The pandemic has generated many changes in our lifestyle, including the use of e-commerce. The new conversational commerce guarantees multiple consumer-buyer benefits among which are comfort, immediacy, personalization of service and closeness.
According to data from the Spanish startup Gus, customer service with solutions such as artificial intelligence and instant messaging It increases satisfaction and increase sales by up to 65%. This new market, according to a report by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), would reach 130,000 million dollars by the year 2025.
Another benefit that c-commerce guarantees is that the buyer’s investment in technological knowledge is minimal, since they use the same communication channels both to make an online purchase and to interact with family and friends. The latest Whatsapp business messaging research study found that 75% of users prefer to communicate with businesses the same way they do with family and friends.
Currently, there are 15 billion mobile devices operating globally, presenting an essential opportunity for conversational commerce. Users spend an average of two hours a day with their smartphone, mostly using the WhatsApp and Facebook applications, the main messaging channels for conversational commerce, which allow comfortable, direct and effective communication. Different studies state that eight out of 10 people have never made an online purchase, so c-commerce provides the buyer with security compared to other customer service channels.
Relevant trend worldwide
Conversational commerce has become one of the most relevant trends worldwide, so much so that WhatsApp has incorporated a new function into its activity. It is a profile for companies that guarantees the consumer all the comforts: working hours, location, link to website, creation of a product catalog, etc.
The objective of c-commerce would be more focused on customer loyalty than to the mere purchase of products or contracting of services, since through the company-consumer transaction a direct relationship of trust would be created for both parties. Also according to the data provided by the WhatsApp business platform, among the advantages of this new service are the higher qualification of potential customers compared to other channels (40%), as well as the reduction in acquisition costs (5%).
In this sense, Jaime Navarro, CEO of Gus, the second Spanish company to become part of the global club of Official WhatsApp Business Solution Providers and to offer this service, sees this preference as an opportunity that benefits both parties: “Third-party instant messaging channels such as WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger have already been widely accepted in the global market, making them ideal for companies to offer their services,” adding that in the coming years 90% of conversational commerce will take place through instant messaging apps such as the WhatsApp API.
