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How Much Time and Money Can an Online Store Save with AI Chatbots?

How Much Time and Money Can an Online Store Save with AI Chatbots?

In the fast-paced world of online commerce, efficient customer service is paramount. AI chatbots have emerged as a revolutionary solution in this competitive landscape, allowing eCommerce brands to improve their support quality while reducing operational costs.

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Research shows that businesses leveraging AI chatbots save up to 30% in customer support costs and can remarkably speed up their response times.

No wonder, the global AI market in retail and eCommerce is projected to grow from $9.4Bn to $85.1Bn by 2032 一 a CAGR of 31.8% during this period.

This post offers exclusive insights on how AI chatbots can support online stores to save time and money.

Top Challenges of Traditional Customer Support

The traditional form of customer support faces several challenges such as high costs, delays, and inefficiencies, leading to customer frustration and poor retention.

  • High Operational Costs: Having a 24/7 customer support team in place demands resources, salaries, training, and infrastructure. These expenses can strain budgets.
  • Time-and-Effort Intensive Processes: Human customer support professionals spend considerable time attending to repetitive queries. Usually, these queries are related to order tracking or returns and can be effectively addressed using FAQs or chatbots.
  • Delays: In the absence of adequate staffing and technology, customers face delays, leading to dissatisfaction and frustration.
  • Poor Retention: Without an efficient customer service process in place, customers will switch to a competitor brand. Research by PwCshows that more than half of the customers are likely to walk away from a brand after a poor experience.

Thus, eCommerce brands cannot afford to live by the traditional practices to up their customer support game.

How AI Chatbots Can Save Time and Money for E-Commerce Brands

In today’s dynamic eCommerce environment, AI chatbots are instrumental in boosting operational efficiency and reducing costs. Here’s how they can streamline customer support processes for online stores in terms of time and money.

1. Automate Repetitive Queries

By automating repetitive customer queries, AI chatbots can significantly improve customer support efficiency and cut support costs for eCommerce brands. These chatbots are programmed to adeptly handle routine and repetitive queries like FAQs, order tracking, returns, and more, thus accelerating the response times and adding to customer delight.

Chatbots can manage simple and repetitive customer queries and resolve up to 91% of such queries without human intervention. Moreover, customers with complex requests experience shorter wait times and more attention from service agents.

2. Ensure a Short Response Time and 24/7 Availability

Since chatbots offer immediate response and assistance at any time, online stores can surpass customer expectations of prompt service. In a 2023 Statista survey involving US consumers, 6 in 10 respondents appreciated chatbots for their immediate availability. 45% valued the immediate response and resolution of their queries.

AI chatbots can manage high volumes of inquiries without delays, thereby improving the overall customer experience and satisfaction.

3. Enhance Productivity

AI integration in the eCommerce processes has proven to boost productivity. A study on Generative AI at Work involving 5172 customer support agents shared that an AI-based conversational assistant led to a 14% increase in issue resolution per hour.

Less experienced employees and those with lesser customer management skills experienced an improvement in their speed and quality of service.

4. Reduce Operational Costs

Automating customer interactions hugely cuts down the money businesses invest in customer service. Recent statistics reveal that businesses save up to $11Bn and over 2.5Bn hours using chatbots.

Chatbots ensure faster response times and improve customer experience compared to manual responses from agents.

Such automation minimizes the need to hire and train customer service teams. Moreover, chatbots work 24/7 without breaks, eliminating the costs involved in overtime and night shifts. Businesses can thus reallocate these savings to growth-focused areas for scalability.

5. Improve Efficiency and Retention

First call retention (FCR) rate is a critical metric for proactive customer service. It measures the ability of a business to resolve issues during the first contact with the customer.

Hence, a high FCR rate relates to improved customer satisfaction and retention, having a positive impact on revenue. Research reveals that for a mid-sized business even a 1% improvement in FCR can lead to an annual operating savings of $286,000.

AI chatbots enhance FCR by handling routine and repetitive queries and offering instant and satisfactory query responses. This boosts customer satisfaction and retention, allowing human service agents to focus on complex queries efficiently.

Investing in a Suitable AI Chatbot

When choosing a suitable AI chatbot, it is critical to prioritize certain features that will enhance customer support. Here’s what you should keep in mind.

  • Ease of Use: Make sure you select a chatbot that has an intuitive design for customers and the customer support team. A user-friendly platform ensures easy onboarding, seamless adoption, and efficient interactions for customers and support teams.
  • Seamless Integration: Choose a chatbot that integrates seamlessly with your existing tech infrastructure, such as CRM, helpdesk software, eCommerce platform, and more. For this, you need not opt for popular platforms like Zendesk. Several alternatives to Zendesk offer exceptional AI-powered features and integration capabilities for effective customer support. Moreover, platforms like Thena.ai are equipped with features for request detection and internal triaging capabilities which Zendesk isn’t.
  • Advanced Analytics: The solution you choose must have robust analytics capabilities, offering in-depth insights to the support team. This allows the team to monitor customer interactions closely, measure performance, and drive continuous improvement.
  • Scalability and Personalization: Opt for a chatbot that can effortlessly scale with your business needs as high-growth businesses often face increased query volumes.

In such a scenario, the chatbot should be able to handle the queries effectively, while offering personalized responses. Tailored responses using customer data can make the interactions more engaging, boosting satisfaction and loyalty.

Summing Up

AI chatbots are a revolutionary solution for online stores looking to improve their customer support while boosting their efficiency and revenue. By delivering instant support, automating responses to repetitive queries, and offering tailored solutions, businesses can enhance customer satisfaction, drive high retention rates, and free up resources for critical profit-driving campaigns.

Embrace AI chatbots today to secure a competitive advantage and thrive in the increasingly competitive eCommerce marketplace.