Conversational AI in eCommerce: 9 of the Most Successful Chatbot Examples
The days when human agents were the only viable form of customer service are long gone and things are changing. In fact, a large part of online shoppers actually wants to talk to chatbots. A recent report revealed that more than half of online shoppers (70%) prefer talking to a chatbot over a human agent if it means they do not have to wait.
Chatbots have also become far more advanced. Thanks to conversational AI, chatbots are now capable of understanding contexts, intentions, and handling multiple questions or deviations from the main topic flawlessly. Chatbot implementation and use cases have grown as well. Businesses are deploying different types of chatbots including sales, market research, and customer engagement chatbots.
Some of the most popular and successful chatbots have been deployed as standalone and website chatbots and on popular messaging platforms too, such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Google RCS.
Statistics Behind the Best Examples of AI Chatbots
Every business has at least one business function that involves regular communication with the customer, in fact, most businesses have numerous (social media, customer service, direct business messaging, etc). More importantly, functions related to communication can be automated with conversational AI, meaning almost every business has the potential to reduce costs on communication, ensure 24/7 availability, and enjoy personalization at scale.
And many businesses are already making use of this technology. Though we’re focusing on the most successful implementations of AI chatbots in this article, there are numerous other examples of AI in everyday life, across various industries and markets. The following statistics will help you better understand the extent of chatbot adoption:
Top 9 Most Successful Examples of AI Chatbots in eCommerce
Nothing is more effective at conveying the utility of conversational AI than its real-world implementations. So to put chatbot’s recent success and growth in perspective, we’ve compiled a list of the top 10 examples of conversational AI chatbots in eCommerce that have all proven themselves with great ROIs.
Chatbot Example #1: Aveda Booking Chatbot
Despite all of the advancements, online shopping is still (and likely will be for the near future) a one-sided experience. None of the traditional methods of customer engagement are compatible with the eCommerce business model — but that didn’t stop Aveda from trying.
Aveda, a botanical hair and skincare brand popular among both enthusiasts and professionals, wanted to improve its online booking system and leverage automation. To achieve their goals, Aveda partnered with Master of Code who built the Aveda Chatbot, an AI bot for Facebook Messenger that used an advanced natural-language-processing (NLP) engine.
Over just a 7 week period, the Aveda chatbot managed to surpass everyone’s expectations with the following achievements:
- A 378% increase in lifetime users from campaign launch
- An additional 6,918 bookings in just 7 weeks
- Average weekly bookings increase 7.67 times
- 33.2% increase in booking conversion rate
The Aveda chatbot is one of the best examples of what conversational AI can achieve in even short periods. It enriched the online shopping experience for Aveda’s customers while also automating numerous processes including the booking process, reminders, and connecting shoppers with the customer service team.
Chatbot Example #2: H&M’s Digital Stylist
H&M, the global clothing retailer understands that shoppers are becoming more style-conscious these days and don’t just buy clothes randomly. They have different styles and outfits for different looks and occasions. To cater to this growing demand, H&M created an AI chatbot on Kik, a popular messaging app with 300 million users.
H&M chatbot asks users a series of questions to understand their tastes and preferences. To make the process more engaging, this AI chatbot also sends pictures of clothes to help users answer style questions. Furthermore, understanding that online shoppers are very active on social polls and discussions, the H&M chatbot has an option to browse pre-existing outfits and even vote on them.
H&M’s chatbot takes the role of a personal digital stylist and helps customers save time by helping them avoid browsing through hundreds of clothing items before finding the right piece in just a few minutes. Most importantly, the H&M chatbot remembers each user’s tastes and preferences and uses this for retargeting customers in the future with better recommendations.
Chatbot Example #3: T-Mobile Austria Tinka
T-Mobile is no stranger to conversational AI and was recently one of the first major telecom companies to launch Google RCS on their devices. However, they have been relying on chatbots for a lot longer. Meet Tinka, T-Mobile Austria’s customer service chatbot that has been providing digital assistance to users on their website and Facebook Messenger since 2015 and 2016 respectively.
Tinka is a very capable chatbot with answers to over 1,500 questions that help customers get the help they need instantly. If however, the customer has a question that Tinka cannot answer, its LiveAgent Handover feature seamlessly transitions the conversation to a human agent without the customer having to do anything.
Tinka is still operational and is one of the longest-running eCommerce chatbots — a testament to the technology’s viability in the long run.
Chatbot Example #4: Esso’s Pass the Puck Bot
Esso, part of the ExxonMobil umbrella of companies is one of the largest publicly traded oil and gas companies. As a major sponsor of the National Hockey League in Canada, Esso wanted to engage its hockey fans and partnered with Master of Code to develop and deploy an AI chatbot on Facebook Messenger that hockey fans could use to sign up for Canada’s first social hockey game — Pass the Puck,
The AI chatbot was responsible for giving users an easy platform to sign up for the game and also engage users with emails, postcodes, and information about users who “passed” the puck to them.
The chatbot was very successful at driving this community event as it achieved the following results:
- 83 000 users used AI-powered chatbot
- 70 000 users signed up for a contest
- 46 000 posts have been shared on social media
Chatbot Example #5: Lego’s Ralph
For most adults, Lego is more of a fond memory than an active hobby but that doesn’t mean that they won’t ever buy a Lego set. And with this, Lego identified two issues in its sales approach:
- adults who want to reminiscent in the past with a Lego set may not be up to date with the new line up
- adults buying Legos as gifts may not know where to start at all
In both of these ways, Lego identified a need for powerful digital assistance that could provide recommendations to users based on their requirements, tastes, and preferences. Lego knew that the most efficient way of doing this was with a chatbot and thus Ralph was born.
Ralph, an AI chatbot deployed on Facebook Messenger helps users find the right Lego set, and right off the bat, it was an overwhelming success. Ralph quickly became the sole driver behind 25% of all of Lego’s social media sales and 8.4 times more effective at conversations than Facebook Ads — and efficient too, with a cost-per-conversion 31% lower than ads).
Chatbot Example #6: Casper’s Insomnobot-3000
In 2016, Casper, a major mattress manufacturer, and retailer, launched, arguably, the most well-known AI chatbots in the eCommerce industry — Insomnobot-3000. This chatbot utilizes a powerful conversational AI engine to talk to users who have trouble sleeping. This award-winning chatbot was deployed on SMS and became an instant hit thanks to his friendly and light-hearted conversations.
Unlike some of the other bots in this list, the Insomnobot-3000 is a purely customer engagement bot with no direct sales directives. However, even without direct sales directives, the Insomnobot-3000 has been extremely successful as it was able to improve brand image and reach hundreds of thousands of new customers through its unique approach. That said, this chatbot did bring thousands of valuable warm leads to the business for retargeting.
Chatbot Example #7: Luxury Escapes Chatbot
Luxury Escapes is one of the biggest luxury travel agencies in Australia and operates in 29 countries around the world. Over 2 million visitors would check Luxury Escapes’ website each month for new deals and offers but the company wanted to improve the online customer experience. Their goal was to offer more personalization, a quicker way to find deals, and easier notifications. To reach these goals, Luxury Escapes partnered with Master of Code to reinvent their shopping experience in the form of an AI chatbot.
The chatbot more than delivered on the company’s goals and expectations by achieving the following:
- a conversion rate 3 times higher than the website
- generating over $300,000 in revenue in the first 90 days
- and an 89% response rate on retargeting efforts
In addition to the main goals, this AI bot also enhanced the shopping experience with additional features such as a holiday planner which customers could use to craft their own holidays, and a powerful recommendation engine that would recommend the most suitable holiday packages based on a few questions. The chatbot also included a fun game called Roll The Dice to suggest random holiday destinations which were played over 16,800 times during the initial 90-day campaign.
Chatbot Example #8: Patrón Tequila’s BotTenders
Patrón, part of the Bacardi umbrella of companies is a brand of premium tequila products. They are known for their customer experience and wanted to inspire more customers to try out new drinks over the summer. To do this, they created the BotTenders, a pair of virtual bartenders that used a powerful recommendation engine and conversational AI to talk to the “patrons” of the brand and suggest them new drinks based on their preferences.
The chatbot was deployed on Twitter and over the course of this campaign, sent and received 120,000 messages, including thousands of drinks and recipes. The company plans on using the customer data to drive customer insights and create more effective drinks campaigns in the future.
Chatbot Example #9: Subway’s RCS Chatbot
Unlike most of the chatbots on this list, Subway’s latest chatbot was neither deployed on Facebook Messenger, nor on their website. No, Subway’s latest conversational AI hit was deployed as a Google RCS bot — a relatively new messaging platform that aims to replace traditional SMS.
The Subway RCS chatbot is a business messaging bot and leverages RCS’ support for rich media to send interactive messages to consumers on their smartphones. Subway’s initial campaign run two offers were a great success, or as one executive puts it, the chatbot delivered “blow-the-doors-off” results, including 140% and 51% more conversions on the two offers respectively.
Google RCS is a relatively new platform for chatbots but its numerous success stories are proving this to be a viable platform for eCommerce business messaging.
Also read: 6 Ways RCS is Being Used By Top Businesses in 2020
Deploying Successful Chatbots in 2021
Getting started with chatbots has become easier with the rise of numerous platform solutions that help businesses build chatbots. However, most of these “pre-built” chatbots do not leverage conversational AI which is responsible for the life-like conversations and thus may not be as successful.
This is why Master of Code, a conversational AI solutions provider, leverages conversational AI and natural-language-processing (NLP) to ensure all of our chatbots are not only viable but also excellent at 24/7 customer service, product recommendations, and personalized shopping experiences. If you’d like to learn more about how conversational AI and chatbots can be tailored to your exact business needs, schedule a consultation with the Master of Code today.
Originally published at Master of Code Global.
