If you've read some of our past entries, you’re already familiarized with the concept of Conversational Commerce (C-Commerce).
“Intersecting messaging apps and shopping. It’s how companies enable consumers to buy from them without ever leaving the messaging app they are using.”
It’s not a surprise that conversational commerce is trending since 84% of the time spent in a mobile device is in a messaging app like WhatsApp and 4.9 billion messages are sent every hour worldwide. Emerging markets are using messaging apps for socializing, selling, buying, doing reservations, coordinating work teams, and much more.
Additionally, another signal that we are reaching the era of conversational commerce is the end of the age of apps, since 70% of them are deleted after two months of installation.
At this point, if your company has not enabled a messaging channel to help your customers perform essential tasks your company is not 100% omnichannel.
You might be thinking to yourself “Does this mean we need to put in place a conversational commerce platform?” Yes. But you need to consider that implementing it requires time and resources from your company.
In order to make the implementation process as smooth as possible we developed a list of steps to follow:
1. Understand what your user is trying to achieve.
The focus is on the user. The person that is looking to solve a need with your product/service. The question that your company should be asking before doing anything else is how can we solve a need for this user? A conversational platform can be an excellent tool to unblock tasks but you must first identify that ultimate goal and the blockers that the user is currently facing.
To learn more about “Jobs to Be Done”, we recommend The Change of mindset that maximizes Engagement.
2. Decide which metrics are going to be measured
First, you needed to put yourself in the shoes of the user. Now, you're ready to measure success. When you start to work with us, it's important having in mind a particular set of KPIs for the project. It’s much easier for us to propose the necessary tools to achieve it. KPI’s in a conversational commerce project may vary, but the most common usually are:
- CSAT
- Number of orders
- Human agent intervention
- Increase in users base
- Conversion rate
3. Decide who will own the project
The ideal C-Commerce project involves several teams, that way the customer experience inside the messaging app will include much more than 1 or 2 features. However, when there are many people involved on a project, clear communication can be a challenge. We recommend having one person as functional owner and project manager, but also leaders in each one of the involved areas that have accountability of specific KPIs of the project.
4. Determine which integrations with your current systems need to be developed
We are getting a little bit technical here, but don’t worry. A conversational commerce platform integrates to a wide variety of third party software. For example, CPG or retail companies need to integrate their backend systems like ERP software to manage inventory, orders, etc.
According to the tasks that we are going to be helping our users to complete, what systems do we need to integrate to the conversational workflows?
Pro tip: A conversational agent, like any other software, can be as simple or complex as required. However, as opposed to apps and websites, conversational platforms have the advantage of being able to literally learn from their users and their needs. This allows companies who are not sure where to begin, to start with simple experiences (such as human-assisted sales and question resolution) and then add more functionalities (such as a POS or inventory management integrations) based on users interactions with the conversational agent. In other words, a company can deploy quickly and then build upon based on data - users literally let us know what they need.
5. Prepare a marketing strategy to drive traffic.
Great! Now you must actually let your customers know that your brand is in messaging apps! This point may sound obvious but it isn’t. In order to have a healthy growth of users base it is not enough to do a couple of social media posts with the WhatsApp number on them. Customers with many users are deploying omnichannel growth strategies. Social media, pop-up materials, a press release, even giving the virtual assistant a face and a name to create emotional connection. Your company should assign a budget for WhatsApp from the beginning.
6. Have a clear deployment plan.
Last but not least, it's important to ensure your company fully leverages the power of conversational commerce by having a clear expansion plan for the platform. We have identified that it is easier to deploy the platform in a segmented geography and then expand it to more regions, that is what we mean when we say that your company should have a clear understanding of what countries/regions to start operations in, from the very beginning of the project.
Your company is not alone in this journey! One of the advantages of working with us are our cross functional teams, dedicated to providing world-class support and driving business results. We work with our customers in every step of the project. Since signing the contract to getting new users to interact with the channel. Let’s make it happen!
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