The constant improvement and implementation of new technologies will undoubtedly make businesses grow; however, as a result of the pandemic, the way people around the world shop has changed, making e-commerce much more relevant.

Despite these projections, one of the main obstacles faced by online stores is the abandonment of shopping carts. This tends to happen since the stores do not always have adequate communication channels to interact with their visitors, solve their inquiries or even make recommendations about products and services.

In the digital world, immediacy is key to making a sale; therefore, having fast and effective customer support, with 24/7 availability, providing easy product selection and an easy sales process makes chatbots the best allies to exploit the potential of e-commerce.

According to HubSpot's Battle of the Bots report, 71% of people willing to use chatbots for customer support do so because they want their problem solved quickly, while 56% of those who use them say they prefer this way of communication when shopping online, rather than calling customer service.

According to NDS Cognitive Labs, a Mexican company specialized in developing AI-based solutions, there are several chatbots that can be great allies for e-commerce, including:

Chats. These wizards are based on a set of rules; that is, they only work for simple inquiries, provide limited information, and cannot interpret the user's natural way of communicating.

Artificial Intelligence. These types of tools are increasingly gaining ground in e-commerce, as they understand the language of users, are able to handle complicated requests, assist in purchases and maintain fluid conversations.

The latest advancements in Artificial Intelligence make it possible for these virtual assistants to have pleasant interactions with users by resembling a natural conversation, which guarantees satisfying answers for the user and a friendly shopping experience.

"These types of tools work through Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing (NLP) to be able to interpret a large number of conversations and user requests. They not only respond to programmed questions, but also interpret the user's natural language and are capable of assisting in complex queries," states Gustavo Páres, CEO of NDS Cognitive Labs.

In addition to their availability, chatbots also provide other advantages such as data collection to improve the level of interaction with users. This data is extremely valuable for companies, as it helps them improve their commercial and marketing strategies by knowing the best-selling products, as well as understanding their customers better, recognizing trends, identifying the most frequent queries and even non-conformities.

"AI-based chatbots collect information by asking users how or why they landed on this website. They are also able to remember users' preferences and offer promotions or new products, due to their ability to interpret language and access companies' databases," Parés adds.

What other advantages do intelligent chatbots bring to e-commerce?

They implement sales strategies. By introducing messaging channels equipped with chatbots, a company can create prospects for further growth due to the assistant's functions. These tools are able to implement sales strategies such as up-selling ( recommending additional products that are even more profitable for the company) and cross-selling (recommending complementary products to those already selected by the customer in the shopping cart).

Time savings. AI automates conversations, can thereby help companies save time and money that could then be spent on other activities. They also allow better management of personnel, as they can reassign them to more complex tasks or those that require more attention.

Cost-effectiveness. Chatbots are a good investment and their costs vary depending on the complexity of the functions they perform. Due to the advances in AI and the fact that more and more companies are implementing them, there is a large number of these virtual assistants in the market, and there is bound to be one available at a price that fits any company's budget.

Error reduction. Chatbots can have multiple interactions simultaneously, thus reducing errors and omissions. This means that, regardless of the number of users asking questions or the level of complexity of the interactions, they can attend to each of them efficiently.

Always available. Chatbots can serve more than 16,000 people at the same time, with 24/7 availability and in different languages, which is ideal for ecommerce.