Revolutionizing Consumer Engagement: The Power of Conversational Commerce

Credit: DarioGaona

I love to shop—okay, I just admitted my addiction—but I don’t particularly like going down the proverbial rabbit hole to find the information I need to determine if a product or service is right for me. Call me impatient, but most consumers are, when they’re searching for something.

Research shows the average time spent on a website is well less than 60 seconds. This means the purveyor has less than about 30 seconds to drive meaningful engagement. Sure, the visitor may have clicked on content that brought them directly to a product category page, or even a product description page, but what happens when they don’t see what they were expecting, or need more information? Well, they might decide to explore more, engage with a product comparison tool or even a legacy chat session (which have limitations), or they might just decide to bail.

Needless to say, an opportunity to engage the visitor in a meaningful conversation is often missed. Yes, I mean a real conversation—not just a couple of fact-based text lines and a response, but a values-based actual human exchange. This is where conversational commerce comes into play.

The Power of Conversational Commerce

All meaningful relationships start with a conversation, just like when you walk into your local coffee shop and the barista greets you with, “Hi, welcome in! How are you? What can I get for you today?” Now, imagine that conversation happening digitally where an AI agent can have the same intelligent, even audible exchange with the customer—that’s conversational commerce.

Conversational commerce integrates new generative AI agents with personalized interactions and deep knowledge of the products and services into the online shopping experience. And the consumer experience is way better than clicking through site-search results or relying on older phone-tree chatbots. So, with that in mind, what if you could make it super-simple for a site visitor to get the information and answers they are looking for quickly and easily? What might that look like?

Let’s take Levi’s for example; the experience might go something like this:

Site visitor: <Locates a microphone icon🎙️ with a label, “Ask Rivet About Levi Jeans” and so the visitor does>
"I’m looking for some jeans."

Site responds: "Hi, I’m Rivet; happy to help. Tell me a little bit about your how you see your body type—average, slight, athletic, round? While I’m asking, how do you like your jeans to fit? Tight, loose, baggy? Do you prefer trendy styles, or are you into more traditional styling? Oh! And do you prefer men’s or women’s jeans?"

Site visitor: "Hi Rivet, Bob here. I’m an athlete with muscular quads. I like looser fitting jeans that are more traditional. I’m a men’s jeans guy."

Rivet: "Got it, Bob. I suggest you consider our 550, 559, 568, or 569. <Images of each of the jeans are displayed.> The 550 and 559 are more of a relaxed fitting classic jean that sit at the waist, while the 568 and 569 are looser fitting through the legs and seat. Do any of these look like what you want? I can tell you more about the fits if you like."

Site visitor: "I like the look of the 559."

Rivet: "Great. The 559 has lots of options for you; they come in low stretch, no stretch, and high stretch. There are 11 colorways in low stretch, 2 in no stretch, and 1 in high stretch. Which type of stretch do you prefer?"

Site visitor: "Low stretch sounds good."

Rivet: "Okay, here are the various colorways <images displayed>. What waist and length do you need? I’ll let you know which colors are available in your size."

OK, I think you get the picture: using a conversation, with some values inherent in the exchange, to learn more about the consumer, and with the consumer more quickly learning about the product or services is far from a sterile fact-based dump of data on the screen. And what’s more, with the emergence of interactive AI, conversational commerce can actually fulfill that exchange, whereby the agent (“Rivet” in this case) can check inventory, place the order, and consummate the transaction.

Embracing the Future of Consumer Engagement

This is how brands need to be thinking about the future of consumer engagement. By adopting, adapting, and deploying AI-driven conversational commerce, businesses can revolutionize the way they interact with consumers, making online shopping a more personalized and engaging experience. The power of conversational commerce lies in its ability to transform a simple web visit into a meaningful exchange; value-based, not fact-restricted, to foster stronger relationships and drive sales (and more returning customers).

Of course, “conversational commerce” requires emerging AI technologies (here’s just one example) to replace the call-trees of yesterday, which I’ve been discussing elsewhere with more to come. Here at C[IQ] we’re actually making “conversational commerce” possible for our clients. To learn more, please reach out.