Conversational commerce

Sara Heegaard March 3, 20222 minute read

Sara is a copywriter focused on lifting up Recharge's merchants, partners, and their customers. Before Recharge, her past lives included writing and editing at four different subscription... Full bio

What is conversational commerce?

Conversational commerce (also referred to as conversational marketing or chat commerce) is a practice in ecommerce where brands use social interaction and social touchpoints to sell products or services. This can be done through technologies such as chat apps/messaging apps (i.e. Facebook Messenger or Apple Business Chat), voice assistants (i.e. Google Assistant), conversational commerce chatbots on an ecommerce website, SMS messages with ecommerce stores, and more. When done effectively, a conversational commerce strategy has the power to move customers through the sales funnel by delivering convenience, a positive customer experience with online shopping, and decision support. 

How conversational commerce works

Utilizing conversational commerce platforms allows businesses to create personalized touchpoints with their shoppers at every stage of the customer journey. By enabling consumers to interact with the brand in a variety of different ways, conversational tools help brands guide their customers through the purchasing process. This could come in the form of personalized recommendations for products, voice commands to purchase a product via a voice assistant, instant messages on a chat platform for customer service questions, options to place an order via a messaging app, SMS marketing messages alerting shoppers to new products, and more. 

Conversational commerce strategies not only hold the potential to increase sales—they also have the opportunity to improve customer satisfaction. Conversational commerce provides a deeper level of personalization, enabling businesses to better meet customers where they are. Ultimately, this ecommerce strategy gives consumers greater control and flexibility over the shopping experience while automating certain support needs for businesses.