Chatbots in Customer Experience. Application and Opportunities in E-Commerce E-Book

• Herausgeber: Studylab
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Deutsch

Seitenzahl: 82

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

The increasing digitalization of society has an impact on everyday life. The demands and needs of customers are growing due to constant and real-time connectivity with the Internet. E-commerce has developed along with the expansion of the Internet. Especially, the customer service has changed greatly in recent years. To meet customer demands, companies have established further contact channels so that a comprehensive range of services can be ensured. Service is becoming an increasingly important success factor for companies. The goal of this book is to determine and evaluate the use of chatbots in customer service and online marketing. It answers the following questions: Where can chatbots be used in customer management and online marketing? How does using chatbots in customer service and marketing affect a specific customer journey? What are the benefits of using chatbots for both customers and the company? And what methods and requirements should be considered when using chatbots? In this book: - customer relationship management; - marketing communications; - Facebook Messenger; - user behavior; - communication channel

Leseprobe

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Table of Content

List of Figures

1 Introduction

1.1 Status Quo and Motivation

1.2 Research Questions and Goals

1.3 Structure

2 Theoretical Framework

2.1 Marketing Communications

2.2 Customer Relationship Management

2.3 Chatbots

3 Chatbots in E-Commerce

3.1 Implementation throughout the Customer Journey

3.2 Opportunities

4 Practical Use Case Analysis and Implementation

4.1 Collection and Selection of Use Cases

4.2 Requirements

4.3 Implementation

4.4 Evaluation

5 Conclusion

WorksCited

List of Figures

Figure 1: Lego’s Facebook Messenger Chatbot

Figure 2: Argomall’s Facebook Messenger Chatbot

Figure 3: 1-800-Flowers.com Facebook Messenger Chatbot

Figure 4: Otto.de Onlineshop Chatbot “Clara”

Figure 5: Trends in usage behavior – Fittkau & Maass Consulting

Figure 6: FlowXO ‘New Message’

Figure 7: FlowXO ‘Ask a Question’

Figure 8: FlowXO ‘Send a Message’

Figure 9: FlowXO ‘Filter’

Figure 10: FlowXO ‘Test Console’

Introduction

This chapter describes the current status quo of the field and the scope of this study. The underlying research questions are used to define the objectives of the study, followed by a discussion of the structure of the thesis.

1.1 Status Quo and Motivation

Customer service within the mail order sector has changed greatly in recent years. E-commerce has developed along with the expansion of the Internet. The increasing digitalization of society, the impact this has had on everyday life and the growing demands and needs of customers pose a new challenge to the economy and especially to e-commerce companies. The important role of digitalization in the form of, for example, constant and real-time connectivity with the Internet as well as the progressive networking of various devices and everyday objects have a major impact on customers’ behaviour and expectations. To meet customer demands, companies have established further contact channels so that a comprehensive range of services can be ensured. In addition to competing over who has the best product, companies now compete over who has the best service to differentiate themselves. As such, service is becoming an increasingly important success factor for companies. Companies aim to reduce the cost of customer service without reducing its quality. For this reason, robots will probably take over some tasks in everyday life as well as in professional life in the future. These robots will be able to interact and communicate with people. Through the World Wide Web, people have the opportunity to submit their searches anytime and anywhere. The visitor wants to find the desired information as directly and quickly as possible. Customers expect a comprehensive range of services on many different communication channels and want to self-determine which channel they use for their request. At this point of time, the use of chatbots is optimal to open another contact for customers.[1] The chatbots can assume the function of a human and provide the visitor with competent assistance in finding information.[2]

1.2 Research Questions and Goals

As mentioned above, chatbots can be used in online marketing and customer service. Rather than picking up the phone or sending an e-mail, customers’ questions about a product or service can be answered at any time by using chatbots. In the future, people will increasingly come into contact with chatbots, which will result in a change in dialogue and service between the company and its customers. Studying the literature on the topics shows that little is known about how and where chatbots can be used in e-commerce and what benefits they bring. The present work focuses mainly on the Business-to-Consumer (B2C) area, which aims at long-term customer loyalty and satisfaction. Due to artificial intelligence being such a broad subject area, only written interaction between humans and chatbots is discussed. Physical robots or other artificial intelligence are not considered here, nor are the detailed technical functions and structure of a chatbot or its programming explained. [3]

The goal of this thesis is to determine and evaluate the use of chatbots in customer service and online marketing by asking the following questions:

Where can chatbots be used in customer management and online marketing?

How does using chatbots in customer service and marketing affect a specific customer journey?

What are the benefits of using chatbots for both customers and the company?

What methods and requirements should be considered when using chatbots?

1.3 Structure

A brief overview of the topic is followed by a discussion of the theoretical framework in chapter 2. This section includes an introduction to marketing management in general and a classification into direct marketing, online marketing and social media marketing. Customer relationship management is introduced and the customer experience and customer journey are explained. Furthermore, the definition of chatbots is discussed in detail. Finally, the conceptual architecture is discussed and conversational interfaces are shown. In chapter 3, chatbots are analyzed and explained theoretically, based on their use in e-commerce throughout the customer journey. After this, the opportunities and benefits of chatbots from the corporate and customer perspective are discussed. Next, chapter 4 demonstrates and analyses different use cases. In addition to analytical methods, the requirements for implementing a chatbot are investigated. The chapter also explains possible approaches to the collection and selection of use cases. This is followed by introducing the systematization used to capture requirements, select systems and implement chatbots. Key metrics for the evaluation of chatbots are also described. Chapter 5 evaluates the results, and the thesis concludes with a look forward to identify interesting future research questions and provide an assessment of the use of chatbots.

Theoretical Framework

1.4 Marketing Communications

Marketing communications is an area of operative measures that is a part of the classic marketing mix. The term ‘marketing mix’ is based on McCarthy’s classic four P’s (product, price, place, and promotion) and describes the combination of marketing communication measures used by a company.[4] Further areas of operative marketing measures are product policy, contracting policy and distribution policy.

Marketing instruments are used for market cultivation.[5] Various instruments are available within marketing communications: communication instruments are typically divided into the sub-areas of advertising, sales promotion, public relations and personal sales.[6] In addition, there are modern instruments which generally include direct marketing, sponsoring, event marketing, product placement and online marketing.[7] Social media marketing can also be included under online marketing.[8]

All marketing communication measures aim to ensure that relevant market participants are sufficiently aware of the range of services on offer, develop an interest in them, feel addressed rationally and emotionally, and buy the product or service. Marketing communications thus has the task of informing potential consumers, influencing them in a targeted manner and overcoming sales resistance.[9] This involves strategic planning of the design, implementation, allocation and control of communication measures. In marketing communications, it is not the factual level that is decisive, but the target person’s perception of it, i.e., an emotional meta-level that superimposes the rational, factual level.[10]

Marketing communications can be used to create unique selling propositions. In saturated, strongly segmented markets that are occupied by many suppliers with substitutable products, product-related, unique features that are relevant for the target group are hardly to be found.[11] These kinds of Unique Selling Propositions (USP) are increasingly being replaced by a unique position oriented towards marketing communications, which is referred to as the Unique Communication Proposition (UCP). The UCP concentrates on a unique positioning generated by an advertising service. A substitutable product can be combined with an unmistakable experience profile in the perception of the target group by means of marketing communication instruments. The prerequisite is that the experience profile is relevant for the target group, valid in the long term and not already occupied by competition.[12]

In sum, marketing communications comprises the design of information regarding a company and its products, addressed to a market with the aim of serving the expectations, attitudes and demand of current and potential customers.[13]

Regular exposure to a brand increases the probability that it will be taken into account when making a purchase decision. This requires a clear positioning of the brand, which in turn can be achieved through a clearly focused communications strategy.[14]

1.4.1 Direct Marketing

‘Dialogue marketing’ is often used synonymously with the term ‘direct marketing’. The conceptual definitions are very broad, and therefore a definition of the term and a short summary seem necessary.

Holland has defined dialogue marketing as the establishment of interactive communication with the target person. A company’s message is oriented to elicit a reaction. This reaction is recorded, stored and evaluated for the following message. A dialogue takes place.[15] Andreas Mann has conceptualized a special, interaction-related form of customer orientation and referred to three essential characteristics:[16]- Interaction: A mutual exchange of information within a two-way communication link, whereby each participant can assume the role of communicator as well as the role of communicant. - Orientation towards understanding and understanding: A communication without prejudice, in which the dialogue initiator takes the interests of the dialogue participants into account and a mutual reconciliation of interests is strived for. - Pursuit of special (marketing) goals: These are set so that the dialogue with various stakeholder groups delivers a corporate policy benefit for a company.

Direct marketing means the use of consumer-direct channels to reach and deliver goods and services to customers without middlemen. Today, many direct marketers use direct marketing to build a long-term relationship with the customer.[17] Bruhn has described direct marketing as a summary of all communication measures aiming to establish direct contact with the addressee and initiating a direct dialogue through a targeted individual approach or aiming to lay the foundation for a dialogue at a second level through an indirect approach in order to achieve the company’s communications goals.[18]