E-commerce: automation with chatbot and whatsapp for 24-hour customer service

Offering high-quality customer service has become essential for e-commerce,to stand out and retain customers. In this context, automation with chatbots and WhatsApp has proven to be a valuable resource for providing H24 customer service that meets the needs and expectations of modern consumers.

The importance of automation in e-commerce customer service

In e-commerce, providing 24/7 customer service has become not only a necessity but also a significant competitive advantage.

Today’s customers expect the ability to interact with a company at any time, no matter what time or time zone they are in. This becomes especially relevant in the e-commerce industry, which, by its nature, allows customers to make purchases at any time.

The need to provide 24/7 customer service in e-commerce stems from several key factors:

• e-commerce is a global business and its customers can access it from different parts of the world in different time zones. Therefore, a customer support system that is always active to take over and handle customer inquiries, regardless of the time of day, becomes essential.
• consumer purchasing behaviors are increasingly oriented toward convenience and flexibility. Having the ability to obtain assistance at any time helps to meet these expectations.

Automation makes it possible to handle a high volume of requests and interactions efficiently and effectively: the chatbots can instantly answer common questions, provide product information, assist during the purchasing process, and even handle complaints or minor issues without requiring human intervention.

Automation also allows service quality to be maintained consistently and consistently; chatbots are programmed to follow a set standard in their responses and interactions with customers. This creates a sense of reliability in the customer who can receive the same level of service at any time and interfacing with any “operator.”

In addition to these benefits, automating a part of customer care can lead to reduced operational costs for the company. Because chatbots can handle a large number of interactions without requiring human intervention, the company can reduce the need for dedicated customer service staff during non-business hours.

This in turn results in savings in personnel costs and, at the same time, allows the company to offer continued customer service without increasing operating costs.

What is a chatbot and how it works

Ichatbots, are software that simulate a human conversation through the use of artificial intelligence and natural language processing algorithms.

They are increasingly popular tools in the e-commerce industry because they allow companies to automate interactions with customers and improve theoverall customer experience .

The operation of a chatbot is based on an architecture composed of several components. The first is theuser interface, which can be an instant messaging application such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, or a widget integrated directly into the website, allowing customers to send questions and interact intuitively and naturally.

At the heart of the chatbot isartificial intelligence andnatural language processing. They enable the chatbot to understand and interpret human language, analyzing customer questions and providing appropriate answers.

Artificial intelligence is trained on large datasets of human conversations to improve its ability to understand and accurately answer customer questions. This is also the case in cases where the user should make typos or use colloquial or dialect terms within their requests.

Once the chatbot understands the customer’s intent and the entities involved, it selects the most appropriate response to provide, either by generating it in real time or by accessing the company’s databases or information management systems.

WhatsApp: a valuable tool for customer service

WhatsApp offers a number of potentials that make it particularly suitable for customer service in e-commerce.

The benefits of support via Whatsapp for customers

First, WhatsApp enables immediate and direct communication between the company and customers. Users can send instant messages and receive real-time responses directly to their smartphones, which promotes a quick and personalized service experience.

Another useful aspect of this application is the fact that it supports a variety of multimedia content, including text, images, audio, and video. This allows companies to provide detailed product information, send explanatory photos or videos, or even solve problems through video calls or voice messages.

With regard to service requests, giving the customer the opportunity to send pictures and videos highlighting a particular defect on the product or in the service helps to speed up the analysis and intake of the request and, consequently, its resolution.

Another strength of WhatsApp is its wide distribution and popularity among users. Most people have already installed it on their devices and use it regularly to communicate with friends, family and colleagues. This makes contact between the company and the customer more direct and convenient without having to download or learn how to use new apps or platforms.

The benefits of Whatsapp support for e-commerce

WhatsApp integration enables the company to channel customer interactions into a single platform, simplifying conversation management and monitoring. Operators can manage all customer messages directly from a single interface, without having to go through different platforms or tools.

With the integration of chatbots into assistance via WhatsApp, it becomes possible to accommodate requests around the clockand even resolve the simplest ones without requiring human intervention. This translates into resource savings for the company, which can reduce the number of active operators without reducing service performance.

Chatbots take over and attempt to resolve all customer requests and refer only those that the software cannot resolve to human operators.

Chatbots can also be used to guide customers through the buying process by providing personalized recommendations, answering product questions and assisting during checkout. This helps reduce abandoned shopping carts and increase conversion rates by turning customer interactions into sales opportunities. In addition, WhatsApp integration allows companies to send special offers, exclusive promotions and product updates directly to customers, further stimulating sales and promoting engagement.

INGO integrates chatbot and Whatsapp to enhance customer service

XCally Instant is the newest product on INGO’s roster; it enables the provision of customer care via Whatsapp and the integration of automation, IVR and customer journey tracking to speed up processes and to improve customer care volume and performance management.

With XCally Instant, it becomes even easier to turn Whatsapp into an all-around marketing channel, combining pre- and post-sales support, communication campaigns, retargeting, upselling and cross-selling.