_{Practical examples and advice on how your ecommerce brand can leverage guided selling}

Customer service has always been an indispensable factor for ecommerce brands, with 96% of customers choosing to be loyal to companies that deliver exceptional customer experiences.

With customer experience now surpassing both product and price as the element that most distinguishes a brand and makes it invaluable, most ecommerce companies have begun adopting practices to elevate their customer service. 

These practices include deploying conversational agents powered by AI, and investing in the omnichannel experience, amongst others.

To understand what ecommerce customer support really looks like, and the best practices you can adopt, check out our insights here!

In this post, you will learn how to deliver a personalised, seamless customer experience- with examples from some of the best e-commerce brands

Increasing sales + conversions, reducing churn + bounce-off: the Ecommerce conundrum

Most ecommerce brands invest in frequent and extensive R&D to create more products suited to their customers. This helps them build their brand and distinguish themselves from their competition.

However, customers are unable to decide which products are most suited to solving their needs, and they end up bouncing off your website. 

Our insights on customer behaviour have helped us identify the below as the most frequent problems your customers face:

	Do these problems sound familiar to you?
I have an extensive product catalogue.	Customers find it difficult to search for the product they need onsite. Most people who visit my website don’t make it to the cart.
My products have complex features that are difficult to explain.	Customers struggle to choose a product even when they spend time browsing. I don’t have enough data about my customers’ purchase behaviour.
My product catalogue is dynamic and prone to changes.	It is difficult for me to recommend products tailored to each customer. I find it difficult to engage with my customers during the sales process in a meaningful way.

So, how do you solve these problems? Altering your catalogue is out of the question! 

The answer- Guided Selling.

Guided selling targets these problems to offer your customers a one-stop, easy-to-navigate, smooth customer experience.

A product advisor helps customers find what they are looking for from your catalogue quickly. 

This helps your customers make faster purchase decisions and add products to their cart.

Product guides can engage with your customers to explain the complexities of your product and make them easy to understand. This data helps customers build confidence that they have chosen the right product to solve their needs. 

Your conversion rates increase, and you gather more data about their purchase behaviour, which you can use to further streamline your product guides.

Additionally, product advisors can recommend the right promotions and offer to your customers based on their purchase behaviour, thus letting you recommend the best products from a seasonal catalogue, and compel your customers to complete their purchases. 

So what exactly is guided selling, and how does it help my brand?

Guided selling in ecommerce leverages intelligent conversation to start a discussion between a brand and a consumer and then uses the information from that conversation to improve the purchasing experience.

Guided selling is essentially a set of tools that help you replicate an in-store consultation experience online, allowing every customer to engage in personalised, one-on-one conversations. 

These tools ask your customers targeted questions to figure out what they want and need. Based on these goals, they guide the shoppers to the optimal purchase. 

As a result, as your customers go through your conversion funnel, they discover more products and make a purchase.

This helps you better promote the products your shoppers are looking for, by informing them about the product attributes that they resonate with the most.

Most ecommerce brands that leverage guided selling use Artificial Intelligence (AI) driven conversations, to recommend the next step in the customer’s purchase journey.

What tools does guided selling include?

Everything from “How can I help you” to “You’ve won these discounts!” Let’s take a look below-

Product Guides

Product advisors are essentially virtual salespersons: they ask your customers targeted questions to understand their wants, needs, and preferences, educate your customers about the products that can fulfill these needs, and advise them on which product would benefit them the most.

Product advisors step in at crucial points of the purchase experience, beginning with asking the right questions to offer a filtered, customised product catalogue, discussing specific preferences, allergies, dislikes, etc, cross-selling supplementary or complementary products, and offering discounts and promotions at the right time to hook the consumer. 

However, as your company grows, it is not possible to scale your virtual CX team rapidly and definitely not without increasing overhead costs. 

With AI (which we’ll discuss below in detail), you can offer the same guidance at scale and within minutes – leading to more sales. 

Quizzes

Asking the right questions is the most crucial part of designing a guided selling experience because this data goes directly into personalising their future experiences and making appropriate recommendations at the right time to create a sale.

Designing intelligent quizzes that filter your product catalogue quickly to offer customers a narrow range of products is thus crucial to a hassle-free, smooth shopping experience.

It can also gamify the experience for the customer leading to stronger positive brand associations, leading to more loyalty.

Chats

Answering your customers’ queries while they browse your narrowed catalogue is very important to your customer support infrastructure.

This includes queries regarding additional product information, delivery timelines, payment models, and possible customisations, in the same manner as an in-store representative would support your shoppers’ purchase journeys.

Thus, chats that project the right emotional intent help you clear every doubt your shopper may have, and help them be confident in their decision to choose your brand and product.

Thus, guided selling combines support from chats, personalisation from quizzes, and advice from product guides to

• Increase your conversions
• Decrease your churn
• Decrease your customer bounce-off
• Increase your revenue
• Gather data on and leverage your customers’ purchase behaviour.

This makes guided selling one of the fastest-growing trends and strategies for ecommerce companies, especially those using D2C models!

Are your customers looking for guided selling? Absolutely!

• 74 % of shoppers get frustrated when they see products that are not personalized.
• Nearly 50% of all customers look for tools that save them the hassle of researching complex products and choosing between a large number of products.
• 83% of shoppers require some form of support before making a purchase.
• 1/3^rd of all consumers are willing to pay so they can save time and make faster decisions while shopping.
• 49% of shoppers make impulse purchases after receiving a more customised experience.

Most sophisticated organisations have recognised this— Almost 51% of sales brands have deployed AI-driven guided selling, or plan to deploy AI-driven guided selling in the next three years, according to Gartner.

Let’s take a look at how some of these ecommerce brands deploy guided selling (Examples)

Mac Cosmetics: Lipstick shade finder

Mac’s lip colour finder is a typical example of how brands with a wide range of products use guided selling to engage with shoppers and smoothen their purchase journey.

The lip colour finder is in addition to its virtual try-on feature: customers can upload pictures of themselves, and click on over 800 swatches to see how the shade looks on them. 

It also offers a live-chat option if customers need help with the try-on tool.

Finally, if customers are still unsure about which shade would suit them perfectly, it offers its lipstick shade finder to allow shoppers to compare shades and textures on different skin tones.

Shoppers can filter by skin tone, finish, and colour, to narrow down Mac’s product catalogue and discover what different shades and finishes would look like on them.

What we love about this guided selling example:

1. Mac allows customers to first exercise their autonomy in the decision-making process, using the try-on feature to discover products from an extensive catalogue of over 800 shades of lipstick.
2. It leverages the live chat feature at the right time to bring the customer forward in their shopping journey, especially at a point where they might drop off.
3. Even after applying filters, customers have a large product catalogue to choose from: for example, filtering by medium (skin tone), shine (finish), and pink (colour) leaves customers with almost 20 products to choose from.

LimeChat’s tips for similar guided selling models:

1. While Mac’s approach is perfect for goal-oriented shoppers, who know exactly what they are looking for, it excludes discovery-oriented shoppers who may not have enough knowledge about sophisticated, complex products.
2. A novice shopper may not know exactly what finish and shade group would suit them the best, and filtering only by skin tone leaves a shopper with so many options that they are likely to drop off the site.
3. We recommend bite-sized guides for such discovery-oriented shoppers, to offer them assistance on par with expert salespersons, break down technical information, and keep shoppers engaged in their purchase journey.
4. The range of products is too wide even after applying filters, which risks causing choice overload for shoppers. Such a wide variety of choices may overwhelm the shopper and increase bounce-off.
5. We recommend that brands with such guided selling models display information to help customers filter through a wide range of products, such as which products are the bestsellers, customer ratings and reviews for each product, and price comparisons.
6. There isn’t enough product information: for example, shoppers cannot compare product formulas, determine which shade is more long-lasting, or check specific ingredients within the shades in a side-by-side comparison. Thus, shoppers may not have the confidence that they are choosing the shade most suited to their needs and preferences, and may not go through with the purchase at all.
7. We recommend displaying such information about product formulae, the opacity of the lipstick, how long the colour lasts etc. to create better filters and help customers narrow down the catalogue themselves.

Anomalie: (Wedding) Dress Builder 

Anomalie helps brides-to-be build their perfect wedding dress. 

They offer a series of options, including the type of bodice, train length and type, sleeve length, neckline, lace work, and so on. These options are accompanied by graphics to help the shopper better envision the style.

Finally, the webshop puts together the perfect style to match the shopper’s goals, visions, and aspirations. 

Anomalie’s designers then deliver a custom sketch to the shopper’s inbox, allowing her to provide further feedback and guarantee her gown is picture-perfect.

Anomalie also offers a category called ‘Need a Little Inspiration’, which displays photos of brides in their actual Anomalie dresses, to give buyers a realistic idea of what the dress would look like on them.

What we love about this guided selling example:

1. Anomalie has employed guided selling to meet the needs of both discovery-oriented and goal-oriented shoppers. Discovery-oriented shoppers can explore the ‘Need a Little Inspiration’ category to see what different styles, bodices, trains, and laces look like on actual brides, while goal-oriented shoppers can jump right into building their perfect wedding dress.
2. Anomalie also offers design tips and style recommendations with minimal text at each stage of the dress-building process. This lends a personal touch by helping customers feel like an expert designer is right by their side. Instead of dropping off, customers, therefore, remain engaged in the building process.
3. The data input by shoppers can also help Anomalie track trends regarding different style elements. This data helps them optimise social media marketing strategies

LimeChat’s tips for similar guided selling models:

1. The ‘Need a Little Inspiration’ category shows a huge range of dresses and styles. To prevent choice overload, and keep discovery-oriented shoppers engaged in the process, we suggest filters based on physical attributes like height, body type, etc., which are crucial to a customer’s decision-making process. 
2. Anomalie also asks shoppers to input their emails right in the beginning, before beginning the discovery or building process. Customers might not have full confidence in Anomalie at that point before they see pictures of brides who actually engaged Anomalie.
3. Protecting personal data and preventing inbox spam is very important to most customers, and they may bounce off at that stage instead of proceeding further.
4. We recommend asking for emails after showing the shopper a potential sketch, to have the sketch delivered to their inbox, and discussing further with Anomalie’s designers.

Coolblue: Guided Selling for electronics

Coolblue is a Dutch company that sells electronics, including TVs, laptops, monitors, and phones, whose specifications are highly technical.

It thus offers a guided selling tool for customers who need help choosing their product. For example, if you want to purchase a monitor, the guided selling tool asks the shopper a series of questions about what they want to use the monitor for, the size of monitor they want, the sharpness of the image, ergonomic functions, and other attributes.

Based on the questions the shopper answers, it recommends the best product for them, tells them exactly which attributes it has that the shopper prefers, and allows them to compare it with alternative products.

What we love about this guided selling example:

1. The shopper only has to compulsorily answer two or three questions and can skip the rest if they are indifferent about those preferences. Shoppers thus don’t feel fatigued by a large number of filters.
2. Additionally, Coolblue explains the benefits of each attribute, or in which situation an option might be ideal. Having these technical aspects broken down in text that is easy to understand gives the customer an in-shop experience, the way they would with a great salesperson.
3. While displaying recommended products, Coolblue uses data from the shoppers’ answers to specifically market a product: it shows exactly which features the product has that the customer prefers.
4. Finally, Coolblue displays customer ratings and reviews for every product, including alternative products, to help customers be confident in their purchase.

LimeChat’s tips for similar guided selling models:

1. Coolblue displays product attributes in a manner that is text-heavy and information-heavy. This risks causing information overload for shoppers and having them bounce off.
2. We recommend displaying information in bite-sized bullet points that can be digested at a glance or highlighting specific attributes to reduce the time shoppers have to spend reading the information.
3. Coolblue pinpoint markets only the most recommended product, based on the data the shopper input about their preferences.
4. We recommend that brands with similar guided selling tools apply this information even while suggesting alternatives, to reduce the browsing time that leads up to a shopper’s decision-making.
5. This would reduce fatigue and keep customers invested in their shopping journey.

ASICS Shoe Finder

ASICS employs guided selling in the form of a quiz to determine the shopper’s running style, goals, and profile. 

The shopper must answer 6 questions, based on which ASICS filters the products a shopper can browse through. These questions include the type of shoes the shopper is looking for, their foot type, their pronation type, the cushioning they are looking for, and the colour schemes they prefer. 

Thus, ASICS’ quiz emulates an in-store assistant by asking specific questions that pinpoint a shopper’s intention, needs, and preferences.

What we love about this guided selling example:

1. The ASICS quiz is thoughtfully structured to ask insightful questions.
2. ASICS also offers animated graphics and bite-sized text to explain features and options at a glance, reducing information overload and keeping the shopper engaged in the purchase journey.
3. With technical questions— such as with pronation— ASICS offers a pronation guide to help users determine their pronation while allowing them to skip browsing running shoes simply for arch support or flat feet.
4. The shopper thus does not feel compelled to undertake complex research and does not drop off the site.

LimeChat’s tips for similar guided selling models:

1. The shoe finder guided selling tool is not available on the main shopping page, and shoppers have to search for it separately.
   We recommend having it integrated on your main page to simplify the shopping experience and take customers forward in their shopping journey with ease.
2. ASICS’s filters result in a very narrow product catalogue: for example, ASICS only displays 3 shoe options for casual running, neutral pronation, and maximum cushioning. Most customers prefer at least partial autonomy in their decision-making, and so we recommend displaying at least 4 options to allow shoppers a wide range of choices.
3. Brands with similar models can then use tags like best sellers, most recommended, etc to assist customers in their decision-making process. 
4. The filtered product catalogue also does not contain any product comparisons for the products that match customer preferences. Shoppers may therefore find it difficult to make a choice since merely knowing about heel drop, weight, etc does not offer enough relevant information for the novice or discovery-oriented shoppers to make a decision.
5. We recommend discussing product attributes in terms of how the product would feel when the customer wears it, to enable them to envision themselves using your product and increase the likelihood of a sale.

How to Make Guided Selling Better with Level 3 AI 

We at LimeChat have created the world’s first Level 3 AI chatbot, which enables you to have thoughtful, insightful, human-like conversations with your customers.

LimeChat is powered by the latest advances in AI and machine learning, which allow its conversational assistants to understand a shopper’s questions, intent, and emotions.

It then crafts customised responses at every crucial stage of your customers’ journeys, to deliver a precise, memorable experience on par with the best in-store experiences.

LimeChat helps ecommerce brands like yours to elevate their guided selling experience by:

Reducing choice overload

Too many products and too much information can overwhelm a customer, making them confused about which product to choose.

Collaborative filtering that reduces the number of products you recommend to your shopper is thus very important to guided selling.

However, it is equally important to extract the most information in the least number of questions: too many questions make shoppers less interested in continuing their journey.09cv

Intelligent, AI-driven conversational agents that deploy the latest machine learning technologies are then essential to offering the best guided selling journey— they keep collecting and learning from consumer metrics and optimising the number and type of questions to ask, to create the most fruitful purchase experience.

Reducing information overload

Reading a lot of information for every product fatigues a customer, and increases the likelihood of them dropping off your site.

However, not providing shoppers enough information is equally detrimental, as it confuses shoppers about the best product for their needs and preferences, and increases the time they take to reach a decision.

Data-driven, analytical conversational agents can map user data and preferences over a large volume of information to determine what and how much information your customers find most helpful, to deliver the ideal bite-sized product specification and maximise your revenue.

Engaging the maximum number of customers

Discovery-oriented shoppers prefer browsing through a wide range of products to understand what kind of products could fulfill their needs, and exploring and deliberating between a wide range of options.

Goal-oriented shoppers prefer a fast, streamlined process to purchase the products they have in mind in the shortest period of time. 

Chats are the most essential guided selling tool for discovery-oriented shoppers, as they clear questions about products at whatever stage the customer wants, thus minimising drop-off.

They also offer alternatives and helpful resources at key points in the purchase journey, thus ensuring the customer keeps moving forward through their purchase journey.

On the other hand, quizzes are the most essential guided selling tool for goal-oriented shoppers, as they filter products based on the customer’s specifications, and offer them a narrower product catalogue to make a quick informed decision.

Conversational AI-driven technology that combines these guided selling tools can optimise the purchase journeys for both these categories of shoppers, by collecting analytics at every stage, and intelligently customising every shopper’s journey to deliver a seamless, preferred experience. 

Thus, our guided selling package helps your brand:

1. Guide shoppers to find the perfect solution for their needs
2. Engage customers before they drop-off
3. Address product-specific queries to boost confidence

We have worked extensively with solely ecommerce companies- and use deep research and data from our clients to continuously improve our guided selling feature.

Guided Selling Examples Powered by LimeChat

Mamaearth

Mamaearth is an Indian ecommerce brand that delivers natural, toxin-free, certified safe skincare products online. 

1. It engages in guided selling by hooking goal-oriented customers through chat that is easy to find while tagging and displaying which products are bestsellers, which are trending, and which have the best discounts to hook discovery-oriented customers.

2. Chat first determines the shopper’s intent to provide quick solutions– customers can shop for products, check order status, cancel an order, check refund status, or just have concerns regarding shipping or delivery that can be answered through the FAQ section.

3. The chat then recommends products, sells the product by providing shoppers information about why they should buy that product, and shows more products to increase cross-selling (for example by displaying hair spa products to protect against hair fall if the customer’s concern is simply hair fall).

4. Mamaearth displays a range of products that fulfils the customer’s preferences on the main shopping page at the same time, to keep the customer engaged, and give them a large number of choices.

5. The main shopping page facilitates fast decision-making and builds confidence in the product by displaying customer ratings and reviews, telling shoppers which products are bestsellers, which are new, and which are trending. 

6. Finally, the chat and main shopping page display deals and offers at the right time to ultimately hook the customer.

Wellbeing Nutrition

Wellbeing Nutrition offers its customers multivitamins that are made organically, with whole food ingredients and full-spectrum herbal blends.

1. It engages in guided selling by deploying chat: goal-oriented customers can filter products by goal, while discovery-oriented customers can filter products by category. 

2. Chat leverages information bites with highlights to build confidence in products, and reduce information-overload and fatigue.

3. The chatbot also expresses intelligent emotion to connect with customers and help them feel like their needs and goals are understood.

4. While matching customers with the recommended product, the bot displays 4 to 5 products to reduce choice overload and helps customers make informed decisions by allowing them to learn more about the products that interest them.

5. Finally, the main shopping page shows the customer deals and offers at the right time to provide further incentive to complete the purchase.

Man Matters

Man Matters is a holistic wellness platform for men. It sells products for hair, weight, skin, sex, sleep, and more, and provides online consultations for these issues and wellness.

1. It engages in guided selling through both its main shopping webpage for discovery-oriented shoppers, and an omnichannel guided chat experience on WhatsApp for goal-oriented shoppers.

2. Its guided selling model for the webpage enables side-by-side comparison of products, with customer ratings, customer reviews, what aspect the product helps with (beard growth, beard density, etc), and product components. This helps customers make intelligent, informed choices without being overwhelmed by a large number of products or information.

3. Its guided selling model for WhatsApp customises the customer’s shopping experience by asking them about their goals, and recommending products tailormade to their needs. Additionally, since shoppers engaging with brands through WhatsApp look for pinpointed products, the bot does not overwhelm shoppers with choices of more than three products, to maximise conversions.

4. Finally, the chat and main shopping page display deals and offers at the right time so the customer completes their journey through the conversion funnel.

Conclusion

LimeChat, the world’s first Level 3 conversational assistant, lets you conduct humanlike conversations with your customers virtually. 

It can create a guided selling model for you that lets you:

1. Engage both discovery-oriented and goal-oriented customers to maximise your sales
2. Keep customers invested in their shopping journey by minimising fatigue from information overload and choice overload
3. Address product-specific queries to boost confidence, and
4. Deliver an incomparable customer experience

In addition to this, we at LimeChat build powerful analytics dashboards for you so you stay up to date with how your automations are performing with respect to conversions, sales, customer retention etc. It also offers you

• A one-stop, single ecommerce help desk to minimise resolution time
• An integrated omnichannel experience
• Robust integration with Shopify apps, and 
• 20+ customizable templates

The best part- finding out costs you nothing!

Ready to take your customer support to the next level? Book a free demo today!

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This post is the fourth lesson in our Masterclass series on Guided Selling, where we deep dive into the current expectations and strategies some of the best D2C brands use and how to execute them in simple, actionable ways.