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Can bots sell? 4 chatbot examples using Conversational Commerce
Dhoreena Ventura
May 07, 2021 • 4 minutes
AI-powered chatbots have long held a place at the customer care table. But can they be used effectively as a sales and revenue driver? We were asked to join a recent Bots & AI meetup to answer this question for bot enthusiasts who gathered for the event.
During the meetup I was joined by LivePerson Conversational AI expert Chris Radanovic in sharing several examples of automation within conversational commerce. Check out the highlight reel below (or read on) for 4 chatbot examples of driving sales and marketing conversions.
Example 1: Say “I do” to bots transacting orders
David’s Bridal created a bot, dubbed Zoey, to handle conversations that come into their messaging platforms and determine where the conversation needs to go based on the intent of the incoming message.
If the bride indicates they want to order a dress, the bot will engage and handle the order. Through this flow, the bride can get product availability, complete the order, schedule in-store appointments, understand what happens next in the delivery process, and more.
In the first weeks Zoey was live, David’s Bridal sold $30,000 in dresses through the fully automated e-Commerce process. Plus, turning these brides over to Zoey frees up sales agents to handle more consultative conversations to help move other brides along in their journey.
The learnings:
While not every use case in the sales process is a good fit for chatbots, we can identify those that do make sense to automate, like the more transactional ones.
Example 2: Convenience is king
Aramark offers concession services at sporting venues across the United States. They launched a “Brew to You” trial, one of our favorite examples of ecommerce automation. It used a QR code attached to the back of the seat in front of sports fans in the arena. Scanning the code opened a conversation with a bot via Apple Business Chat to order a beverage. Through the bot, you got a list of available beers, made your selection, and even paid via Apple Pay. They even delivered your order directly to your seat so you didn’t have to miss a single pitch standing in line at the concessions stand.
The learnings:
Build automated experiences that add convenience for your customers (like buying a drink without getting out of your seat), and you’ll drive increased order volume, revenue, and customer loyalty.
Example 3: Leave the lead gen to the bots
Open Universities Australia helps prospective students find institutions to complete their chosen education programs. Automation is upfront and personal in their sales process, featuring a lead generation chatbot that collects information from prospective students so the human customer service agents can focus on quickly customizing the offerings. Along with saving time, it has increased ROI for Open Universities by 250%.
The learnings:
Bots can take over redundant activities, such as information gathering, terms and conditions flows, etc. This means human agents’ time can be used for value-add activities.
Example 4: With a little help from my (bot) friends
Even when external processes are not conducive for bots, a conversational commerce approach and AI mindset is still possible.
For example, as part of their sales process, a communications company in the UK requires a prospective consumer to run a line check. The results of that line check are passed to the agent, who then researches the results and determines the best product to position to the customer. To speed up this process, the brand leveraged LivePerson’s agent-facing automation (called Agent Assist) to process the data and recommend the best answer as the agents interacted with the customers. The result? It now takes half the time it used to take to get new agents up to the expected performance.
The learnings:
Think creatively about how AI can support your sales and marketing programs, including internal processes.
Providing information, taking orders, gathering and processing data — these are just a few ways that automations and chatbots can fit into your sales and marketing processes.
Check out our Conversational Commerce page for even more ideas on delivering high-quality, convenient service.