An Open Letter to Retailers

Estimated Reading Time: 5 - 6 mins

Dear Large Retailer,

I’ll get to the point...

The numbers aren’t great

When you go back to the late 90s, and you speak with the early pioneers of the web (such as our CEO at LivePerson, Rob LoCascio, who invented Live Chat for websites in 1997), the promise of e-commerce, was that it was going to completely take over the shopping experience and people would never visit a store again.

Well 20 years on, and the total number of e-commerce sales is less than 15%. That’s right, only 13% of all commerce comes from digital. And, here in the U.S., Amazon comprises almost half of that!

Total e-commerce sales since 1994

What’s the issue?

Even in 2018, with complex omnichannel rollouts, plus sleek mobile apps and drool-worthy Instagram pages, the web just hasn’t quite delivered on it’s promise of taking over commerce.

The reason is because the web is meant to act more like a library, indexing all of the information it’s been fed so that it can serve up answers to our queries in a nanosecond when we search on Google. And for that function, it is amazing! We can literally find anything we want (and sometimes what we don’t want) with a quick search.

However, this has led us to a completely science-first approach to constructing our retail brands’ presence online, and has completely missed out on the art of selling products with personality.

When you look at the structure of websites, everyone, from Louis Vuitton to Walmart, begins to look the same - a navigation bar at the top, scroll down for content, post product images, menu at the bottom and content that needs to be indexed for the search engines.

It’s hard to stand out in a sea of sameness. This also holds true for the mobile app experience for most brands.

A bold move

Who will be the first retailer to remove all of that sameness, and take an artistic approach, and simply host a site that is clean, with nothing other than “How can we help you?,” essentially encouraging a conversation with your visitors?

You may say that’s nonsense. That’s crazy. We’d kill our brand, kill our visibility, kill our identity.

I’d argue you’d get it back, and then some.

The massive shift to conversational commerce is happening

The reason that bold move won’t kill your brand identity, is because you will need to start having a completely different interaction with customers in the coming months anyway. Especially for your younger customers (I refuse to mention the M-word), they, and even more so, Gen Zers, have moved on from the web.

The top 4 messaging apps now have more users than the top 4 social networks combined...and that was back in 2015!

Huh?

Yes - the kids, in fact all of us, message each other...a lot!

It’s now time to build that same deep connection between your brand and your customers

Apple has launched Business Chat this year with iOS 11.3, and Google is deploying Rich Communication Services (RCS) Business Messaging globally. These launches will change the way people communicate with brands forever, moving commerce from websites and mobile apps, and customer care from phone and chat, over to rich messaging experiences across billions of devices.

Conversational commerce solves the challenges introduced by websites - it uses natural language to buy things and get help. There are no landing pages, no click-and-find, no indexing, no searching, no browsing.

Also, the beauty of conversational commerce and care is that this experience is an ongoing conversation that never breaks, so once you're done selling, servicing happens right behind it. Customers never have to find their way to another place.

You’re also in the pocket of the customer, essentially digitizing a great customer experience that we all still crave, hence why a lot of people still shop in stores today.

The opportunities to implement messaging are not just limited to increasing sales, order size and loyalty, but it can also improve personalization, operational efficiencies, lower labor costs, address customer care and improve your team members’ work experience.

Take action - here’s the blueprint for success

We at LivePerson have been at conversational commerce for over 20 years, and have been 100% all-in on messaging for the past few years, helping the first brand, T-Mobile, to go live with asynchronous messaging inside their app back in 2016. Since then, we have been helping others make this shift to asynchronous conversational channels at massive scale and have moved over 100 of the world’s largest enterprises into messaging in a very short period of time.

We’re past the early adopter phase and brands are starting to see a real business impact, and as such, they’re setting a new bar for both sales and service.

Here are the steps a large retail brand can take to implement conversational commerce at scale:

1. Select an official Customer Service Platform (CSP) for Apple Business Chat and Google RCS Business Messaging

Currently, there are only four CSPs integrated for Apple Business Chat and a wider variety of firms (but only one CSP) working with Google RCS.

I can guarantee that there will be a 100% all conversational retail brand in a few years. In a highly competitive space like the retail industry, why not differentiate now and bring this experience to market. In fact, there is a bank in Italy who has already made this move.

2. Implement an open backend platform for key integrations

To manage conversational commerce at scale, you will need an enterprise messaging platform that not only connects you to all of the available consumer endpoints like Apple Business Chat, Facebook Messenger, Google RCS, Alexa, Google Assistant, SMS and others, but also internal systems such as CRM, OMS, Workforce Management and the IVR in your call centers.

You will need to consider all of the key consumer endpoints balanced with speaking across your enterprise systems in a flexible and scalable way. You also need a platform that allows for two-way communication between your brand and customers.

Lastly, with one data breach announcement after another, security and data privacy must be a top priority. Develop a cloud security model that is based on multiple layers; including physical security, governance, operations, application security, vulnerability assessments, built-in product security features, proactive monitoring and business continuity.

LiveEngage, the scalable and secure conversational commerce and care platform for global enterprises

3. Figure out the best use cases

Your brand will absolutely not want to miss out on Apple Business Chat, quickly followed by Google’s RCS. However, these are just two endpoints and will take time to develop on.

You can begin small, like Nike has done in their app called “Ask an Expert,” which is an exclusive option available to only Nike+ members and can provide a highly personalized experience for your most loyal customers. Or move fast, and implement in your customer care center to start deflecting expensive phone calls into asynchronous messaging (not to be confused with synchronous Chat), which typically cuts the cost per contact in half, just as Sky has done.

Then, there are endless possibilities from there - offer concierge services, deliver product or pop-up store announcements, use it for internal communications between team members, and a lot more.

4. Figure out who will answer their questions- chatbot, human or both?

In retail, there are only about 60 - 80 main intents of a customer - “where’s my order?,” “do you have this in size 10?,” “I have an issue and need to make a return,” etc.

We recommend starting off with automation by incorporating a concierge bot at the beginning of the conversation and simply ask “how can I help?” We also find it best practice that bots and humans should work together, and even handle the same conversation if it needs it - working in “tango” as we call it.

60 - 80% of most interactions can be managed by highly specialized chatbots. In fact, we have seen specialized bots contain up to 96% of inquiries.

When implementing your conversational commerce platform, you’ll also want to incorporate multiple bots, whether third party or created in-house, and do A/B testing.

5. Think about good conversational design

You are already sitting on a goldmine of good data - FAQs, chat transcripts, IVR transcripts. Use these when designing conversations and options, from list pickers to product suggestions, based off of their intent.

When developing good conversational design, you’ll want to not just focus on the science, but think more artistically...unlike what has happened with websites and apps, which use highly structured content rather than consumers' natural language.

We have a team dedicated to just conversational design, and before we go live with a brand, we hold two day workshops just on this area. If you don’t deliver a good conversational experience, they’ll just go back to voice calls or not transact with you at all.

I hope this open letter was at the very least thought-provoking and you have some insights to share at the next team meeting, but most importantly that you’ll take action to learn more today.

Yours truly,

Brandon Fluharty

I sit on the enterprise strategic account team with leading global conversational commerce platform, LivePerson (NASDAQ: LPSN). I work with large enterprise brands to implement a best-of-breed technology stack that will transform the customer care and sales experience to digital messaging, leveraging bots, AI and a proven operational blueprint. Follow me on Twitter @BrandonTechExec and read more about LivePerson news here.

#conversationalcommerce #retail #messaging #businesschat #rcs