How to use WhatsApp chatbots for eCommerce [Usecases + best practices]

Running an eCommerce business solely over your website or mobile app is not enough anymore, not even if you provide both options.

On average, most eCommerce mobile apps get uninstalled within 11 days of being downloaded. You need to make it possible for customers to do business with you on the apps they already spend the most time on, and WhatsApp chatbots make that possible.

Why do you need to use WhatsApp for eCommerce?

With over 2 billion users, WhatsApp is the most popular messaging application. And these users spend about 28 minutes actively using WhatsApp every day.

Odds are that your customers are already spending a lot of time on WhatsApp. They would prefer to interact with your business and even place orders directly over WhatsApp.

To make it even better, WhatsApp messages have a 70% engagement rate. If you get a message on WhatsApp, you're going to open it.

This means that using WhatsApp empowers your eCommerce business to engage your customers on the channel they prefer. It can even help you drive sales directly over a new channel that your customers actively use.

The advantages of using eCommerce WhatsApp chatbots

WhatsApp chatbots help you do business on WhatsApp at scale. They automate most of your conversations on WhatsApp, answering customer questions in record time, and allowing your employees to focus on higher-level activities.‍

1. Lower cart abandonment rate

According to Forrester Research, 53% of online shoppers tend to abandon their cart if they do not get answers to their questions immediately.

WhatsApp chatbots help you answer those questions immediately, aiding you in solving the problem of cart abandonment.‍

2. Reduced customer effort

These bots help you make online shopping much easier for your customers. They don't need to download another app or even visit a website. All they need to do is open WhatsApp, send a few messages, and they can make purchases, schedule returns and do much more with minimum effort.‍

3. Buttons

You can make WhatsApp messages even more interactive by using interactive buttons with WhatsApp message templates. These buttons can be used to guide your users to a webpage or to let them call you up.‍

4. Personalization

WhatsApp chatbots can use data collected about your customers to personalize their entire experience with your eCommerce store and deliver a better customer experience that is more relevant to their needs.

This helps you increase conversions and boost loyalty and advocacy.

How can you use WhatsApp chatbots for eCommerce?‍

1. Lead generation

When a customer converses with you on WhatsApp, you can request their name and phone number and use our Google Sheets integration to automatically store that information, along with information about the products they are interested in within a spreadsheet.‍

2. Product recommendation

When your customers interact with your chatbot on WhatsApp and let you know what kind of products they are looking for, you can use that data to share personalized product recommendations from your catalog. You can display a range of products by sending them carousel messages.‍

3. Sales

Your customers don't need to visit your website or download your app to place orders on your eCommerce portal. All they need to do is open WhatsApp and send you a message. They can purchase products directly over your chatbot and even make payments if you integrate your WhatsApp bot with Stripe or another payment gateway.‍

4. Support

Customer support needs to be as convenient as possible, and sending a WhatsApp message is far easier than typing out an email or even calling your support team.

These bots make getting support even easier by eliminating hold time and making sure that customers and leads get answers to their queries without needing to wait at all.‍

5. Returns & exchanges

WhatsApp chatbots get rid of the effort involved in returning or exchanging purchases. They streamline the process and allow your customers to schedule returns or exchanges directly over the bot.‍

6. Feedback

WhatsApp chatbots make it easy for you to collect actionable feedback from your customers. This can be used to help you understand your customers' entire experiences with the brand, but also to understand their experience during individual interactions. Engati allows you to do this using a feedback node.‍

7. Notifications

You can use the bot to send automated notifications to your customers about orders, payments, returns, updates to account information (like new addresses being added), etc.‍

8. Product details

If your customers have questions about your products that were not answered on your website, they can get all the answers and information that they need over an intelligent WhatsApp chatbot.‍

9. Shipping information

You can use WhatsApp message templates to send shipping and delivery information to your customers, easing their anxiety about when their order will be delivered.

Best practices‍

1. Be transparent

Don't misguide your customers into thinking that they are conversing with a human. Let customers know that they are talking to a bot. If not, it is possible that they would be disappointed if they asked a complicated question and the bot could not answer it.

2. Use automation along with live agents

Chatbots and live chat work best together. Around 80% of your inbound queries can be answered by your chatbot, but the complex ones need to be handled by a live agent.

Using live chat along with chatbots helps your customers get answers to all their queries in real-time without needing to wait. It's also better than asking customers to call your support team or send an email if they need to get in contact with a live agent because it allows them to converse with an agent directly over the same platform in a seamless fashion.

Looking to build a WhatsApp bot?

We make it easy. With Engati, you can build an intelligent WhatsApp chatbot in just 5 minutes. Learn how to get your WhatsApp bot.

This blog about "How to use WhatsApp chatbots for eCommerce" was originally published in Engati blogs.