Chat has long been used by merchants to enhance the digital experience by providing an excellent, responsive and cost-effective solution to customer service. In the advent of omnichannel operations and the age of instant gratification, consumers today are expecting businesses to go one step further. Personal video shopping solves for just that while complementing and augmenting the chat function. Boutiq offers a personal and human touchpoint that can guide customers from discovery through checkout resulting in higher AOV and LTV. Eight in ten consumers are more likely to make a purchase when brands offer a personalized experience and feel a strong emotional connection to a brand. Many Boutiq customers already use a separate chat app and in this post we’re breaking down how personal video shopping and chat work together to make each other stronger as part of a comprehensive sales and customer care strategy.

What is Chat Great For?

Chatbots and live-chat apps provide tons of benefits to your customers and customer service teams. The Shopify App Store offers plenty of quality options such as Gorgias, re:amaze, and many others. As more and more chatbots are utilized to create automatic responses to inbound messages, customer service teams are able to delegate more time to requests that need more personalization. Chat excels at order tracking, initiating returns, refunds and replacements. Automated customer service chats allow for service outside of traditional business hours while delivering instant responses. With chat you can set up cost-effective immediate response and resolution times for simple requests: tracking orders, refunds, returns or cancellations. Having automated responses triggered by keywords or phrases is great when your business receives a large number of tickets each day. But some of those still require more TLC than bots can handle, and that’s where your customer care team comes in with live-chat. As described by Gorgias, “live chat offers more of a personalized, human touch that can go a long way toward improving your customer experience.” Connecting with a real person goes a long way towards forming long-lasting customer relationships. They can handle the requests that are high priority or need more personalization. Freeing up their hours with the help of automation makes for a better experience on both ends of the chat. Having a strong chat system and presence is a powerful tool that creates more seamless customer service experiences.

Let’s Chat: How They Work Together

Integrating chat with personal video shopping is a simple and necessary step to realizing your online store’s potential. Together they are able to scale customers’ shopping experience, and your business’ AOV and LTV. This is most easily accomplished by positioning the two differently on your website. Shoppers are accustomed to chat widgets while personal video shopping can be introduced as a separate widget location on the other side of your pages, or offered as a more exclusive VIP option via a landing page, menu option, separate fold or banner. Or better yet, by an exclusive invitation via your email marketing or social media channels. 

While chat operates as it always has, it can be a springboard to starting a personal video shopping call that can convert. Your customer care team can identify promising prospects and offer them to go on an instant video call or schedule a virtual appointment - and then message them the link straight from the chat app.

Similarly, video calls and appointments can be streamlined into your chat service for tracking and follow up. A new appointment, a missed customer video call, or a message from a customer who is trying to connect can open a new ticket in your chat solution. 

And from a logistical and staffing perspective, customer care teams can take video calls which benefits themselves (professional growth and commissions), the merchant and the customer.