Explore some ways conversational commerce can bring significant advantages to brands, specifically catering to the more conscious consumer.
There’s no escaping the fact we’re social beings. In recent years, commerce may have made an overwhelming shift towards the online space. However, shoppers still appreciate the connection, reassurance, and education that a friendly chat with a knowledgeable person can bring to their retail experience.
The benefits of implementing a live chat solution are well-established. In this article, we’ll explore how conversational commerce can bring significant advantages to brands, specifically catering to the more conscious consumer.
Are you running a sustainable, ethical ecommerce brand? Or aspiring to bring a few more eco elements to your future positioning? Read on to learn why slick live chat could represent the perfect addition to your customer experience…
Live Chat – Why Bother?
Before we dig into why live chat is exceptionally well suited to values-led ecommerce businesses, let’s zoom out and examine the universal benefits it brings to online retailers working across the verticals.
Simply put, customers who engage with live chat are the gold standard—they are more likely to convert and spend more per order. Research by Forrester observed a 10% increase in AOV when comparing sales from customers who engaged in a chat before making a purchase to those who did not use live chat.
There’s an argument to suggest that customers who engage in live chat are already more motivated and intentional than casual browsers. But the strong correlation between live chat and improved sales can’t be ignored.
Ultimately, when it comes to securing sales, customer service is king – and a compelling live chat solution is one of the best ways to elevate the experience of the shoppers visiting your store. 75% of people prefer live chat over any other channel of communication, and when we consider the main reasons shoppers turn to ecommerce for their retail fix (speed, ease, a quick solution), it’s not hard to see why.
While 67% of B2C businesses use live chat solely for customer support, its potential doesn’t end there. Live chat can also offer great scope for sales and even marketing, so it’s important not to feel limited by its application—opportunity awaits the brands willing to get creative.
Live Chat And The Conscious Consumer
So, the baseline benefits of live chat for ecommerce merchants are well established. But how can this powerful, productive integration be particularly helpful for businesses aligning themselves with a more conscious consumer?
If you’re courting shoppers looking for sustainable, ethical options, we can make one cast-iron guarantee: they’ll have questions! Conscious consumers are, by their very definition, choosy. They’re actively striving to make better choices, and you can bet your bottom dollar that they want these choices to be well informed.
What does this mean for you as a retailer? To start with, you’ll want to ensure your product pages are detailed, informative, and transparent. By ensuring easy access to product information, you’ll be reducing the pressure on your support team and keeping customers happy with instant answers.
But even with this extra effort and attention to detail, sometimes shoppers simply require the next level of reassurance and support. With so many brands making sustainability claims, many customers are (understandably!) sceptical. If you’re looking to really maximize their experience, satisfaction, and chance of converting, then having a live chat option to put minds at ease is essential.
Live chat is a wonderful way of learning what your customers are interested in, hoping for, and dead against. Digging into the data generated by these conversations can provide a rich seam of insight for your ongoing product development strategy.
What’s more, by learning from your most common live chat inquiries, you can feed back into your product page strategy, enhancing the content you’re already providing to help answer common questions or concerns.
6 Top Tips For Ethical Ecommerce Store Live Chat Success
Here are six golden rules to follow when providing a live chat solution that will truly enhance the experience of your conscious consumers…
1. Be Human
Conscious consumers are looking to connect with the brands they shop with. They carefully weigh up their purchase decisions. They want to know that the values that they hold so dearly are shared with the brands they choose to purchase from. Make sure your support team has access to all customer data when interacting—this kind of thoughtful, personalized service is welcomed by all shoppers, but especially those who are looking to feel truly “seen” by a brand.
2. Be Available
The sustainability space is skyrocketing. While this is a good thing for Planet Earth, the competition is heating up. What does this mean for you as a retailer in the context of live chat? Be ready and responsive – work with a solution that offers excellent ticket management and enables your team to action practical requests for help (refunds, orders, subscriptions, etc.) all from the chat window. Show up across all channels – if your customers are shopping there, they should be able to access your support team.
3. Be Honest
Be sure your support team is crystal clear on priorities – your brand’s integrity must be protected at all costs. Greenwashing is a huge issue, and it’s a hard accusation or association to lose once your brand has been affected. Keep all support transparent, above board, and aligned with your brand’s essential ethos and values. No sale is more important than your brand’s reputation – especially within the ethical ecommerce space.
4. Be Preemptive
Learn from your live chat history. If questions keep cropping up, look at ways of reordering your product information to ensure customers have better access to “self-service” knowledge. Similarly, regularly brief your support team on everyday issues, and ensure they’re well drilled in best practice regarding resolution.
5. Be Generous
As mentioned, the sustainable, ethical ecommerce space is an increasingly crowded playing field. View customers who interact with live chat as a self-defining segment you’ll want to prioritize – they’re demonstrating a high level of purchase intent, so roll out the red carpet. Consider your discounting strategy when retargeting those customers who’ve reached out to support in this way.
6. Be Knowledgeable
The conscious consumer is always curious. Ensure that your support team has easy access to detailed information on your products, especially regarding elements such as supply chain and manufacturing methods.
More Tips For Courting The Conscious Consumer?
At MindfulCommerce, we specialize in bringing together like-minded, values-led ecommerce businesses that want to make a difference. Reducing the environmental footprint, sharing learnings, and increasing process efficiency will create a more productive, less wasteful industry that can continue to thrive – without doing so at the expense of our planet.
If you’re keen to learn more about how our members are taking action to improve their offering in the ever-increasing conscious consumer market, we’d love to invite you to join our community.
Membership is free, and you’ll have access to a wealth of information, resources, online events, and live training sessions. I hope to see you there!
