2021年对话平台趋势

在过去几年中，即时聊天和对话平台技术取得了重大进展。得益于人工智能和机器学习，这些实现已经不仅仅是客户支持工具，而是电商网站收入引擎的重要组成部分。

随着流行病的持续，电子商务现在正以牺牲实体店为代价而蓬勃发展。但由于亚马逊仍占所有在线交易的44%，电商企业主必须不断寻找让客户留在网站上并在未来的业务中回头的方法。

即时聊天是零售商可以在网站上配备的最重要的工具之一，这样当客户对产品或服务有任何问题或疑虑时，他们就可以得到即时的客户支持。这对于服务具有较高购买意向的消费者尤为重要，这样他们就不会跳转到竞争对手那里去获得问题的答案并进行购买。

然而，即时聊天工具的好坏取决于其背后的团队和技术 -- 不同零售商的即时聊天体验可能会有很大差异。每个认真对待转换的在线卖家都需要考虑一些基本因素。

以下是零售商需要了解的内容，以便在 2021 年及以后从即时聊天工具中获得最大的转换率和满意的客户。

渠道多，时间少

当今天的消费者有问题要问零售商时，他们可能会尝试通过越来越多的沟通渠道来发送信息：网站、电子邮件、Facebook、Twitter、Instagram等。客户等待回复的时间越长，认真购物的人就越有可能在其他地方寻找他们想要的东西。

但现在，即时聊天技术可以整合到所有的各种沟通渠道中。通过渠道到达的客户信息可以发送到零售商支持人员的智能手机上的应用程序，这样他们就可以在一天中的任何时间对通过任何渠道传来的任何客户信息进行即时回复。

AI，机器学习

很少有技术没有受益于人工智能和机器学习 -- 即时聊天也不例外。在客户满意度方面，技术和人类体验之间存在着微妙的平衡。归根结底，自动化的优势在于它为企业节省了时间和金钱。缺点是，有时你的客户只是想与人类交谈，并与机器人打交道时感到沮丧。

雇用人类一遍又一遍地回答同样的问题是没有意义的。这就是为什么许多零售商提供聊天机器人来回答常见问题，但从客户的角度来看，这些问题往往是乏善可陈或令人沮丧的体验。

具有良好人工智能的即时聊天系统将监控客户与销售人员之间数十万或数百万次的即时聊天对话，以识别常见的客户问题，并确定哪些问题可以自动化与需要人工互动。

现在，人工智能可以分析您所有客户的即时聊天会话，了解最常见的问题，将这些答案整合到机器人中，并将想要与人交谈的客户立即转到合适的人那里。

AI 和客户意图

对于零售商来说，最近最热门的话题之一就是客户意向。在访问网站的顾客中，只有17%的人有认真购买的意向。反过来，这意味着83%的访问网站的人没有真正购买任何东西的意图。

得益于人工智能，最先进的即时聊天系统可以帮助识别网站上哪些购物者有认真的购买意向。这让零售商有机会打开一个即时聊天门户，并为这些客户提供与销售人员交谈的机会。与店内体验非常相似，这些销售人员可以帮助回答任何问题，最大限度地提高这些客户的转化率，向上销售更多产品，并提供最佳的客户体验。

整合自由产品专家

零售商没有一个24/7的团队随时准备与在线客户进行即时聊天的主要原因之一是费用。

然而，最近展开的另一个关键趋势是在电子商务即时聊天系统中整合以自由职业模式（类似于Uber）工作的独立产品专家和销售人员。

零售商现在不需要支付全职员工来回答客户的询问，而是可以利用自由产品专家库，他们在家工作，将代表零售商帮助客户。

例如，Lowes 使用一个自由职业家装专家团队来回复客户。这些gig-economy专家都是根据他们的专业知识--在这种情况下是家庭装修--进行预先审核的。许多其他零售商利用自由职业专家进行聊天，以帮助美容产品、摄影、消费电子产品等。

这些专家顾问在家工作，自己选择工作时间，随时跳到对话平台上，与某家零售商的客户，甚至多家零售商的客户进行即时聊天，回答产品问题或追加销售。自由顾问每参与一次聊天会话就能获得报酬，并从他们帮助实现的销售中赚取佣金。

从零售商的角度来看，他们拥有最优秀的产品专家，可以帮助那些被确认为对其网站有重大意向的客户进行转化和追加销售，而无需支付全职员工的费用。

结语

电子商务继续呈指数级增长，但由于亚马逊总是只需点击一下，零售商可以通过提供更好的客户体验并在网站上添加人性化元素来超越竞争对手。即时聊天是连接在线客户与您公司人员或代表您工作的人员的主要入口。

即时聊天或对话平台的好坏取决于其背后的技术和团队。将即时聊天视为电子商务体验的重要组成部分并充分利用该技术的零售商，与没有这样做的零售商相比，其转换率和客户满意度会更高。

原文题目：Conversational Platform Trends for 2021

原文：Live chat and conversational platform technologies have made significant advancements in the past few years. Thanks to AI and machine learning, these implementations have gone beyond just being a customer support tool, to a crucial component of an e-commerce website's revenue engine.

With the pandemic ongoing, e-commerce is booming right now at the expense of brick-and-mortar. But with Amazon still accounting for 44 percent of all online transactions, e-commerce business owners must constantly search for ways to keep customers on their site and returning for future business.

Live chat is one of the most important tools that retailers can have on their website so that when a customer has any questions or concerns about a product or service, they can get instant customer support. This is particularly important to service consumers with a high-level of intent to purchase, so they don't bounce to a competitor to get their questions answers and make the buy.

However, a live chat tool is only as good as the team and technology behind it -- and live chat experiences can vary dramatically from retailer to retailer. There are essential factors that every online seller who is serious about conversions needs to consider.

Here's what retailers need to know to get maximum conversions and satisfied customers from live chat tools in 2021 and beyond.

So Many Channels, So Little Time

When today's consumers have a question for a retailer, there are a growing number of communications channels they might try to send a message through: the website, email, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. The longer a customer is left waiting for a response, the more likely a serious shopper will have searched elsewhere for what they were looking for.

But now, live chat technology can integrate into all the various communication channels. Customer messages that arrive via channel can be sent to an app on the smartphones of the retailer's support staff, so they can instantly respond to any customer messages that come through any channel, at any time of day.

AI, Machine Learning

Very few technologies haven't benefited from AI and machine learning -- and live chat is no exception. There is a fine balance between technology and human experience when it comes to customer satisfaction. At the end of the day, the advantage of automation is that it saves businesses time and money. The downside is that sometimes your customers just want to speak with a human and get frustrated dealing with bots.

Hiring humans to answer the same questions over and over makes little sense. This is why many retailers offer a chatbot to respond to common questions, but these can often be a lackluster or frustrating experience from the customer's perspective.

A live chat system with good AI will monitor hundreds of thousands or millions of live chat conversations between customers and sales associates to identify common customer problems and determine which questions can be automated verses requiring human interaction.

AI can now analyze all your customers' live chat sessions to understand the most common questions, integrate these answers into a bot, and redirect customers who want to speak to a human instantly with the right person.

AI and Customer Intent

One of the hottest topics recently for retailers has been customer intent. Only 17 percent of customers who visit a website have a serious intention to buy. In turn, this means that 83 percent of people visiting a website have no intent of actually buying anything.

Thanks to AI, state-of-the-art live chat systems can help identify which shoppers on a website have a serious intent to purchase. This gives the retailer a chance to open up a live chat portal and offer these customers the chance to speak to a sales associate. Very much like the in-store experience, these sales associates can help answer any questions, maximize the chance of converting these customers, upsell more products, and offer the best customer experience.

Integrating Freelance Product Experts

One of the primary reasons that retailers don't have a 24/7 team of people on standby to live chat with their online customers is expense.

However, another key trend that has unfolded recently is integrating independent product experts and sales associates who work on a freelance model (similar to Uber), in the e-commerce live chat system.

Instead of paying full-time staff to respond to customer queries, retailers can now tap into a pool of freelance product experts who work from home and will help customers on behalf of the retailer.

For example, Lowes uses a team of freelance home improvement experts to respond to its customers. These gig-economy experts are pre-vetted on their expertise -- in this case, home improvement. Many other retailers utilize freelance experts for chat to help with beauty products, photography, consumer electronics, etc.

These expert advisors work from home, choose their own hours, and jump onto the conversational platform whenever they want to live chat with customers of a particular retailer, or even multiple retailers' customers, to answer product questions or upsell. The freelance advisor gets paid per chat session they participate in and earns a commission of sales they help to make.

From a retailer's perspective, they have best-of-breed product experts helping convert and upsell customers who are identified as having serious intent on their website, without the expense of paying full-time staff.

Conclusion

E-commerce continues to grow exponentially, but with Amazon always just one click away, retailers can outdo the competition by providing a better customer experience and adding the human element to their website. Live chat is the main portal for connecting online customers to people from your company, or someone who works on your behalf.

A live chat or conversational platform is only as good as the technology and the team behind it. Retailers who see it as a crucial part of their e-commerce experience and use the technology to the best of its ability will experience greater conversions and customer satisfaction scores compared to those who do not.