Conversational eCommerce Apps on iOS
The ways consumers communicate with businesses are changing rapidly. Every sprouting customer expectation from retailers have spurred new and advanced innovations; that are opening up different modes of seamless communication.
Today’s consumers can easily chat with company representatives, get 24X7 customer support, get personalized product recommendations, and easy comparisons between different services all from within various AI-powered chatbots.
This whole package is better known as Conversational eCommerce. In general, it refers to deliver personalized and convenient customer support while people are on the hunt for some specific products or services.
The term “Conversational eCommerce” was first coined by Chris Messina (of Uber) in one of his writing.
More than this, we’ve participated in such a concept in practice already: Communicating over Live Chats or Asking Queries on Messengers via AI Chatbots. Almost every retail brand is using it as a premier customer service channel nowadays.
If we consider the market shift, consumers are increasingly relying on such intelligent bots. For instance, 42% of consumers said Live Chat provides great customer service as compared to other means.
Adding to this, a report by Grand view research revealed that the overall Chatbot market worldwide is anticipated to reach 1.23 billion USD by the end of 2025. So, all the figures are pointing towards a flourishing future ahead.
Mobile Technology & Conversational eCommerce
Mobile technology holds a significant reputation amongst consumers, currently. They largely rely on their smartphones to access your business services. The total no. of mobile users is flourishing nowadays, more than ever before. Mobile devices have become handy, and internet connection is accessible at cheap rates; collectively making mobile technology roar.
As per Statista, 72.9% of retail eCommerce is anticipated to be generated via Smartphones in 2021.
That indicates that our retail business online is not limited to desktops or laptops; it has gone far in the hands of consumers where they can place orders without leaving their comfort zones.
If we tend to explore the Apple store, we may find thousands of apps listed; serving different business verticles. Well, due to the dynamicity of the digital world, retailers must keep shuffling with the selling techniques.
Likewise, we shifted from websites to mobile applications it is the best time to make those apps more interactive and powerful for consumers.
The concept of conversational eCommerce or AI Chatbots in mobile technology is quite revolutionary. With its adoption, users are no longer required to download the application from the App Store. They can simply ask assistants like Siri, and it will serve them everything.
This is the way conversation eCommerce is already working in the present times. From working as a calculator to a music player as well as a booking agent, it can accomplish all tasks. As mentioned earlier, there will be no need to download apps on a smartphone, thus saving a lot of space and time.
iOS app development agencies or experts can identify all the benefits of chatbots and AI that suggest seamless deployment of the Chatbots for messaging or other activities and faster time-to-market.
Moreover, you can easily integrate AI-powered Chatbot in your existing mobile apps. With intelligent Chatbot, you can use all the features easily, and add some other additional features to your mobile app effortlessly.
How Companies Are Using This Technology?
Though it is not a new thing to implement, below is a wonderful example of a prestigious beauty brand incorporating conversational commerce on the iOS platform.
Let’s have a look!
Sephora Beauty Messenger on Kik, the most popular social media messenger in the USA. On the rise of conversational commerce, Sephora quickly incorporated the same for their product line. It introduced a messenger that enables users to understand and learn about makeup.
Not only this, but users also get tips or video/image tutorials for a vast range of cosmetics available in the market. For a reference, you can find Sephora bot under Discover Bot on Kik.
Over there, you can see a start chatting button. On clicking the same, you will be redirected to a quiz; related to your personality and preferences. Later you can easily find images, tips, products, and video tutorials related to your interest.
eBay’s ShopBot, powered by AI Chatbot and debuted on Facebook Messenger but later shifted to Google Assistant, it is an intelligent shopping assistant that is 24X7 available for consumers.
This Chatbot works towards the complex consumers’ needs like finding a perfect fit withing budget and that too without wasting time. eBay’s virtual shopping assistant falls under the best graph-powered conversational commerce.
Currently, eBay has around 168 million active shoppers worldwide with more than a billion live listing of products. So, this brand didn’t leave this opportunity of Conversation Commerce adoption that is based on some knowledge graphs.
This app helped the brand to bridge the gap between traditional product search and natural language understanding.
As you can see from the example illustrated above, the bot is capable enough to understand and process the long text entered while utilizing the pattern matching approach of AI from a huge database.
Similarly, many other big brands like H&M, Tommy Hilfiger, etc. are harnessing the prowess of conversational commerce in their retail business.
Though the scope of AI-powered Chatbots is not restricted to Live Chats or Shopping Assistants, it is one the direct and most needed aspects of eCommerce.
What can you offer with a Conversational Approach or Chatbot implementation?
As now we have gone through the introduction and a live example of Conversational Commerce in iOS mobile applications. We need to have a brief overview of the benefits associated with the same approach.
1. Personalization
For any kind of business promotion, personalization has always been a go-to tactic. Nowadays, consumers like personalization. Thus, iOS app developers need to look for the same.
That’s where Chatbot can play a huge role. With its appropriate adoption in your application, you can provide accurate recommendations. You can easily provide results based on consumers’ current locations; as this technology can easily acquire and analyze consumers’ data.
2. Security
Mobile App security has always remained a significant concern for retailers around the globe. In the past years, security breaches have given nightmares to mobile app developers. With the invasion of AI-powered Chatbots, you can not only acquire & analyze users’ data; in fact, you can transmit data securely.
3. Marketing
Marketing has always been a vital aspect of the business, whether online or offline. What is the point of starting a trade, if you’re not letting consumers know about it. For solving this aspect as well, the conversational approach comes into the picture.
AI Chatbots work as the best Sales Associates for your brand. The live example of Sephora Messenger Bot mentioned above is the perfect example of this. Moreover, this technology can also help you with real-time demographics that can be useful for planning and implementing a successful marketing strategy.
All these areas collectively present you with a wonderful mobile app development strategy for your brand. Though there are multiple aspects to the same, three areas mentioned in this writing are of the extreme level of interest for any kind of retailer.
It is also noteworthy that this technology is reliant on human efforts only. The better it is programmed, the better it will perform. In many cases, it fails to understand human intent accurately; ends up in flubs for your business reputation.
However, you don’t need to worry about this at all with Google’s Dialogflow. It is a SaaS tool by Google to build custom Chatbots who understand users’ intent more deeply. With this, you can easily build text and voice-based AI Chatbots that are quite scalable.
The Bottom Line
As we see that a conversational approach is not only restricted to Live Chats or messengers, so it wouldn’t be wrong to say that AI chatbots are the future of the digital world. They are adding accuracy and quality to your mobile apps.
So, if you want to increase your App downloads; user engagements, it is high time to think smart and intelligent. Adding AI Chatbots to your iOS development will give you a competitive edge and will boost your business conversions.
There are numerous benefits associated with AI Chatbot implementation in mobile app technology. Depending on your business nature and target niche, you can enhance and automate your existing as well as new iOS app with a conversational approach.
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