We do not know if you have noticed it, but the ways of relating to your client in e-commerce are evolving. Take note!
1. Communication with the client via whatsapp
"Hi how are things? I hope I can solve your doubt, tell you that… ”. This fictitious message could be a normal conversation of traditional commerce. The fact is that it is a response sent by an operator to his client through the instant messaging application WhatsApp. This is the great challenge of online sales: humanization. Now, thanks to smartphone and its WhatsApp tool, closeness to the customer is possible. The instant messaging application opens up a range of possibilities that is not viable with other channels. "Email is too cold and the phone is a very standard form of communication," he explains. Angel del Soto, consultant in e-commerceand administrator of Soloartesmarciales, a company that sells online martial arts accessories. "Now we have something as easy as opening your WhatsApp and answering customer questions," he sums up. The application has recently been implemented on Spanish websites, although it has been in operation for a longer time in the foreign market. “Providing the WhatsApp number is much more immediate than email and is not as intrusive as a phone call. For clients, you have to skip the protocol, that it does not seem that you are talking to a machine, but that it knows that there is a person behind it. You can send him an emoticon with a wink, you can humanize him a lot ”, emphasizes the consultant. This method of interaction with the customer in e-commerce works best in small companies. However, when it comes to large-scale e-commerce, this technique is unsustainable because the volume of products is too high and WhatsApp messages could not be served in such a direct and close way.
2. What if you make a video?
An image is worth a thousand words, but perhaps the use of photographs in electronic commerce has become obsolete, since a video provides more information than an image and, above all, breaks the coldness of online shopping. Web pages that include videos are 50 times more likely to appear on the first page of search engines, according to eMarketer, a company specializing in data about the digital world. To add more data, 87% of Internet users watch online video, representing 16.4 million users in Spain, according to the IAB Spain Connected TV and Online Video 2015 Annual Study. Who is behind this online commerce? One of the great problems of e-commerce it is the ignorance of not knowing who is hiding behind the screen. Thanks to the video we can put a face to our seller. In addition, "the client can get an idea of the real size of the product," he points out. Javier Rocamora, consultant and senior trainer at 3 o'clock, space of coworking virtual. In pure style youtuber, the companies of e-commerce they have copied this format to treat their clients. The business owner or a hired actor appears on screen to explain and clarify the characteristics of the product. “You have to bear in mind that buying online is an act of faith. The only reality is that the client has paid someone they do not know, so the creation of videos is vital to increase the client's security in us ”, advises Ángel del Soto.
The video fork goes beyond detailing the uniqueness of the product. "When people make a purchase, incorporate a video thanking the customer for having trusted you and encourage them to comment with their environment that they are satisfied with the product," explains del Soto. And he adds: “Try to be as human as possible. The treatment you do in the videos should be exactly the same as if you were in a physical store talking to the customer ”.
Be careful with the length of the video. The ideal duration is 20 seconds, “it is the time you have to maintain the customer's attention; from there, it plummets. You need to be very brief and very clear with the message you want to convey ”, advises Rocamora. If you belong to a small e-commerce, the use of video is a key tool for the development of your business. On the other hand, "the great e-commerce they would have to make a more professional video to maintain their status ”, he clarifies.
3. Advertising through beacons
Do you remember the sharpener, that person who woke you up in the morning with his flute to sharpen your knives? It wasn't the most pleasant sound in the world, but you ended up getting used to its presence. His lean and rudimentary customer attraction technique serves as an inspiration in the new world: the digital age.
This is how the beacons, a new way of communicating with the customer based on a radio frequency system through bluetooth. In other words, it is a device that detects the smartphone of the customer when he goes through a physical store and sends him instant advertising. "This method is not yet widespread in Spain, but there are already national companies that send you advertising through your mobile phone in SMS format, mainly", he explains. Pascual Diaz, Consultant and Marketing Director in the Marina Alta dealership network for the Opel Brand.
The use of SMS has become outdated, that is why other platforms are being sought to send advertising. And what is the most used instant messaging application? “We are at the moment of how we integrate this technology in WhatsApp. It is estimated a growth, from now until 2021, of the 7% in programmatic advertising investment. It is a potential that must be squeezed ”, clarifies Díaz. The problem is to do it in a way that is not intrusive to the customer, that the sharpener's flute sounds as harmonious as possible.
"Advertising has to be directed at those people who are really looking for this product." In this way, the device will detect which products the customer is looking at and will send a message to their smartphone only with advertising that may interest you. In parallel, companies that only work in online sales have more difficulties in knowing their potential customer. “In the online store, entrepreneurs must have the customer's phone number, which can be legally obtained through a previous campaign. Then, you have to know what products the customer wants through web analytics mechanisms to send them the advertising. Still, the conversion rate is not optimal. However, in physical stores the conversion rate works better because you direct the advertising to a user that you have already located ”, Díaz highlights.
The smartphone It has become the essential device for online shopping. A 77% of users declares to have acquired a great variety of articles through the Internet. Of these, the 80% has done so for ease and convenience, according to the IAB Annual Mobile Marketing Study 2017. Communication must be led to where the customer is. If people inform themselves through the smartphone, this is the channel through which you have to send the advertising.
4. Chatbots: robots to the device
Neither Steve Jobs nor Mark Zuckerberg were the discoverers of the chatbots. We must go back to the 1960s, when one Joseph Weizenbaum, Emeritus Professor of Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, invented artificial intelligence. His Eliza computer program was the first to process natural language. Later came its evolutions such as Siri from Apple, Google Now or M from Facebook, and they revolutionized our perception of interacting with robots.
Chatbots solve an obstacle in online chat: many times the customer asks in the chat and no one answers. “In online chat you must have someone behind you, if not it is better to remove it. Many put 'chat not connected'. So I don't even buy anymore, because I understand that there is no one in the business. I don't trust myself ”, emphasizes Pascual Díaz. However, if we put a bot that speaks for us, there will be no need for us to have to be behind the screen.
Especially for elementary questions, the chatbot has an added value. “In the end, the customer service becomes very repetitive, they ask the same questions. In these cases, chatbots are extremely useful. But, sometimes, when the questions are so complex that the robot crashes, it is better that they are answered by an online clerk. It is advisable to do a combination of the two channels ”, he advises Daniel Iglesias, an expert in creating communication strategies on the Internet for brands and founder of Soyunamarca.
In parallel, the integration of chatbots in the e-commerce it has a difficult dilemma to solve, at least in the short term. This technology dehumanizes, to a great extent, the deal with the client. People's 79% prefer human contact to bot contact when targeting a brand, according to the latest iAdvize study.How Chatbots Transform Customer Experience Online? But the latest advances in chatbot try to bridge the gap between human and robotic language. There are very intelligent chatbots, you can talk to them and use your own expressions that they understand. In addition, they are learning from those conversations. “In fact, there are large companies where it is already very difficult to know who you are talking to. We will get used to this new way of relating. If it fulfills the doubts and helps the sale, it does not matter if it is a robot than a person, ”says Iglesias.
5. Chat with co-viewer
What if we make a vegetable puree? We mix all the customer service tools and unify them into one. This is what Oct8ne, a company founded in 2014 with double headquarters in Silicon Valley and Barcelona, has done through a software able to interact with the client by gathering all the customer service techniques in a visual support, called a co-viewer. “We detected that online chat, mobile phone and e-mail They lacked a very important tool to show products as you would in a physical store, which is the visual part ”, explains Marc Erra, director of Oct8ne. “The co-viewer agent takes control of the session to help the customer throughout the sales process, not only advising him but also guiding him through the store showing him the products”, Erra emphasizes. The results are very positive, the conversion ratio increases four times if the co-viewer is used.
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