E-commerce sales in Australia have been through the roof in the past couple of years. As per a latest study, Australia’s B2C e-commerce is set to grow with a CAGR 6.64% to $68.8 billion by 2027! People are moving towards online shopping, given its simplicity, flexibility and affordability. If you are in the e-commerce business, we are sure you are making a bang! But with great power comes great responsibility, right!?

The same goes for ever-growing e-commerce businesses. As the numbers grow, it’s becoming more and more complex for e-commerce players to offer quality customer support and services. And note this, no matter how good your business is doing, it will take just a few poor customer experiences to de-rail your growth. Your customers expect a quick response, quality support and ease of shopping on the go, round the clock. Now you can hire a customer support team that works 24×7, but it can put a dent in your budget (in fact, a big one!). So what’s the alternative? It’s simple; automation is the alternative!

You can incorporate chatbots into your e-commerce website and offer support around the clock. But wait, don’t you already have those chatbots added to your website? Most e-commerce websites have. But the problem is, they are not intelligent! Putting it in technical terms, they are programmed to respond in a specific way to a specific query. So, if your customer asks something out of the input data, your chatbot will get confused and might offer incorrect information. This will definitely leave a bad taste in the customer’s mouth. And that’s precisely where you might lose your customers. And nobody wants that!

Solution? Enter AI-powered chatbots! Yes, they are real, and businesses have already started using them. But what sets them apart?

Let’s find out.

AI-powered chatbots are like your personal shopping assistants on steroids! They use the latest artificial intelligence technology to understand what your customers want, recommend the perfect products, and even crack a few jokes along the way.

Here are a few ways they differ from traditional chatbots:

Smarter Conversations: Traditional chatbots are based on pre-programmed rules that dictate their responses. While they may be able to answer basic questions, they struggle with anything outside their programmed parameters. AI-powered chatbots, on the other hand, use natural language processing (NLP) (read chatGPT!) and machine learning algorithms. This helps them understand the context of customers’ queries and provides more human-like responses. This leads to more natural and engaging conversations, increasing customer satisfaction and driving sales.

Personalisation: AI-powered chatbots can also use customers’ publicly available data to personalise their responses. They can analyse previous customer interactions, purchase history, and browsing behaviour to provide tailored recommendations and support. This level of personalisation can improve the customer experience, build trust, and lead to repeat business.

24/7 Availability: One of the most significant benefits of chatbots is their ability to provide round-the-clock customer support. However, traditional chatbots rely on human agents to monitor conversations outside business hours. This can be expensive and impractical for small businesses. On the other hand, AI-powered chatbots can operate independently, providing instant support to customers at any time of day or night.

Continuous Learning: Traditional chatbots have fixed responses and cannot improve performance over time. In contrast, AI-powered chatbots use machine learning algorithms to learn from customer interactions continuously. This improves their accuracy and effectiveness over time. This means that AI chatbots become more knowledgeable and better equipped to handle complex queries the longer they are used.

Cost-Effective: Finally, AI-powered chatbots are also more cost-effective than traditional chatbots. While traditional chatbots require significant upfront programming and maintenance costs, AI chatbots can be developed using drag-and-drop interfaces and require minimal coding expertise. So even small businesses can implement AI-powered chatbots without breaking the bank.

E-commerce chatbots can boost average lifetime value (LTV) and build long-term brand loyalty. In fact, it’s estimated that AI-powered chatbots will handle up to 70% of customer conversations by the end of 2023. The reason is simple, every e-commerce business wants a reliable, 24×7, available and efficient customer support system, and AI-powered chatbots can provide that. That’s one more reason to adopt this latest trend in the market.