What are AI-powered Shopify Chatbots and How Do They Work?

In the competitive arena of e-commerce and digital marketing, optimization is key to getting the maximum advantage against your competitors. Chatbots are an excellent tool to help improve your customer service game. In this article, we will discuss why and how it can change your eCommerce platform.

Chatbots are computer programs that simulate natural human conversation. Online chatbots are designed for interactions between a human and a machine. 

Short for “chat robots”, Shopify stores use chatbots as an artificial salesperson that can help customers find what they are looking for. From answering frequently asked questions to recommending products, chatbots have proven their worth by helping businesses ultimately increase revenue. Let us dive deeper into chatbots and explore their benefits.

Where Did Chatbots Come From?

In 1950, Alan Turing, the father of theoretical computer science, outlined the Turing Test — a way to measure machine intelligence. He said that if a machine can impersonate a human and convinces a person that he is interacting with an actual human, then the machine is considered to be intelligent.

In 1966, Joseph Weizenbaum, a German computer scientist, and Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of technology developed the program ELIZA. The goal was to trick users into thinking that they were interacting with a real human being. 

ELIZA was designed to imitate a therapist who would ask open-ended questions, make comments, and even respond with follow-ups. The development of ELIZA marked the beginning of chatbot technology. 

How Do Chatbots work?

We have come a long way in the field of artificial intelligence and machine learning. Chatbot apps are programmed to respond to people through a combination of programming and AI learning. It answers questions based on what it already knows and continues to keep on learning from every interaction.

When chatbots find themselves in a situation where they don’t know what to do, they will pass you on to a live agent. 

What Can Chatbots Do for Your Store?

The purpose of store chatbots is to improve the customer service experience. Ultimately, its goal is to increase revenue by attending to customer inquiries, providing relevant information, and even handling transactions. Using a Shopify chatbot can achieve all of these. Below are examples of key chatbot features for stores.

Informational

Informational bots help fetch information and resolve customer inquiries efficiently. They are beyond conventional search results as they provide content that is specific to customers. These bots are designed to provide information as well as collect them.     

Transactional

Transactional bots serve as a powerful tool for online stores. Through these chatbot apps, customers can order food, book tickets, and place orders. This is one of the sought out features of a Shopify bot.

Enterprise

Enterprise bots are an emerging application of chatbot technology. They can connect internal enterprise data resources to help streamline work activities. Employees can use these bots to check sales, monitor inventory, schedule meetings, etc.

Common Chatbot Framework

Decision Tree 

These types of bots are not AI-based. The bot asks questions and provides predefined choices that will eventually help customers find what they are looking for. 

Text-Based 

Interactions are based on text. These bots are AI-based and are often designed to mimic human interaction.

Speech-Based

Voice command chatbot apps can ask questions and answer just as a real person would. These AI chatbots are popular in the mobile community with Google Assistant and Apple’s Siri. 

Shopify Chatbots

These bots are text-based with features focusing on providing information and possibly handling transactions. Most often, these are the machines on the front lines of online businesses greeting customers and potential customers.

There is a rapidly growing demand from businesses to get the best online chatbot apps. By 2023, it is estimated that 73% of healthcare admin tasks could be automated by AI and chatbots. These bots could save the healthcare, banking, and retail sectors $11 billion annually.

To get an advantage against your competitors, you must choose the right Shopify chatbot possible for your business. Making an informed decision on which bot to choose may take a little research. Take a look into chatbot reviews and comparisons and see what features you need to prioritize to get the most bang for your buck.

Benefits of a Shopify Chatbot

Customer Experience

Imagine this scenario for a moment. You are a customer that is about to walk into a store. As you step in, you are greeted by a store employee ready to show you around and answer any questions you might have. 

How about another scenario; you walk into a store. You have to look for someone in charge to help you with what you are looking for. You have to wait without knowing when you will be attended to.

As a store owner, you would want every single one of your customers to experience the first scenario all the time. For online stores, this is met with a lot of challenges. For instance, customers might come in with inquiries outside business hours. A common issue is when people managing the store cannot keep up with the volume of customer inquiries coming in.

With that problem, your response times to customers would not be as quick causing their overall experience to suffer. These are among the myriad of challenges that are solved by AI chatbots. Whether it is customer support or sales, Shopify bots can help.

Lead Generation

While chatbots can take care of your current customers, they can also help create new customers by lead generation. That’s right, your store visitors can engage in a conversation with a lead generation bot that will gather their information. Lead information will then be sent to your sales team or CRM system for quick follow-ups.

Statistics

Let’s look into what the research says. According to surveys, consumers don’t mind if they are served by chatbots as long as they can quickly solve their problems. Compared to 2018, twice as many consumers were willing to interact with chatbots in 2019 because they are “very helpful”.

Let’s see what businesses and consumers think:

• Nearly 90% of businesses report recording measurable improvements in resolving complaints. 
• 80% of consumers who have used chatbots report the experience as positive. 
• 57% of executives said that chatbots don’t require too much effort to operate and bring ROI.

Conclusion

Chatbots are an excellent tool for online businesses, especially Shopify. We now understand how chatbots can increase revenue and how they can be an essential tool for scaling an online store. These bots can significantly improve customer service by having customers find what they want faster and even help them track their orders.

If you plan to scale your Shopify store, we can say with absolute certainty that you would need a chatbot.