Customer Retention Archives - BotCore Enterprise Chatbot Fri, 15 Mar 2024 09:40:18 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.1 https://botcore.ai/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/cropped-favicon-32x32-1-70x70.png Customer Retention Archives - BotCore 32 32 Using AR and chatbots to increase customer engagement https://botcore.ai/blog/augmented-reality-chatbots/ Fri, 05 Feb 2021 07:15:00 +0000 https://botcore.ai/?p=7462 Using AR and chatbots to increase customer engagement Customers seek personalization while shopping for products. With most of the purchasing happening online, businesses are turning to advanced technologies to facilitate more interactive and engaging buying experiences for their customers. An upcoming trend is the use of augmented reality (AR) in customer-facing chatbots. Since customers today […]

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Using AR and chatbots to increase customer engagement

Customers seek personalization while shopping for products. With most of the purchasing happening online, businesses are turning to advanced technologies to facilitate more interactive and engaging buying experiences for their customers.

An upcoming trend is the use of augmented reality (AR) in customer-facing chatbots. Since customers today have grown habitual to communicating with chatbots for queries and product purchases, adding AR to the spectrum opens a whole new world of immersive shopping experiences.

Estée Lauder’s Lip Artist chatbot allows you to upload a photo or click a selfie to try on lipstick shades and immediately see the results. Moreover, the bot acts as a personalized beauty consultant – suggests shades based on your skin type, asks questions about your color preferences and the occasions you are planning to wear the lipstick, and makes recommendations or gives surprise suggestions.

Based on what you like, you can click on “Shop Now” to purchase the lipstick from Estée’s website.

The Lip Artist is one among many examples of how AR is increasing customer engagement in customer-facing bots. So, let’s understand what AR is.

What is Augmented Reality (AR)?

As defined by Gartner, Augmented reality is the real-time use of information in the form of text, graphics, audio, and other enhancements integrated with real-world objects.

In other words, augmented reality is a live view of the physical, real-world environment.

Research shows, 10X marketers that employ AR see a 10x increase in engagement time, increasing retention and effectiveness. As such, 7 out of 10 media planners want to use AR to boost advertising and customer engagement.

When combined with chatbots, augmented reality allows brands the unlimited opportunity to interact three-dimensionally with customers and transform the entire customer journey into a personalized, interactive, and immersive experience.

Let’s look at some real-life examples and success stories of companies, which used AR to boost customer engagement in chatbots.

#1 POND’S

Skincare brand POND’S launched an AI-enabled skin-diagnostic chatbot called SAL, available in Indonesia via messaging app, LINE and Argentina, Columbia, UAE, and South Africa via Facebook Messenger.

SAL leverages a combination of advanced AI, AR, and skin diagnostic technologies to help consumers solve skincare problems across four significant areas – uneven skin tone, spots, pimples, and wrinkles.

Recognizing how confusing it can be for customers to pick the right skincare products, SAL provides them a more in-depth insight into their skin type and recommends the most effective products. Customers need to upload a selfie and complete a short quiz on SAL to receive a personalized skin diagnosis and product recommendations within a minute.

#2 Sephora

Beauty brand Sephora’s chatbot for Messenger helps customers make purchasing decisions on their own with its new offering, “Sephora Color Match.”

In partnership with a company that allows consumers to pick out and match colors using augmented reality, Sephora Color Match gives users the facility to hold up their camera to any face or image. Subsequently, the algorithm automatically detects and presents the identified lip color and other matching products from Sephora’s makeup line.

Additionally, customers can hold up their phones to ads and Instagram photos of personalities they admire, and the chatbot will assist them in finding suitable products to recreate the look. However, the feature is not just limited to faces. If users are looking

for matching palettes and products to complement a dress, they may hold up their camera to the outfit to locate the right products.

#3 Madison Reed

Madison Reed, a company that produces hair colors for an at-home hair treatment, talks to its customers via its Facebook Messenger chatbot, Madi. For customers, it’s like having a professional personal hair colorist right at their fingertips.

Customers need to upload a selfie, and using image recognition and hair localization, Madi identifies the primary hair color and secondary hair tones. She then asks questions about the desired outcome and suggests the perfect hair color, which can be purchased at Madison-Reed.com.

#4 IKEA

With IKEA’s Place app, customers can get a dynamic and immersive experience while shopping for furniture, keeping them engaged and convincing them about the utility of the purchase.

A chatbot built into the app assists customers in navigating the technology. The bot helps them point the camera at their surroundings, wherever they want to place the item in their living space. Customers can adjust the piece of furniture according to where they want to put it and test the shape, size, and functionality before purchasing it. In the AR environment created, they can walk around to look at the item from various angles.

Moreover, the bot comes up with suggestions and asks questions to guide the customer during the process.

The benefits of integrating augmented reality and chatbots

1. Unique selling point

A brand leveraging augmented reality in its chatbot stands out from the competition because it offers something no one else does. In such a case, a mere word of mouth is enough to make the brand “the talk of the town” and attract customers.

2. Increase engagement with personalized experiences

By showing customers how a particular product looks on them, augmented reality adds a touch of personalization to the shopping experience. Retailers can showcase their items more effectively, and the client can see the products more clearly and realistically. This leads to customized and immersive shopping experiences for customers and higher engagement rates for companies.

3. Higher revenue

Customers want to make informed purchase decisions. Chatbots that run on artificial intelligence understand customer needs better. Combine it with AR, and the customer has a memorable experience in shuffling through the various suggestions, trying out the different items, and selecting the right products. Since the customer’s decision is informative and smooth, the possibility of return orders declines, leading to increased revenues.

Final Thoughts

As seen above, using augmented reality in chatbots is the way to go for any industry where buyers require visual inspection and a look-test of the product.

The AR-chatbot customer experience model allows users to take a closer look at a new range of shoes, try out a lipstick or eyeshadow, check how a dress looks on them, and get tailored product recommendations before the actual purchase, all of this while sitting in the comfort of their homes.

Such unique and immersive experiences go a long way in generating buzz around the brand and increasing customer engagement.

To know more about AR in Chatbots, please feel free to schedule a personalized consultation with our experts.

Further Reading:

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]]> How Chatbots Can Boost The Customer Retention Rate https://botcore.ai/blog/chatbots-for-customer-retention/ Tue, 27 Oct 2020 10:19:00 +0000 https://botcore.ai/?p=7137 How Chatbots Can Boost The Customer Retention Rate As the world worked together to curb the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 became the year when businesses were concerned with retaining customer loyalty, even if it meant taking a temporary hit to the bottom line. By putting customer-oriented policies in place, including flexible refunds, pricing, and change policies, […]

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How Chatbots Can Boost The Customer Retention Rate

As the world worked together to curb the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 became the year when businesses were concerned with retaining customer loyalty, even if it meant taking a temporary hit to the bottom line. By putting customer-oriented policies in place, including flexible refunds, pricing, and change policies, and providing 24X7 service, organizations helped customers sail through the crisis.

As uncertainty loomed, contact centers became a significant touchpoint for anxious customers seeking answers, information, comfort, and support. AI-enabled customer service chatbots gained widespread adoption. Businesses leveraged chatbots to reduce wait-times and provide consistent support and quick information at scale and lower costs.

However, in 2021, as recovery and bottom line become extremely critical, businesses will now focus on leveraging chatbots to build customer loyalty, drive retention, and improve revenues.

Capabilities like omnichannel engagement, conversational IVR and sentiment analysis will become essential in delivering exceptional customer experiences and retaining brand loyalty.

In fact, a study by Harvard Business Review has concluded

increasing customer retention rates by 5% increases profits by 25% to 95%.

So, let’s explore how chatbots can boost customer retention rate in 2021.

Beyond Customer Service and Support: Developing a winning customer retention strategy with chatbots

While cost reduction and automation of inbound customer service requests are the main goals of deploying chatbots, a shift in focus to other use cases, including a decrease in customer churn and increased conversion rates, has gained traction.

1. Omnichannel customer engagement

Businesses today are leveraging multiple channels to reach out to their customers. In line with the increased usage of messaging apps and social media platforms, chatbots can now integrate with channels, like Facebook, WhatsApp, email, websites, mobile apps, voice assistants like Alexa, and Cortana etc., to assist customers in locating products and finding answers to their queries.

Omnichannel bots help businesses reach where their customers are. Using technologies such as machine learning, natural language processing (NLP), and natural language understanding (NLU), omnichannel bots understand and retain context and provide holistic, consistent, and meaningful support to customers across a host of channels.

Such wholesome customer experiences help reduce churn and boost retention.

2. Personalized engagement and recommendations

Chatbots collect data during their interactions with customers and analyze such information to craft buyer personas and identify customers who are on the verge of ending their relationship with your business.

Such data is critical in understanding needs, retaining customers, and increasing revenue. 

  • For customers who are on the risk of leaving, chatbots can push special offers via different channels to re-engage them back with the brand
  • Chatbots can also be used to recommend other products to your existing customers, based on their interests and past purchasing behaviours, to increase retention and enhance revenue. For example, Consider Ponds’ (a Unilever brand) AI Skin Advisor chatbot, on Shopee, an e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia.
Ponds Chat Snap Buy

Based on the customer’s headshot photo, the bot identifies key skin concerns like wrinkles or acne etc and recommends the right skincare product. The bot received appreciation from over 98% of customers who interacted with it. This type of personalized recommendations and engagement goes a long way in improving the overall customer experience and retention.

  • Chatbots can be trained to ask customers for referrals and reward most loyal customers with discounts and coupons

3. Making purchases easier

By using chatbots, businesses can provide the purchasing facility directly from the chat interface. Your bots can recommend products, lead customers to your online store, and make payments easier.

When there is simplicity in carrying out purchases, your existing customers will keep coming back to your business, and you may also convert potential leads.

Chatbots make the buying process more seamless and engaging by educating customers on product features, comparisons, how-to videos etc.

4. Going local with multilingual bots

Customers prefer to interact with chatbots in their native tongue. Moreover, they trust brands that offer support in their native language more than the ones that don’t.

By deploying a multilingual chatbot which can interact with users in their preferred language, you can accelerate your localization efforts by understanding regional nuances and cultural subtleties, make your customers feel valued and understood, and allow issues to be resolved in the shortest time interval. Therefore, multilingual bots play a significant role in acquiring and retaining customers.

5. Asking customers for feedback

Every time a customer completes an online interaction, the chatbot can ask for short feedback, like, “Are you happy with our services?” or “What are the areas we should work on?” with multiple options for each question.

If customers don’t feel satisfied, the bot can ask them the reason. Data collected from such feedback can help improve customer service and go a long way in increasing customer retention.

6. Respond to customer queries 24x7

One of the most basic ways for businesses to increase customer retention is to swiftly respond to customer queries. A chatbot can provide quick and accurate answers to customer queries in real-time, within seconds of being contacted.

According to a report by Hubspot, 90% of customers cite instant response as a critical factor when it comes to customer service.

With chatbots, your organization is assured of round-the-clock customer service, thus supporting customers at their convenience, even outside business hours.

Get Started

According to research, the probability of selling to an existing customer is 3x to 35x higher.

By providing the following benefits, chatbots help boost your customer retention rate –

  • Giving quick and relevant answers to customer queries
  • Enhancing customer reach through omnichannel engagement
  • Improving CSAT levels with highly interactive and personalized conversations
  • Boosting the ability to recapture lost customers with customized messages and tailored offers
  • Providing personalized diagnosis and recommendations
  • Delivering localized experiences with multilingual capabilities
  • Collecting customer feedback to ensure better support in the future

At Acuvate, we help clients build and deploy AI-enabled chatbots with our enterprise chatbot building platform, BotCore.

BotCore’s core capabilities include –

  • Minimum coding requirements, graphical nodes, visual templates, and pre-built connectors empower you to quickly build and deploy chatbots across different channels with a single configuration.
  • BotCore’s chatbots support multiple languages, like French, German, Italian, etc., so you can reach and engage a broader consumer base.
  • Through automatic handling of API requirements, BotCore’s chatbots can easily connect to various channels, such as Facebook, SMS, email, WhatsApp, etc.
  • BotCore’s machine learning (ML) capabilities allow chatbots to learn from past interactions and retain context to provide more interactive and meaningful engagements.

If you’d like to learn more about the top customer experience trends to watch for in 2021, please feel free to get in touch with one of our customer experience experts for a personalized consultation.

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