When it comes to customer service, the concept of personalization is nothing new. From the smallest market stall to the largest omnichannel empire, business owners have always aimed to deliver a service that feels warm, relevant and perfectly tailored to the needs of their customers.

But as the digital space continues to dominate the direction of modern business, our ability to deliver more nuanced, personalized customer experiences is growing. As part of an ever-expanding arsenal of resources, chatbots have an increasingly important role to play here.

In this article, we’ll explore the ways that chatbot personalization is changing the game when it comes to interactions and deployments. Let’s see what your business has to gain…

The Power Of Personalization 

Personalization – it’s powerful stuff. As our technical ability to deliver compelling personalization at scale has developed (thanks to increased access to data and a wider spectrum of tools at our disposal) digital experiences have been transformed.

The impact of this transformation is significant. Encouraged by the promise of dependable ROI,  79% of retailers are investing in personalization. Advanced personalization features have been shown to lead to 70% of retailers seeing a return on investment of 200% or more.

There are many elements of digital marketing and customer experience that lend themselves to personalization. From visual merchandising for ecommerce stores (ensuring stores showcase the most relevant items to the right audience, right down to variant level) through to intricately segmented email campaigns containing perfectly targeted offers and product recommendations –– getting personalization right at all stages of the customer journey pays dividends.

Increasingly, personalized chatbot interactions form an important part of this process. Read on to learn more about the opportunity personalized chatbots offer.

Evolving Customer Expectation 

When considering personalized customer experiences, it’s important to remember that we’re dealing with a two part equation. On one hand, expanding technological capacity has extended our ability to deliver personalization. On the other hand – as these experiences become commonplace, consumer expectations are rising. When it comes to delivering personalised customer service, the baseline is getting higher and higher.

Personalization is rapidly becoming a “new normal”  – but what does this mean for your business? In order to see the best results from its implementation, brands should be putting personalization to use right now, while it still represents service that feels special and elevated.

It’s also interesting to consider the paradoxical component at play with regard to the evolution of customer expectations. Although there’s been a very clear increase when it comes to the general desire for data privacy, customers are still willing to surrender their personal data in exchange for a personalized service. In fact, 83% of consumers are happy to share their data to receive a more personalized experience, with a compelling 90% of consumers willing to share behavioral data in exchange for a cheaper and easier experience.

ChatBot Personalization: What’s Possible?

Enter the arena, chatbot personalization. Sitting at the intersection of instant messaging, customer service and – increasingly – a viable sales channel, chatbot personalization has been made possible by ongoing improvements in AI, and the resulting experiences are increasingly impressive.

Thanks to the element of active interaction they inspire, chatbots provide an opportunity to deliver a much “truer” sense of personalization than more static or passive channels. Today, chatbots have the ability to understand customer behavior on an individual level – and to apply this to the experience they receive. Everything from browsing preferences to past purchases can be factored into the assessment to deliver more personalized service / recommendations. Customers don’t need to jump through hoops to start to get a personalized experience – it starts from the moment they engage with the chatbot.

Personalized ChatBot Experience: Opportunity Unlocked 

So, the technology to deliver deeply personalized chatbot experiences exists. But what are the opportunities for businesses to benefit as a result? Let’s start by exploring a couple of examples relating to the various verticals that stand to benefit from personalized chatbot experiences.

A great use case for personalized chatbots comes from apparel retailers who serve a wide range of customers ((i.e. men, women, children, as opposed to a specialist retailer) with an extensive range of product lines. Faced with a huge inventory catalog, a customer might turn to a chatbot for advice about a certain product or fit – and if the capacity to personalize this experience exists, they will be able to skip straight through to helpful answers, without having to input information about their gender, age, body type and beyond.

Similarly, subscription based DTC brands could benefit from enabling a customer to easily adjust their subscription over time, without the need to engage with customer support or adding details about their preferences or current subscription configuration. 

The Benefits of Providing A Personalized ChatBot Experience 

What are the main benefits of a personalized chatbot experience? As is so often the case with personalization and automation within ecommerce, both retailers and consumers stand to benefit here.

Enhanced customer experience is a given. Customers will find quicker answers or solutions with a reduced need to interact or input data. As a result of this, retailers can expect to see better customer loyalty and optimized conversion –– a chance to hike up AOV and CLV through smart recommendations and upsells.

Personalized chatbots can also represent a valuable additional source of customer data (both zero party and first party.) This kind of customer insight is especially helpful with the end of 3rd party cookies looming, and when it comes to leveraging this intelligence back into enhancing the customer experience, we know that the statistics are on our side.

There’s also the impact of a lightened load for your customer support teams. With customers granted access to intelligent “self service” support, your staff are free to deal with escalations and higher value customers.

Finally, the smartest retailers will stay mindful of the opportunity to monetise the experience, transforming chatbots into a dependable channel for revenue, by working with a solution such as Flow XO, which can take seamless, friction-free payments.

Personalization: The Future Of The Chatbot Experience

Chatbots are set to form a significant component of future personalization strategies. FlowXO is ready to help businesses unlock these benefits, underpinned by advanced AI and the ability to easily build out automated, custom workflows that are fully responsive and able to unlock the full power of conversational commerce.

Ready to start seeing the impact chatbots could have your customers and business? Start for free with FlowXO today.