High-Tech Updates To The Retail Experience

In the U.S., chat platforms, including Facebook Messenger, Kik and Slack, have opened up to help retailers and brands launch chatbots to engage with their customers. It is a one-to-one conversation providing research (product recommendations, prices, promotions, availability, etc.) and post-purchase customer service (delivery, exchange/return, usage, etc.). Because the customer opts in, enabling the retailer to access a plethora of rich and explicit purchase-intent data, the bot or the sales associate can provide valuable advice and recommendations and build a personalized and meaningful relationship with the customer. More than 80 retailers and brands, including H&M, Sephora and Staples, have launched human-assisted chatbots on Messenger and/or Kik to provide services such as product recommendations and personalized beauty advice and, of course, the bots also facilitate transactions if the customer is ready to purchase the products. This new wave of conversational commerce has given birth to many startups, such as msg.ai, Conversable and Converse.ai, which focus on helping brands and retailers engage with customers on chat platforms. Read more at Tech Crunch.