The checkout funnel is the most important part of your e-commerce website. If your checkout funnel is broken, you're leaving money on the table.
The checkout funnel is the path that your customers go through to complete their purchases. It's what determines whether they'll buy from you or your competitors. You must know of all the potential barriers preventing your customers from reaching the final point of the checkout funnel to have a high cart checkout conversion rate.
The biggest roadblock in the checkout funnel is abandoned carts.
Abandoned carts happen. Sometimes your customers leave the cart before they reach the final step, and sometimes they abandon the cart before they even reach the step asking them to log in. This is the most common checkout funnel problem.
Abandoned cart problems are a big challenge for e-commerce websites, especially for those with high-priced products. Abandoned carts happen because of a variety of reasons. Some customers abandon their cart because they don't have enough time to complete the checkout process, while others just don't have the budget to complete the purchase.
One way to get these customers back in your funnel is to set up a conversational AI app to call those who abandoned the cart and help them complete the purchase. The conversational AI will find out the reason why that happened and resolve the issue at once, decreasing your shopping cart abandonment.
Why you should automate cart checkout with conversational AI
Studies show that on average, 70% of customers abandon their carts after adding the chosen items to them. This is a huge problem for eCommerce websites because the main goal of an eCommerce site is to convert as many customers as possible into buyers. The thing is, once a customer has added the items and put them in their cart, several roadblocks may appear. Those include:
being forced to create an account. Your customers can see this process as tedious and unnecessary, forcing them to do it before they can proceed with their purchase.
high additional costs such as shipping or delivery. This is especially true for international customers.
time-consuming checkout process. Every additional step (think of the fields of the checkout form) the customer has to take before actually checking out slows them down and reduces the chance of them completing the process. One simple way of solving this is having auto-fill forms available.
shipping/delivery may be slow or limited in options. The customer may not be able to find free shipping, or they may not even be able to choose their preferred shipping options. This holds true for customers who want the items shipped to their country, while the company might not have an option of shipping the items there.
payment method may be unavailable. The customer may not have a credit card or may be concerned that the credit card he/she has may not be accepted.
lack of customer support. This is especially true for international customers who don't know the language used on the site or for the customers who visit your e-commerce site for the first time.
customer's personal information. This is a very serious issue. The customer may be worried that their credit card, name, address, phone number, and other personal information can be at risk. This is why it is crucial to have a robust and effective security system in place. It's always best for the company to invest in a premium quality fraud management system to ease the mind of the customer and prevent any security breaches. Additionally, a company should consider having payment card industry (PCI) compliance to ensure that customer information is secure.
other e-commerce websites may have better pricing and/or free shipping. This means that the customer might not be able to find the best deal on your site.
The list above is not exhaustive, but I hope it's clear how important it is to tackle these issues that prevent potential buyers from becoming customers.
If you can solve these problems, you will be able to increase your shopping cart conversion rate.
How can conversational AI help with the cart checkout process and decrease the shopping cart abandonment rate?
The goal here is to increase the cart conversion rate. To do that, we need to solve the customer's problems and concerns. Companies need to know their competitive advantage and know exactly where they fall short when compared to their competitor's e-commerce websites. One of the best ways to find out what the customer needs is to ask them. This is what conversational AI does.
Conversational AI is a form of AI that has a conversational interface. This interface allows the AI to carry a natural conversation with the user. It allows the AI to ask questions and gather information in a natural and friendly way. It can do that by asking questions, understanding the user's intention, and making suggestions that persuade the customer to go through the final steps of the checking out process. Let me give you an example.
Imagine the following scenario:
A customer is browsing your e-commerce website, looking for a specific item. They find it and add it to their cart. Once ready to go through checking out, they notice that the shipping costs are quite high. The customer isn't sure if they can afford to pay for the shipping costs.
At this point, they decide that having to pay a high price for shipping isn't worth it and resort to looking for the wanted item on the competitor's e-commerce websites.
This is when conversational AI steps in. A simple conversational AI app can streamline the process of getting to know what stopped the customer from completing the checkout and resolve the issues on the spot.
The customer says that the roadblock was high shipping cost and, based on what your e-commerce company can offer, conversational AI proposes the best solution such as a free shipping option or a discount.
For instance, you can program the conversational AI to give a call to the customer the day after they've abandoned the cart and inquire them about the reasons for leaving the item(s) in the cart. From there on the process is smooth and easy, the issues get solved, the customer purchases the item. In turn, your shopping cart abandonment rate decreases and you get plus one loyal customer. Conversational AI creates a win-win situation for you.
Now, this is a very simple example, but the point here is that conversational AI can help you increase the cart conversion rate by talking to the customer and helping them solve their problems.
This is how conversational AI can help you automate the cart checkout process. It can help you:
- increase the cart conversion rate;
- increase the customer's satisfaction and loyalty;
- increase the chances of a customer buying your products.
How conversational AI can help you increase cart conversion rate?
The first thing to do is to know your customer. You need to know their buying patterns, their interests, their concerns, to know what they are looking for.
You need to know what stops them from buying from you. You need to know what they'd consider as a deal-breaker. Once you have that information, you'll be able to create a personalized conversation with the customer and ask them questions to find out their specific concerns.
The more information you have about your customer, the more you will be able to create a conversation that will help them complete the checkout process.
The better you know their concerns, the better the solution you can give them, the higher cart conversion rate you get.
How conversational AI can help your customers?
One of the main things that conversational AI can help your customers with is to understand what they are looking for and what they want.
This is extremely important for e-commerce websites because your customers are not just looking for a product, they are looking for a solution. They are looking for the best deal, the best price, the best experience. They are looking for a solution to their specific problems. Once conversational AI understands your customer's concerns, it can provide them with the best solution to their problems. The customer can then move on to the next step, the final step of the checkout process.
Conversational AI can help your customers by:
- understanding their concerns;
- proposing the best solutions to their concerns;
- suggesting discounts and offers;
- suggesting free shipping options;
- suggesting payment methods;
- guiding them through the checkout process.
Developing a conversational AI app that increases your cart conversion rate is fast and easy
Being a non-developer, I've created a conversational AI app that calls the customers that have abandoned their shopping carts. The AI asks them about the reason for cart abandonment and offers them the right solutions. You can see the way I did that and download the source code here.
Your e-commerce company can have a conversational AI app like the one I've created. It's easy to create and can be implemented in a matter of hours. You can write it yourself or you can hire a developer to do it for you.
The main thing is to know your customer, their concerns, and to develop a conversation that will help them complete the checkout process.