Category: Retail & E-Commerce

  • Top 14 Use Cases for Your E-Commerce Chatbot

    Chatbots are not new to the world of E-Commerce. What’s new is the integration of eCommerce chatbots into messaging apps like WhatsApp, Facebook messenger, and WeChat.

    E-commerce chatbots are a great way for online shops to generate leads. They engage passive visitors on a retailer’s website, app, or other digital touch-points with intelligent suggestions and convert them into engaged prospects.

    When shopping online, the majority of people look for discounts and bargains. An E-Commerce chatbot can immediately inform a potential consumer to any discounts or special deals, and either provide them with discount codes or send them to the appropriate sections of the portal. Companies are investing left and right to get their own chatbots, and why not?

    These top three messaging apps alone account for a total of over four billion active users per month. Yes, that’s a billion with a capital B!

    With the increase in eCommerce competition, understanding a customer’s needs and preferences has become more important than ever to dominate the market.

    And this is where conversational AI platforms such as Convert by ORI come into play. With access to data collections, shopping patterns, and technologies like deep machine learning, chatbots are probably the best bet in customer acquisition and retention by predicting exactly what customers are looking for.


    But that’s not all. These chatbots have untapped potentials that can be explored in eCommerce. Here are some eCommerce chatbot use cases:

    1. Customer Acquisition:

    Instead of going through different pages of a website to know about a particular product, sellers can now simply redirect customers to a WhatsApp chatbot to simplify the process.

    Chatbots provide not only fluid, unrivaled experience, and easy access to information but also make one feel as if they are talking to a friend about a product, thanks to personalization.

    The E-Commerce chatbot may engage prospects in chats, assess their needs, and direct them to the products they want or provide customized product recommendations using Natural Language Understanding (NLU). This aids the e-commerce platform’s consumer acquisition efforts even more.

    2. Accelerate Sales:

    Everyone likes discount coupons but going through the awkward email verification and then, going back and forth between the website and the email is just too frustrating. On the other hand, chatbots are pretty swift and sleek.

    Sellers can simply offer discount coupons inside the eCommerce bot whenever a customer joins the conversation through a landing page or an ad and have a few casual interactions.

    3.Improved Personalization For User Interaction:

    When a user joins a conversation with a chatbot, it often has data like name, contact number, county, city of residence, etc.
    Based on those variables, different conversation flows can be personalized.

    For instance, if a customer has recently been talking about his interests and the places he previously visited, our chatbot can recommend places based on the previous data.

    Personalization is an enormous factor when it comes to modern bot automation, but if your chatbot talks like a robot, you should consider using Oriserve’s chatbots that comes with tons of personalizations.

    4. Get Multilingual Support:

    There are 185 countries in the world and the best way to engage with each customer in each country is to connect in his/her native language. It is not just tactical but also emotional, as humans always prefer someone familiar.

    With the wide-reaching capability of Messenger Apps and the deep impacts of chatbots, offering multilingual support further strengthens the brand’s impression in customers’ minds.

    5. Enhanced Product Suggestions:

    For product suggestions, one-on-one conversations work like a charm, thanks to the personal touch that chatbots add.

    Although it is still underrated, Facebook and WhatsApp chatbots are great at selling and cross-selling products by providing both adequate product information and personalization to users at the same time.

    6. Conduct Customer Surveys:

    Unlike other trends, quizzes are considered to be one of the activities that never fade away and hence, serves as an important tool to collect important data about customers.

    Sellers can conduct multiple quizzes inside a chatbot in a month to collect data of what a user likes and based on that, it can not only offer better personalizations but also re-target potential customers accordingly.

    7.Automate Customer Support For Queries:

    When it comes to queries, customers expect to be served within the first five minutes after checking a product.

    On one hand, FAQs may not have enough information and on the other hand, talking to an actual person over a call is often time and energy-consuming.

    Chatbots act as a perfect bridge between these two. It not only acts swiftly but also provides adequate answers to queries related to products/services. One more advantage of chatbots is that users can continue from where the conversation was left anytime and anywhere.

    8. Get Efficient Search Results:

    Yes, search alone accounts for more than half of the eCommerce sales. Doing a search on eCommerce sites takes some efforts, and if someone has a slow internet connection, that can be frustrating as well.

    But with eCommerce chatbots, it is just a few clicks away. It’s as simple as messaging a friend on any messaging app. Just open the chatbot, type a few words, and bingo!

    9. Clear Abandoned Carts:

    Abandonment is a huge problem in the eCommerce industry. Over 75% of the customers don’t check out with the cart, often without even noticing what’s inside the cart.

    The usual way of dealing with this is sending a reminder email, but the problem is, only 40% of the emails are opened and less than a quarter of them result in sales.

    Messages, on the other hand, still works well. Over 90% of the total messages are opened daily. Hence, sending reminders over chatbots has a far better chance of resulting in a purchase.

    10. Easy Order Management:

    Gone are the days when users had to navigate through the entire website to get order details. With the help of eCommerce chatbots, users are only a few texts away from ordering products, changing existing orders, and even canceling existing orders.

    11. Simplify Shipment Tracking:

    Sellers can also send regular shipment updates to users over chatbots, using back-end integration with the eCommerce platform.
    For instance, the current status and location of the shipment can be forwarded to the user over regular intervals.

    12. Confirm Transactions:

    Emails are great for sending payment confirmation, but there is a high chance that it may end up in the junk folder. Hence, creating confusion.

    With the use of chatbots, sellers can now directly send the confirmation to the user’s messaging app. This also helps to keep track of orders, payments, and chats in one place rather than being scattered all over the place.

    What’s more? Popular platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp have end-to-end encryption policies. Thus, sending crucial information to customers is safer than ever.

    13. Receive Faster Feedback:

    Once the product is received, over 50% of consumers no longer bother to open emails that ask for feedback solely because it requires some kind of extra effort. Only a handful of them may give one and that too if they had an unsatisfactory experience.

    With chatbots, getting feedback has gotten a lot easier. A list of short questions can be sent over chatbots to know how the entire transaction went from the customer’s perspective.

    For instance, shortly after the customer receives his/ her order, a WhatsApp text can be sent to know the customer’s experience about the product purchase.

    The same method can be used to send post-sales support.
    For example, if a customer requires an installation guide to use the product, the same can be sent over.

    14. Get More With Revolutionary Product Identification:

    Imagine a situation where a customer does not know the actual product name but has a picture of the same. Let the AI chatbots, programmed to scan and identify products, do a reverse search of the image, and come up with similar products with a link to purchase.
    This, with no doubt, would be game-changing!

    In a Nutshell:

    Chatbots are developing every day, delivering new possibilities.
    The personalized service provided by E-Commerce chatbots, together with the simplicity of navigation, selection, and transaction, considerably improves customer experience and leads to a positive view of the online retailer as a digitally aware customer-first company.

    E-Commerce chatbots’ usefulness as a sales enablement platform cannot be understated, with Juniper predicting that, chatbots would produce $112 billion in online retail purchases!

    This piece of technology will not only save time and resources but also give customers a whole new experience of shopping that they never had before for sure. Looking for an AI-powered, intelligent, and result focused chatbot? Schedule a demo with our experts, today.

  • AI & Humans: What Lies Ahead?

    On the potential of the Internet, Anthony Rutkowski, “a de facto global spokesman for all things cyberspace,” told the Washington Post in February 1996, “These technologies are going to profoundly affect the way we perceive our humanity. We all have ideas to share and stories to tell and now we really can.”

    There were also pessimists like Sidney Perkowitz who wrote In the May/June 1996 issue of The American Prospect, “Aimless chat is the insidious seduction of the Internet; it can replace inward contemplation and real experience.”

    Now, AI is currently in a similar phase. From being a sci-fi fantasy it has evolved and fast, to a real-world super utility. While there are those who still look at AI and Machine Learning technologies as something to be wary of. Underneath all the chatter though, there is the hope of a better future.

    #1 Disruption of AI in Retail

    Over the past four years, the application of AI has increased by up to 270% across many sectors. Additionally, it was expected that the use of AI across various business operations may help retailers save over $340 billion by 2022, and it did.

    This in itself is a testament to the great future of AI in the retail industry. Companies like Amazon are testing AI amalgamated with drones for delivery in less than 30 minutes. The future of AI in retail is bound to be more autonomous and individualized which will further provide more choices to consumers.

    #2 Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare

    AI will be crucial in preventing close to 86% of errors in the healthcare sector. AI coupled with predictive analytics can be used to better understand how numerous circumstances such as place of birth; dietary habits, etc. affect health. Future healthcare systems will likely use AI to predict when a person is most likely to acquire a chronic illness and recommend preventative medication to treat it before it worsens.

    However, if we take a different perspective, the “QR-based Health code” example in China and Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs) have also raised the issue of who is in charge of the system—the user or the machine.

    #3 AI & Job Opportunities

    Since the advent of AI, it has been a common fear that AI will leave people jobless. But that’s not the whole truth. We may envision a more comfortable future for ourselves in which new occupations will be created rather than eliminated by artificial intelligence.

    While it is true that AI will eliminate repetitious jobs, it is also true that AI will create twice as many jobs as it eliminates. This is evidence of the claim made in a recent report by the World Economic Forum that AI will generate 58 million new employments by 2022. In fact, India’s AI workforce has increased by almost three times since last year, which is encouraging given the country’s promising future.

    To Conclude:

    AI is undoubtedly here to stay and penetrate further. 

    FeiFei Li, Professor of Computer Science at Stanford Universityhad this to say, “I imagine a world in which AI is going to make us work more productively, live longer, and have cleaner energy.”

  • How D2C Brands Can Leverage WhatsApp Commerce to Drive Exponential Growth?

    Recently Ori created a WhatsApp sales automation bot for 6thStreet.com, a Dubai-based multi-brand D2C brand. The automation brought a 20X boom in the ROI and improved CSAT by up to 12 points in less than 30 days.

    Meta the parent company of WhatsApp published this Exclusive Success Story on it.

    The fact that consumers want a higher-quality personalized customer experience and WhatsApp commerce provides it, many large D2C retailers have already implemented WhatsApp commerce, and others are in the midst of adopting it.

    Below are the Top 5 ways WhatsApp commerce can be used to drive active growth moving forward.

    #1 Offer a Straightforward Shopping Experience

    When you walk into a shopping store, you first walk directly into the desired aisle of clothes or furniture or to that one thing you had in mind. Once you are done purchasing that one thing is when the window-shopping and incidental buying begins.

    The extensive built-in media features of WhatsApp’s commerce, like the Reply button, list messages, catalogs, etc., make shopping convenient. When clubbed with conversational AI capabilities, they create a personalized shopping experience. 

    Conversational AI comprehends the intent and objective and directly takes the user to the desired aisle of products. Over time, this dramatically lowers dropout rates and improves conversions.

    #2 Provide Customized Purchasing Assistance

    Customers anticipate their preferred brand to be aware of their needs and purchasing patterns. According to a recent survey, 80% of consumers agreed.

    D2C firms can actively engage with their customers throughout the buying cycle in a natural way by using a WhatsApp chatbot powered by an AI-recommendation engine like Oriserve, which has multilingual (+150 languages) capabilities. 

    The WhatsApp chatbot can share periodic customized recommendations depending on cost, spending limit, and other preferences. And all this is in the form of conversations and not simply one size fits all offers and coupons.

    #3 Reactivating Cold Leads

    WhatsApp is a wonderful platform to restart conversations with those leads that are occupying rent-free space in your CRM. Your performance marketing will bring in new leads and customers, but with advanced automation AIs like Convert by Ori, WhatsApp will dramatically boost your bottom line by re-engaging with cold leads. As Bryan Eisenberg says, “It’s much easier to double your business by doubling your conversion rate than doubling your traffic.”

    #4 Augmenting Reach & Conversions

    D2C brands can use a WhatsApp chatbot to start a two-way conversation with their potential customers after driving traffic to their WhatsApp Business accounts. 

    The WhatsApp chatbot would then converse with consumers to gather vital personal data and further information about their needs. Remember not all customers are at the same phase of their purchase decision. Think of #ChatGPT with a pre-defined objective of sales. With this data, strong prospect qualification and the creation of a customized sales funnel are made possible.

    #5 Enabling Quick Payments & Assistance on WhatsApp

    Brands are finding it challenging to hold consumers’ attention while simultaneously attempting to provide them with a quality customer experience. The average attention span has decreased to 8 seconds in 2022.

    The simplicity of browsing, shopping, and even paying on a single WhatsApp window is provided by Ori AI’s WhatsApp Commerce solution. By preventing the focus of clients from being diverted to another tab only to make a payment, dropout rates significantly decrease.

    Conclusion:

    Conversational commerce using WhatsApp business API has the potential to boost your brand KPIs. From increasing purchase intent, to sales and also re-engaging with cold leads. Your brand will not only have a better ROI but will dramatically have improved CSAT.

    Write to us at contactus@oriserve.com to know how Gen-AI Agents in collaboation with WhatsApp API can boost your 2025!

  • How Chatbots Are Making Communication Easier for Your E-commerce Platform

    How Chatbots Are Making Communication Easier for Your E-commerce Platform

    “I think you should team up your purple top with beige paperback trousers, brown pumps, and a tote bag,” replies Ori while showing them pictures of the same. “Looks great, thanks,” says Nida.

    “Do you want me to add the other three items to the cart along with the existing purple top?” asks Ori.

    “As fast as you can,” confirms an excited Nida before adding, “Anything else?”

    “Of course, these brilliant danglers and this jacket in size M will go perfectly with the look,” responds Ori.

    “Whaaaaat! I was looking for this Hannah Montana jacket for ages. Love you for this, XOXO,” says Nida with a smile on her face.

    No matter how familiar the rapport may sound to you, the above conversation is not happening between two BFFs. It is an excerpt from customer-chatbot interaction over Whatsapp. And yes, cross-selling is just a glimpse of the possibilities you have with cognitive bots.

    Conversational commerce isn’t just a great notion; user research reveals that people are more willing than ever to shop with bots online. Here are a few reasons why you should use a messaging app to host a bot and increase sales for your online business.

    Speed, Scale, Simplified: The Curious Case of App-bot Integration

    We all have some experience with chatbots while ordering food or raising refunds on leading eCommerce platforms. But their new integration with popular messaging apps such as WhatsApp, WeChat, and Facebook Messenger is what is redefining the online shopping experience for shoppers.

    Credit the cut-throat competition the eCommerce industry currently faces, the market players are rummaging through every possible element to enhance customer experience on their platforms. And you couldn’t agree more with the union of messaging apps and chatbots, as these top three messaging apps alone account for more than four billion active users per month. Hence it makes complete sense for eCommerce brands to use popular messaging apps to interact with new and old customers – since that is where customers spend their time.

    But as every marketing book and marketing professional says, you cannot deliver a perfect experience until you understand the requirements of your audience. Right? This is exactly where cognitive virtual assistants or chatbots enter the picture.

    Well-crafted and designed, intuitive chatbots can assimilate large amounts of information and data and give insights on shopping patterns. This coupled with deep machine learning capabilities enables them to understand and pre-empt what the consumer generally likes or might fancy. This makes cognitive bots the best bet in customer acquisition and retention by predicting precisely what the customer is seeking and proactively suggesting options based on the customer’s likes, interests, and profile.

    So, don’t get surprised if your eCommerce chatbot suggests the right apparel size or displays your most preferred hue of blue for you. It lovingly maintains a database of all things you adore and may want in the future, based on your previous purchases and wish lists, just like your true fan. Cognitive bots ease customer communication in a myriad of ways. Here’s a sneak peek:

    Customer Acquisition:

    Instead of wandering through different web pages to know about a product or service, sellers can redirect customers to a WhatsApp chatbot to ease the process. This not only simplifies the access to information at a single point but also makes the entire experience personalized for the consumer as if discussing the product with a friend.

    This also can considerably accelerate the information gathering phase for the customer, when compared to a user filling up a lead form and waiting for a sales rep or a customer service rep to get back to them.

    We have seen this work well for complex products and services such as financial products, automobiles with multiple versions and varieties, consumer durables, etc. – helping the brand quickly move the consumer along the funnel from awareness to consideration to purchase.

    Accelerate Sales:

    Everyone loves discount coupons hands down. But we hate to recall going through the irritating email verifications and to and fro between email and the website. Chatbots are a one-stop solution for this.

    Sellers can offer discount or promotional codes right within the eCommerce bot whenever a customer joins the conversation through a landing page or an advertisement.

    Smart conversational marketing technologies enable a chatbot on the advertisement itself – where a consumer clicks on the ad, and a chatbot opens up right there, on that very ad. No page load waiting times or redirecting to another page is needed.

    Improves Personalization For User Interaction:

    In most cases, if it’s a returning user, the bot would have a personal profile of the user such as name, age, gender, country, etc. along with contextual information such as past purchases, previous queries and questions asked, and previous interactions when he joins the conversation. Based on this information, a chatbot can serve hyper-personalized suggestions in the conversation. For example, if the customer has been talking about his interests lately, the chatbot can recommend products based on that data which could be a vacation site or the tickets to an upcoming concert, etc.

    A use case in personalization comes from the automobile industry for the launch of a new vehicle. An Indian 4-wheeler manufacturer developed a cognitive voice bot that was able to capture user attributes such as hobbies, favorite color, family or single, likes music or no and map this to car features and segments – creating a powerful and enriched CRM for the brand.

    Multilingual Support:

    Native language appeals the most if you want to strike the right chord during a conversation. With 185 countries in the world, it is practically impossible for any brand to hire an executive who is a pro in all the languages. Here NLP-driven chatbots can make a difference. They not only serve in different languages and dialects but also constantly learn from the user responses, understanding gestures, emotions, tones, and lexicon common to a particular region to offer similar human-like conversations. This adds a touch of familiarity while strengthening the brand’s image in the customer’s mind.

    We saw this in action with one of the telecom giants. The company had initially implemented only English and Hindi languages on the bot. But, with continuous learning and insights, the bot realized that a large number of users preferred to speak in Hinglish. Since then, the cognitive assistants were also capable of conversing in Hinglish, switching between languages midway through the conversation.

    Conduct Surveys for Better Understanding:

    Quizzes and surveys are important tools to collect important data on customers. Sellers can leverage messaging bots to conduct several quizzes to zero in on what the user likes.

    The best part is, that these surveys do not need to feel like surveys. Through Conversational bots, these surveys or quizzes feel like a conversation – making the user comfortable in responding to queries and helping the brand collect relevant and contextual information too.

    This information can be used to create enhanced buyer personas and enrich the CRM, which can be utilized to offer better personalization and also re-target potential customers.

    Automate Customer Support for Queries:

    We often fumingly disconnect the call if not served within the first five minutes of checking the product. Our next step is often negative reviews and escalation, which affects brand image. Moreover, calls are often time- and energy-consuming as the user may have to repeat the query again and again to multiple agents. Chatbots come as a speedy and time-efficient resolution to this dilemma. It picks up the query form where the conversation was left anytime and anywhere.

    Clears Abandoned Carts:

    There have been numerous cases wherein users leave their carts with products stacked in and discard the same on the next visit. Over 75% of the customers do the same without even noticing what’s inside the cart. Though reminders via email may help resolve the issue but frankly, how many of us open such emails. On the other hand, 90% of such messages via chatbots are opened daily, paving far better chances for a purchase.

    Easy Order Management:

    Queries for exchange, returns, refunds, order status keeps the call centers flooded with work during work hours. The sheer volume of such queries makes it difficult to efficiently serve all the customers 24X7. Chatbots converge details of such otherwise scattered information on a single messaging application. And because most of such apps come with end-to-end encryption, receipts regarding transactions and confirmations can also be sent through chats.

    As humans, we are always inclined towards services that are hassle-free and simplify the task for us in some way. Moreover, we tend to prefer those who understand us and make an effort to assess what we may need in the future before we even speak of it.

    In short, someone, almost with the smartness of AI but not plain vanilla robotic. And this is exactly what buddies do, give suggestions, lend continuous support, and speak what you speak, be it English, Hindi, or Prada; a big reason why Conversational AI is taking the eCommerce market by storm.

    Schedule a demo with our experts if you too want to stay ahead in the race of Gen-AI adoption and leverage it to improve your sales without spending a hefty amount.

  • Top 6 AI & Machine Learning Trends to look out for in 2025

    Top 6 AI & Machine Learning Trends to look out for in 2025

    AI and Machine Learning have been the hottest buzzwords in the decade that has gone by. According to a study, 77% of devices that we use in our day-to-day lives are now powered by AI and ML. From platforms like Netflix and Facebook to products like Amazon’s Alexa and Google Home, AI has become the core of nearly every product and service that we come across.

    In 2025, the enterprise world has also added to the capabilities of AI Agents, as they help build strong customer relationships and smooth business operations. No wonder Conversational AI has become a fascination of global businesses and SMEs alike.

    The AI-ML Industry is growing rapidly and unlocking new avenues for enterprises aiming to bring vital changes to the ecosystem. According to a Gartner study, around 37% of all companies reviewed were found utilizing some type of ML in their business.

    The Global Artificial Intelligence Hardware Market was valued at approximately USD 9.8 billion in 2019 and is pegged to grow with a healthy CAGR of more than 37.5% over the forecast period 2020-2027.

    So, as we begin a promising decade in the New Normal, it becomes important to know about the trends of AI-ML that might follow.

    Robotic Process Automation + Artificial Intelligence = Hyper-Automation

    Hyper-automation was identified by Gartner, as one of the best technology trends to be used in an organization for automation.

    The pandemic has stepped up the adoption of the concept that all the company’s operations should be automated including legacy business processes. AI and ML are the significant drivers of hyper-automation. If Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Machine Learning (ML), and Artificial Intelligence (AI) work in harmony to automate complex business processes, then hyper-automation is a means for real digital transformation.

    Power of Machine Learning (ML) + Internet of Things (IoT)

    Kevin Ashton is considered the father of IoT, which comprises a smart infrastructure connected via the internet to the cloud. The Internet of Things became a rapidly emerging segment in the last decade.

    Economic analyst Transforma Insights has forecasted that the worldwide IoT market will comprise 24.1 billion devices by 2030, producing $1.5 trillion in income.

    Arthur Samuel is the inventor of Machine Learning who defined this term in 1959. The utilization of Machine Learning is progressively interlaced with IoT. Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, and Deep Learning, for instance, are now being used to make IoT devices and services smarter and more secure.

    Augmented Reality in Chatbots

    Artificial Intelligence together with Augmented Reality (AR) is considered one of the main enablers of the Internet of Senses (IoS), a megatrend from 2021 toward 2030.

    Augmented Reality is quite a unique technology that actually takes customer engagement to a whole new level. AR and chatbots are two of the most promising e-commerce opportunities. Both solutions offer a wide range of applications that could help organizations become more successful while also keeping customers happy.

    Customers are already accustomed to conversing with chatbots about their questions whether in a store or on a website, so adding augmented reality would take things to the next level. When these two technologies are coupled, they open up a world of previously unexplored possibilities.

    Innovation in this regard is an app or website for the users where a smart cognitive chatbot leverages augmented reality to facilitate the purchase decision, prompting customers with relevant recommendations and new experiences.

    Uniqueness, personalized content, better and memorable customer experience are a few ways that chatbots and augmented reality can be used to make the customer’s purchasing experience more enjoyable and satisfying. For example, if you want to see how trousers would fit you, you can use AR technology to determine the correct size for you by simply uploading a picture of yourself.

    Reinforcement Learning

    Reinforcement Learning is the area of machine learning that can be used by companies in the future for deep learning, thereby improving the effectiveness of gathered data.

    An ideal illustration of reinforcement learning is a cognitive virtual assistant that addresses simple user queries like greetings, order bookings, and consultation calls and through reinforcement learning builds and improves on these interactions giving it the ability to address more complex user queries such as product demos and human-like conversations.

    Use of AI & ML in Business Forecasting & Analysis

    This technology is already being used by experts to screen a set of data over a period of time which then is examined and utilized for making smart decisions. With changing strategies, the ML networks can give conjectures with accuracy as high as 95%.

    We will soon see organizations blending recurrent neural networks for high fidelity forecasting.

    We are already witnessing the use of AI and ML to make smarter marketing and product decisions by capturing real-time insights into customer conversations.

    Increased adoption of hyper-personalized and contextual communication.

    We have all heard of the saying that Content is King. However, 2025 will bring in a change where we hear “Context is King”.

    With the adoption of AI & ML tools and methods – we will see brands and organizations increasingly adopt a more personalized and context-driven approach to communication.

    Augmented reality and chatbots, when correctly merged and deployed, might be extremely beneficial to many organizations, particularly in the retail industry. Proper implementation will result in a positive client experience on your online store, resulting in increased income for the company.

    Schedule a demo with our experts to know more about how you can achieve the same for your retail business.