Potential buyers on your online store can be impatient. So when they have some questions, you must be there to answer, or you’ll lose them for good. And that’s why you should have answers to all customer queries on your online store.

But let’s be honest, you cannot run a Shopify store if all your time is spent answering customer inquiries. That’s what Shopify Chatbot is for. If you have little to no clue about how this works, this article is perfect for you because we’ll discuss the different types of chatbots and provide a list of the best apps for you.

By the end of this article, you’ll have a renewed perspective toward your ecommerce business and your brand will be more primed to become a money-making machine through the help of a conversational AI chatbot or rule-based chatbot. 

So if that sounds like a sweet deal to you, read the rest of the article.

What Is A Shopify Chatbot?

A Shopify chatbot is an automated chatbot that's integrated to Shopify stores to interact with your customers. These tools can answer questions, provide support, and assist with various tasks such as product recommendations, order tracking, and more.

When managing an online store within the platform, you need a Shopify chatbot as your assistant, be it for a small business or a large one. 

We already mentioned that support chatbots can answer customer queries. But more than that, a conversational AI chatbot also mimics real humans during customer interactions. 

Although used interchangeably, there are two kinds of Shopify bots:

• Conversational AI chatbots
• Rule-based chatbots

Let’s clear out the confusion by finding out the distinction between the two:

Conversational AI vs. Rule-Based Chatbots

Chatbots are functional ecommerce tools for managing customer interactions. Conversational AI represents the onset of advanced technology that enhances interactions when integrated with chatbots.

On the other side of the spectrum are rule-based chatbots. Unlike conversational AI chatbots that use natural language understanding to converse with humans, rule-based chatbots follow scripted responses that are pre-programmed before they are deployed to various applications.

Both serve as virtual support agents but they differ significantly in their complexity and adaptability.

Let’s dig a little deeper to better understand these types of Shopify bots.

Conversational AI

Conversational AI chatbots use advanced NLP or natural language processing to understand and respond to customer queries. Additionally, they use machine learning to improve their interactions. Thus, conversational AI chatbots get more intelligent as they interact with humans.

Their most obvious distinction from rule-based chatbots is that they don’t rely on scripts and are pre-defined. Instead, they learn as they interact, enabling them to handle a wider variety of inquiries with more accurate responses.

Moreover, these chatbots can understand context, intent, and nuances in human language, allowing them to comprehend what humans mean in their inquiries. 

For instance, a conversation AI chatbot can assist a customer looking for a specific product by asking a series of questions to narrow down choices. Thus providing a personalized response for each customer.

Sample scenario

Imagine a customer in your Shopify store who is looking for gift ideas for a specific person. If you have a Shopify chatbot in place, when utilized by the customer, the chatbot can ask the recipient's preferences and suggest products based on these responses.

The customer can also ask about the details of a product and the bot can respond as to why the product is a perfect match for the recipient. This level of interaction not only enhances customer satisfaction but also increases the likelihood of a sale.

Rule-Based Chatbot

Rule-based chatbots, as the name implies, operate on a set of rules. These rules are predefined scripts (usually common customer inquiries) and decision trees (responses to customer queries). 

They respond to interactions based on a set of if/then conditions programmed by the businesses. 

Although a rule-based chatbot may seem ancient compared to the intelligence of an AI chatbot, it still remains relevant today. This type of Shopify chatbot is excellent for handling routing and straightforward queries, making them ideal for common customer support tasks.

To implement a rule-based chatbot in your Shopify store, apps such as Shopify Inbox (which we’ll discuss later) come in handy. 

You can design a conversation flow chart with specific paths and responses in this type of Shopify chatbot. For example, if a customer asks, “How can I track my order?”The chatbot will provide relevant tracking info based on its script. However, it’s only limited to that as it can’t operate outside of its pre-programmed scope.

Sample scenario

Consider a small ecommerce business where customers frequently ask about order status, shipping and return policies, and contact details. A rule-based chatbot can be programmed to provide answers to these repetitive queries so the business won’t need an actual human to answer the queries for them.

One great example of a rule-based chatbot that’s commonly used nowadays is Facebook Messenger. If you visit a business page on Facebook and attempt to chat with them, chances are you’ll be presented with a series of buttons that contain questions. 

When you click one of those buttons, you’ll be presented with an immediate answer.

Note: If you are a member of the African-American community and you don’t have a Shopify account yet, Shopify 1MBB offers a 40-hour certification course to help you establish and succeed in ecommerce.

Why Are AI Chatbots Essential To Shopify Stores?

Artificial intelligence has come a long way in terms of improving the way we do business. Nowadays, merchants like you have access to various kinds of AI tools that are designed to make your work more streamlined, efficient, and easier. 

Just imagine. Before, companies needed a live customer support team to assist potential customers on even the simplest tasks. But today, with the help of AI chatbots, your store can answer customer inquiries like real humans do.

Be it rule-based chatbots or AI chatbots, your store will benefit from these modern tools as they can assist potential customers in making a purchase decision in their respective ways. 

If you want to see how other businesses have successfully integrated these technologies, you can check out these Shopify store examples for inspiration.

Chatbot Statistics For Ecommerce

Chatbot technology isn’t just a fad. It’s now becoming a staple in every ecommerce business not just for answering customer inquiries, but in helping customers stay informed about your business processes such as product returns, shipping rates, choosing a product, and more. 

Let’s take a look at some chatbot statistics:

• Ecommerce stores adopting Facebook Messenger, coupled with abandoned cat chatbots, have boosted revenue by 7-25%. (Chatbots Magazine)
• A significant 47% of consumers are open to making purchases using bots.  (Marketing Dive)
• 71% of Gen Z individuals actively seek products through bot interactions. (VPN Alert)
• 76% of online retailers have either implemented or are planning to integrate chatbots into their CX (customer experience) strategies. (Oracle)
• 25% of companies utilize chatbots to recommend products, enhancing personalized user interactions. (Dashly)
• 23.7% of inquiries convert into sales without human intervention. (Ubisend)
• 55% of companies using chatbots for marketing experience an increase in high-quality leads. (Statista)
• In specific industries, chatbots achieve conversion rates as high as 70%. (Tidio)
• 34% of retail clients expressed comfort in conversing with AI chatbots for service support. (Statista)
• 90% of businesses witnessed faster complaint resolution due to the implementation of digital assistants. (Technology Review)

Takeaway

Reading the statistics above, we can no longer ignore the positive impacts of chatbots on businesses. The statistics show that online customers are now utilizing chatbots to look for products to buy and a sizable portion of these chatbot recommendations convert to sales.

In addition to increased sales, businesses are also benefiting from faster complaint resolution through the help of chatbots. Thus, enabling them to satisfy customers and to retain them within their brands.

Because of the efficacy of digital assistants, more and more businesses are now planning to integrate these with their storefronts.

Benefits Of Using Chatbots On Shopify Stores

If you’re still not using Shopify chatbot for your online store. You might want to think again as these are the benefits that you stand to reap if you decide to use them:

24/7 Support

AI-powered chatbots and rule-based chatbots can act as your round-the-clock support team, ensuring that customer inquiries are addressed initially whatever time it is. This availability can help your brand maintain customer satisfaction, improve customer retention, and prevent lost sales due to delayed responses.

Cost Efficiency

If you are just starting in your ecommerce business, implementing a Shopify chatbot reduces the need to hire an offshore customer support team, lowering operational costs while allowing you to allocate your limited funds to growth opportunities. For large businesses, this cost efficiency could translate to several thousand dollars of savings each month – meaning more profits to the pocket.

Scalability

Unlike a human-based support team where one person could only serve one customer most of the time, a Shopify chatbot could handle multiple inquiries simultaneously. This scalability ensures that all customer inquiries are promptly addressed, enhancing their overall shopping experience with your brand.

Personalized Assistance

AI-powered chatbots could use customer data, such as their current browsing session, to offer personalized product recommendations. This comprehensive understanding of customer preferences could increase your conversion rates. If properly trained, AI chatbots could also make upsell recommendations and even notify your customers about their abandoned carts.

Quick Issue Resolution

As mentioned, chatbots provide immediate responses and solutions to common customer shopping dilemmas. And since these tools do not feel exhausted, there is no diminishing productivity unlike humans. As such, you can rely on them to perform as expected with minimal upkeep.

Data Collection

Chatbots collect valuable customer insights and feedback, helping small businesses tailor their services and improve their products. This data-driven approach allows you to make informed decisions that align with customer needs and preferences.

Seamless Integration

AI chatbot apps such as Shopify Inbox can be easily integrated with your store, automating simple to complex support tasks such as order tracking, answering FAQs, providing promotional notifications, and giving customer support. Thus, integrating a chatbot to your Shopify store could help you ensure a high-quality customer experience across all touchpoints.

Enhanced Customer Engagement

By having a rule-based chatbot to answer questions and a conversational AI chatbot to guide customers in complex decision-making, chatbots can increase customer satisfaction. More importantly, this enhanced customer engagement fosters a stronger connection with your brand, leading to higher customer retention rates or loyalty.

Increased Conversion Rates

The bottom line to all of this is that a Shopify chatbot can positively impact your conversion rates. Be it a simple rule-based chatbot that acts as an assistant in simple processes, or a conversation AI chatbot that acts as a shopping virtual assistant.

Shopify Chat Feature: Shopify Inbox

Rule-based chatbots may seem antiquated when compared with highly intelligent conversational AI chatbots. However, because of their simplicity, they are still the ones that are given more preference by Shopify store owners.

Moreover, rule-based chatbots are now designed to provide more information about the user. One great example of an advanced Shopify chatbot is Shopify Inbox.

Pricing: Free

Rating: 4.8 out of 5 (4700+ reviews)

Shopify Inbox is not your ordinary rule-based chatbot for online stores. This app also allows merchants to provide personalized advice to their customers. 

You can preload Shopify Inbox with some FAQs about your business and their corresponding answers. So that when customers click the chatbot widget, it will show these FAQs to them.

But in addition to these FAQs, Shopify Inbox allows customers to chat directly to Shopify store owners whenever they need something. For Shopify merchants, these conversations can be managed directly from the Shopify admin.

Right from the Shopify admin, you can see all new messages as well as respond to them.

But one of the standout features of this Shopify chatbot is its ability to give merchants an insight regarding the cart content of your Shopify customers.

With this simple feature, you gain a better understanding regarding your customers’ current shopping sessions. More importantly, this allows you to recommend additional products to increase their cart value. 

With real-time and personalized upsell and cross-sell opportunities, your business has the potential to generate more revenues per customer.

And in the customer’s perspective, they will be more delighted because of this hands-on approach.

Should I Use Shopify Inbox?

Before deciding if you should use Shopify inbox, you need to understand what it is capable of. Here are the features of Shopify Inbox:

• Desktop notifications to merchants when new messages come
• Ease and simplicity of use via the Shopify admin
• Provides more customer information and more context to their shopping session
• Provides merchants the ability to send product recommendations while chatting with potential customers
• Answers FAQs based on programmed scripts

If you think that you’ll need these features in your Shopify store, then Shopify Inbox is best for you. 

The truth is, that this app is not just for small businesses. 

In fact, even medium-sized businesses that get hundreds of customers per day will find this app extremely useful.

One good example for this is the Barefoot Junkie brand.

We used Similar Web to measure the monthly traffic that comes to their website and we found out that they can attract more than 60,000 visits per month.

This goes to show that even large brands still trust the capabilities of Shopify Inbox. 

Therefore, if your online store generates this much traffic (or less), it’s safe to say that Shopify Inbox is more than enough to cater to your needs. 

With that much power and features, this Shopify chatbot is entirely free and therefore presents no risk if you want to try it at your store.

How To Use Shopify Inbox?

If you want to start answering customer inquiries using this proprietary Shopify chatbot, follow this setup guide:

• Go to the Shopify app store, search Shopify Inbox, and click Install
• Open your Shopify admin, select the Online store menu, and click Customize to open the theme editor
• Click the App embeds button in the theme editor and toggle the switch to activate Shopify Inbox

After activating Shopify Inbox, you can now start customizing its content to suit your business.

The first thing that you might want to set up is the instant answers to frequently asked questions from your customers.

Creating an instant answer

To do that, click Chat settings and select Create instant answer.

After clicking this button, you’ll be redirected to a page where you can create several FAQs as well as their corresponding responses.

Customize the Shopify chat button

If you want to customize the appearance of the chat button on your online store, click the Customize chat button to enter the theme editor.

In the theme editor, you have the option to customize the color of the chat button, modify its location on your screen, and change the chatbot widget that appears on your store.

Quick replies

Aside from answering FAQs, Shopify Inbox can also be programmed to provide quick responses to customers who want to know more about your store’s products, order status, and more. 

You can modify your quick replies by clicking the Quick replies button.

These quick replies are more advanced than the rule-based chat functionality of instant answers. Instead, quick replies are designed to somehow understand natural language and to provide relevant responses depending on how you programmed the quick replies. 

Live chat with customers

To answer customer inquiries, click on the app and select View messages.

Shopify Inbox will redirect you to its dashboard so you can view and manage messages.

Click on a message that you want to open and you’ll access more information about the customer such as email address, and products in their carts.

If you noticed, Shopify Inbox automatically classifies conversations (the tags shown under the customer name) based on its understanding of natural language. This will help Shopify Inbox return fast answers under quick replies. 

Turn on desktop notifications

For a more streamlined customer support, we highly recommend turning on desktop recommendations so you (or your team) receive push notifications when new messages come (even if Shopify isn’t open on their computers).

To enable push notifications for Shopify Inbox, follow this guide: Shopify Help Center | Inbox notifications.

Conclusion

Ecommerce is not just a battle of who has the best product and who’s the best marketer. It’s also a battle of who knows how to use the available ecommerce technologies.

One great advancement in ecommerce is the development of highly intelligent tools like AI-powered chatbots. And now that they are available for Shopify store owners, you should consider installing one in your store.

Support chatbots have come a long way in terms of human interaction. Before the onset of machine learning, they used to be stiff and unintelligible most of the time. But now that they interact like real humans, they gained more acceptance by online customers.

FAQs

Does Shopify have a chatbot?

Yes, Shopify has a proprietary chatbot app called Shopify Inbox. It’s free to use.

How do Shopify bots work?

Shopify chatbots are designed to help online customers with all their concerns by providing quick responses without any human intervention. But with the application of AI technology, Shopify chatbots can now be used to provide product recommendations or perform any request by humans as they now understand natural language.

Is Shopify Magic free?

Yes, Shopify Magic is free to use for all Shopify merchants. Shopify Magic is like an on-demand assistant as it can be used to help online store owners navigate through the platform, write product descriptions, publish blogs, and answer difficult questions about the platform.