists on helping you against all odds. Believe it or not, he evolved too. He now lives in people’s pockets and has disguised himself so well that people, today, invite him to help them. Have you guessed what we are talking about already? Yes, we are talking about AI powered chatbots that are suddenly the new age marketers front-line sales force, After-sales force, consumer grievance redressal force, and what not. The applications of chatbots are plenty and the platforms they can be used on are infinite. But today, we are going to talk about one particular use, and one unconventional platform. Let us talk about using WhatsApp the future of AI powered ecommerce sales.

Why is WhatsApp the no. 1 contender for AI powered commerce?

WhatsApp has grown to become one of the most preferred messaging services over the years with the ability to share videos, gifs, images, documents and a variety of data in different formats. It has just the right number of filters that allow you to mass engage without spamming. And on the other hand, it also has just the right permissions to get personal with an individual as well. Now, imagine what an AI powered chatbot could do with a platform like that. It didn’t take long for the marketers to imagine, and it certainly didn’t take long to implement a AI powered conversational WhatsApp account for all things ecommerce from there.

So, what can you do with AI Powered WhatsApp for your ecommerce sales?

WhatsApp being a popular messenger app has all the ingredients in-built to engage your customer and close a sale. The chances of closing your sale through WhatsApp conversations are way higher than that of a static landing page or a cart page. While the landing page or cart page cannot talk to you, an AI powered chatbot on WhatsApp can constantly talk to you and influence your purchase decision. In case you decline, it can follow up with alternatives to retarget you. And like we learnt, from the persuasive store salesman, persistence pays. And, an AI has unlimited persistence.

With WhatsApp assisting your sales efforts you can:

Sell your products on WhatsApp

Carry out order placements, delivery instructions, and even checkout processes over WhatsApp. There are many APIs available in the market that let you do so. If you cannot pick the right on for your needs a digital agency can help you pick, customize and deploy one for you.

Automate conversations with AI

You do not have to make your customers wait anymore to connect to a person who can answer their questions. From years of sales interactions, we already have trillions of bytes of data on what customers frequently ask for. AI can sort through a vast database of such FAQs and provide your customer the best answer to their queries in less than a few seconds.

Deploy marketing campaigns in seconds

Reduce your Go-To-Market time drastically by uploading customer databases and set up customized campaigns for groupswith just a few couple clicks.

Improves your customer service efficacy

By deploying an AI powered CRM Chat bot, you save your valuable resources for situations that really matter. It helps optimize your resources for better CRM efficacy by allowing human agents to only intervene when completely necessary.

Track the customer and sales data

By deploying a dashboard to monitor the database of information collected from AI interactions, you can visualize conversational metrics and make tweaks in real time to keep making your CRM better. Better CRM always leads to better sales in the long run.

In parting, we would like to leave you with a few bits of information to consider. This is in case you still are not completely sold on the idea of replacing good old human interaction with AI.

Customers in emerging markets want to chat with your brand on messaging apps, and here’s the numbers to prove it.

• 84% of time spent on smartphone is spent in a messaging app
• 67% plan to increase or maintain their conversational commerce spends
• 90% of conversational commerce shoppers do it on Facebook platforms (Messenger, WhatsApp)
• 30 times is the average number of times a person opens WhatsApp daily

This article is a contribution to Agency Reporter by Sandeep Sreekumar, Managing Director, Media Moments.