Sephora and It’s “Beautybots”
Customer service is an important part of a company’s daily transactions, no matter how large or small the company is. Customer service directly impacts a company’s saleability, both as a way for the company to interact with its customers and as a solution to problems when they occur. Having efficient customer service can help the company retain customers and reinforce company values and brand, even increasing customer lifetime value.
Some companies use chatbots in customer service to communicate with customers, which helps many customers who want to solve problems when customer service is unavailable. The best part of chatbot customer service is that it is not limited to any time or place. The machine will collect, apply and optimize data through communication with customers.
Sephora and chatbots
Sephora was one of the early adopters of messaging bots, starting in 2016 with a chatbot on Kik, a Canadian instant messaging app targeted at teens. Sephora chose Kik because of the platform’s ability to get more attention from younger customers, and younger customers will be more comfortable with this type of online communication. After Sephora went live with the chatbot, they found that once customers started using the service on Kik and sending messages, they sent an average of ten messages per day.
Customers can ask for information about makeup tips, video clips and picture tutorials when communicating with chatbots - they can respond instantly and seamlessly to give customers the best customer experience. Even better, the Kik chatbot can help customers find cosmetics used in Sephora tutorials and can even recommend the most popular products for any category. In addition, the Sephora chatbot provided by Kik is the perfect shopping assistant for in-store shopping. Enter any product, and the chatbot will instantly share reviews and ratings for that product. Users would be able to get product reviews and recommendations immediately and even shop directly on the app. How awesome is this?
It increases orders numbers, even more than that!
Sephora’s customer service assistant now also allows customers to book makeup sessions via Facebook Messenger. Sephora’s goal is to make it easier and faster for its valuable customer base to book makeup appointments, as booking on Facebook Messenger requires only a few steps. It’s easier to do this with a chatbot than with a traditional appointment by phone, email, etc. Sephora’s success with chatbots, the number of orders increased by 11% in the US after using chatbots. Clients who booked service using the Facebook Messenger bot end up spending over $50 in-store on average.
Chatbots bring more sales to Sephora, even more opportunities are offered to Sephora. 23% of shoppers compare prices on mobile while standing in-store and before going to a brick-and-mortar location, and 24% engage with a retail app each week, leaving a prime opportunity for Sephora to connect with loyal customers on mobile, and offers a better service experience by providing chatbot customer service.
Chatbots will become mainstream in the future
In my opinion, chatbots are coming to more companies and enterprises in customer service. Chatbots have so many advantages that humans don’t have, and they don’t complain! It’s only a matter of time before machines replace humans(absolutely not everything). Repetitive mechanical work like this should be left to the low-cost chatbots. Here are some of the advantages of using chatbots in customer service:
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Originally published at Medium@Aubrey Wang on December 5th, 2021.
