Infographic: How Chatbots Are Changing the Customer Experience

At least once a week, I load up a hypothetical shopping cart from online retailers like Zara, ASOS, and Sephora, only to decide that I don’t want to spend money on clothes or makeup I don’t really need. So I abandon the cart and close the tab. According to new research by Market Inspector, I’m not the only one. Fifty-seven percent of internet users discard internet shopping carts because of indecisiveness.

How can companies fix that indecision? For starters, 31 percent of online shoppers report that they weren’t able to get answers to simple questions from company websites. That’s not a product issue; it’s a customer service issue.

As chatbots get more sophisticated, we should expect businesses to start using them as another channel to deliver educational content. Imagine if you wanted to look up where to go on your next vacation and a chatbot could help you with support from guides, news, and visuals about hotels and local attractions. We’re already seeing this play out in the food industry where brands like Domino’s offer delivery via chatbots. The bots also send photos to whet appetites and answer questions about ingredients, pricing, or sizes.

Last month, I wrote a TCS post about the rise of customer service chatbots. But that’s just one part of the overall customer experience. Companies are realizing the importance of personalization because it increases the value customers get out of every interaction they have with a brand. We tend to think of bots as transactional features. You answer a question and move on. But there’s more to it than that, and as chatbots become more commonplace, we should expect to see them impact every aspect of e-commerce.

Check out the infographic from Market Inspector below to see how chatbots are changing the customer experience.