Voice Over: This is the e commerce coffee break. A top rated Shopify growth podcast dedicated to Shopify merchants and business owners looking to grow their online stores, learn how to survive in the fast changing e commerce world with your host Claus Lauter and get marketing advice. You can't find on Google.
Welcome to
Claus Lauter: the show. Welcome to another episode of the e commerce coffee break podcast. Today, we want to find out how the secret world of AI is a part of conversational e commerce, big topic AI all over the place. We want to dive deep into it. Really deep into this today and joining me on the show is Marshall Cowan
he is the CEO of clevertar. com. Marshall is a seasoned entrepreneur with a background in artificial intelligence and a passion for enhancing customer experiences. He has spearheaded the development of conversagent. app, an advanced AI driven shopping assistant revolutionizing online retail. His insights on conversational commerce and AI personalization are sought after in various industry forums, and he frequently speaks on the future of e commerce and the growing role of AI in shaping customer interactions and business strategies.
So we have a lot to cover. So let's welcome Marshall to the show. Hi, how are you today? Hi, Claus. Great to see you. And hi, everyone online. Great to have you on the show. So let's start. And first question from my side for the listeners who do not know what conversational e commerce stands for. Can you give me the definition of what conversational AI in e commerce stands for?
Marshall Cowan: Sure. We'll probably start with just conversational commerce, really. That's the, that's the kind of the key. And e commerce is a, is a transition from that, but it's certainly not new. Um, you know, being, been around for a while in, in the e commerce world and people will understand it, uh, you know, it's being where your customers are and really engaging with your customers.
Um, you know, it certainly really came to the forefront when, um, social media and Omnichannel came up, you know, that was a real big part of it. People. People realize that the best way to actually connect with your customers is to be where they are. So, you know, uh, talking to people in WhatsApp and Instagram and that sort of thing has really elevated that.
Interestingly, um, you know, the, the big focus initially around conversational commerce or conversational e commerce even, uh, was very much about, uh, you know, the ease of connection and making that, uh, convenient connection for the customers, more convenience for the customer, the more likely they were to, to engage with you as a brand.
Then that's kind of changed over the last couple of years. There was certainly, uh, as a result of, uh, You know, the, the global cost of living issues and inflation has resulted in. People focusing more on looking for a discount by connecting across multiple channels, you know, and even more like, it's quite common for people to, you know, consumers to connect, uh, to a brand in both their SMSs or their newsletter, and then connecting and following them on Instagram because.
Brand loyalty has become a big part of that conversational commerce. So, you know, that that's been, uh, a big trend looking for their discounts in across those channels. And then most recently, one of the biggest pushes that we're kind of noticing is a drive towards personalization at scale in conversational commerce.
And that's where conversational AI and AI analytical AI also can really come to the fore and play. It's a big part in elevating your brand. Okay.
Claus Lauter: Now, as an online seller, as a merchant, as a DTC brand, obviously you would love to talk to every customer on every channel all the time in person. Just not doable.
And even keeping up with customer inquiries is hard. Now, years ago, chatbots came up and everyone knows these chatbots and I think most people are annoyed with this. At least that's, that's my experience with them because it's like, yeah, that's not really what I want. Happens every day. And, um, AI is on the path to change that.
Tell me a little bit on how AI is coming into the game and what kind of differences it's making.
Marshall Cowan: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Um, and as you mentioned, you know, the early versions of chatbots were quite disappointing. I think people expected there to be a little bit more, again, of that two way engagement, but, uh, it certainly has led to more of a Funneling of the consumers as opposed to actually enabling them.
And that's where modern AI is really stepping up. You know, AI also is, is not a new thing. We've had AI around for a long time. Predictive text on your phone or your Netflix recommendations. That's all AI. Um, but the, you know, the, the interesting thing, and certainly with large language models, which has really hit.
You know, that's at the end of 2022, when the open AI launched chat GPT had a massive impact, obviously, on opening people's eyes to what the possibility of a real, a real, seemingly real conversation with with an AI or a chat bot could be. And so, yeah, that hitting the scene has has meant that. It's, it's opened up these possibilities to connect and have a conversation, like you're saying, at scale with, uh, with your customers and actually, you know, help provide them with the, uh, with the answers that they're actually looking for in real time.
Claus Lauter: I think most of us by now have experience with chat GPT, and I'm really glad to have you here because you are an AI for a very long time, have a good experience there and have seen the whole development of the this part of technology there. So. When it comes to DTC brands, I think one fear that they have is that they're with AI, there's a creepy or inauthentic customer experience.
So there's something on the other side and they have no control over it, how it talks to the customer or how the customer has a feeling for it. What's your take on that?
Marshall Cowan: Yeah, so I think control is a really big issue in AI and, and particularly for implementers and shop owners who are wanting to leverage AI to, You know, they're not particularly quite ready yet to let it loose on their customers, as it were, you know, because as, as, uh, as, uh, I think everyone is experiencing a revival of Isaac Asimov versions of iRobot AI coming and getting us.
So you don't really want to have one of them in our, in our online store, making promises that it can't fulfill. And that, that is a really important point. You know, the, the. The hallucinations around chat GPT is certainly an issue, and, um, there's ways to kind of constrain that, uh, the way that an AI can communicate.
Uh, and that's certainly what we've done with our product, Converse Agent. Uh, it can train, and it's only able to respond and answer questions about The products in that Shopify store or, uh, about their, you know, return policies and things like that. So constraining it is is certainly a you're able to do that.
But you're also then, you know, and as a merchant, you can then provide it with additional information that it will then. You know, it'll be, uh, enabled to answer and, and, you know, knowing that, you know, for, for a merchant, knowing that you can control it a little bit and kind of constrain it to answer specifically in these realms, you can't tell it exactly how to answer things a lot of the time, because that's the way, not the way that generative AI works, but, you know, being able to control that scope certainly provides a level of assurity
Claus Lauter: Now you're working with a large number of merchants on what's the most creative, innovative or unexpected way when it comes to the customer language, because that should be on brand that brands are using right now.
How they leverage AI in talking the right. In the right voice, in the brand's voice to the customer.
Marshall Cowan: Absolutely. I mean, there's, there's a couple of, you know, with, with AIs at the moment, there's a number of solutions out there and, and all of these should provide, you know, uplifting conversation and conversion rates and average order value should save you time because it can respond at scale and it can also be Multilingual and 24 7 accessible, but, uh, as you mentioned, having a consistent brand, uh, message and having the AI actually respond on brand is really cool.
Um, you know, we've got a number of our customers, um, as you mentioned, we had one of our customers sells some beard products of which I was quite happy to try out for obvious reasons and, uh, you know, it's really fun. Like he's kind of. Called it, uh, Dave, uh, which is a, you know, a quintessential, uh, non threatening male name that's there to help you out.
And it's kind of quite a, uh, an ochre Australian, uh, uh, idiom. So the way it talks and it connects and says, Oh, you know, good day, mate. How are you going? Like, can I help you out? Uh, it's, it's, it's quite fun, you know, and again, that it's able to pick up a lot of that tone from the content on the website.
Yeah. Already, but then it can also, uh, yeah, you can, you can tweak it and customize it further to really make sure that it's connecting in that brand voice that you want for. Uh your store and again comes back to that conversational commerce that that that can hit across multiple channels as a result
Claus Lauter: Hey claus here Just a quick one If you like the content of this episode sign up for our free newsletter and become a smarter shopify merchant in just seven minutes per week We curate content from more than 50 sources saving you hours of research and helping you stay on top of your e commerce game with the latest news insights and trends every thursday in your inbox 100 free Join now at newsletter.
ecommercecoffeebreak. com. That is newsletter. ecommercecoffeebreak. com. And now back to the show. Let's talk about the different channels or the user journey. It's not only customer service. There's much more involved in there. What kind of features does your solution offer?
Marshall Cowan: Yeah, it's really great. I love talking about the buyer's journey.
You know, the purchase funnel for merchants. It's something that A lot of merchants know, but they don't really articulate. So it's really, it's really good to think about this, uh, you know, as, as a merchant, you want to consider the stages of that purchase funnel for your customers. Again, it's that connecting and customer engagement.
So. You know, our product can actually, because it's not just a traditional chatbot that sits in the bottom right corner that says, you know, Hey, I'm here. Ask me a question, uh, which is a lot of a lot of the time will bring back some, you know, fairly negative connotations immediately as soon as you see something like that.
But as you mentioned, people are a lot more aware of chat GPT style conversational dialogue boxes now. And so you can actually embed them directly in your Shopify store, whether that's on a product page, category pages, or even the top of, you know, the front page of the website. And it can then ask questions of the consumers.
So, um, you know, certainly engages people. At that level there, you know, you can, it can ask questions and as a result of doing so, it really can highlight its ability to provide that first level of engagement on the website, which is product discovery. So you can go onto a website and you say, Hey, look, I'm looking for a corner desk and it will say, great, you know, could ask you some questions about what you're looking for and then it'll recommend a couple for you to look at.
And then you go into the next stage of the, you know, the, the purchase funnel, which is the product consideration, and then it can ask questions to help you decide which one is the right one for you. And then, as you say, can then take you through to purchase and then post purchase support, which is certainly the traditional area of, of chatbots, um, has been really focused on customer support.
But we see the biggest benefit of, of the introduction and the. The changes that large language models and generative AI are bringing to e commerce is that it's, it's a full funnel engagement, you know, it's from product discovery, product consideration, purchase and post purchase support.
Claus Lauter: For me, it sounds that will change the way people shop completely and bring us back to the times when we had brick and mortar stores, when we were going out and a sales assistant was waiting on the door and asking, can I help you with something?
And then taking you directly to what you're interested in and obviously giving recommendations. What's your prediction for the future, and you're doing this for a long time, is will the traditional sales funnel with homepage, category page, product page, will that vanish at some point, and just AI will take you by the hand and take you through the purchase process?
Marshall Cowan: Yeah, great, great point. Um, I do believe so. I think, interestingly, if you think about, and I like to kind of flip this upside down. Uh, and think about it that the whole point of e commerce websites would were created, as you say, to facilitate, uh, something that we couldn't do because we, you know, people weren't in the Brits and water store.
Right? So the ability, the functions of searching and filtering. We're only really ever created, you know, you don't do that in a bricks and mortar store, right? That's purely for e commerce and that's because we couldn't have a conversation and we can't just go in and say, look, this is what I'm looking for.
Can you help me? It's mission shopping, right? So you go in, you have an idea of roughly what you want, or maybe you already know what you want. You can go straight through, but if you need a bit of help, that's where that. That, uh, shop assistant really comes into the for, uh, forefront. So, yeah, I, I, I do think that searching, filtering, uh, that concept of, uh, you know, having all of your products in a catalog as it were, and that might stay, but it's gonna be completely disrupted by, uh, the conversational ai.
style, uh, um, uh, you know, conversational e commerce. And as you say, I think that's going to be where people are connecting with a trusted AI platform. Uh, and that AI will know their purchase history knows their preferences, possibly even knows when they're about to run out of something, or, you know, there's a new, a new knife, a new shirt in season.
And that's got a really cool. Pat and Marshall, maybe you should go and check it out and it'll be cross, uh, cross stores as well. You know, I think that'll kind of elevate. So it could be an entirely new entry point into e commerce other than just going and, you know, brand loyalty will be is more important than ever because otherwise it'll just be.
You know, uh, uh, as, as it is at the moment, people can search through Google or something like that, and that's their start point to, to find, find a store, but really, um, yeah, I think it'll be a bit of a, it'll be quite a disruptor. Yeah,
Claus Lauter: I want to touch on the part of data privacy because it said it will recognize you, we will come back, you get new recommendation.
How is that dealt with?
Marshall Cowan: Yeah, again, that's a really important point for customers. It comes down to the solution that's being used. So the, the, the first party data. Well, it's zero party data, which is a relatively new term being being used at where it's being directly input into, uh, the e commerce store people's information and preferences and personal information that you can't really necessarily control what people are doing.
people are going to share with a conversational AI. And so, uh, it really does come down to making sure that you're following as, as high quality, uh, privacy standards like the GDPR as well as, you know, the, the, there's a whole standard, uh, whole swag of different standards that you really want to make sure that your, your provider is, is following, but also, uh, It comes down a little bit towards, you know, whether they're looking to use that data for training of something else.
Um, you know, we, we work in, we have certainly worked in other areas like health, uh, and providing a conversational AI in health. And the privacy around that, as you could appreciate, is significant. So, uh, you know, there's, there's, there's certainly ways to further improve that privacy scope. And, you know, isolation, uh, you know, data sovereignty and things like that, where you can really make sure that the, the privacy information is being contained, um, you know, just within that service that it's being used.
And then if it's going to be used for other purposes, it's sanitized or, you know, de identified. So it's not, there's no personal information being sent outside of the, Uh, outside of the tool in the organization, but it's interesting because, you know, there's certainly a trend and this is along that lines of the conversational e commerce and personalization is that.
Individuals are being more, are getting more and more okay with some of the information being used and provided to a customer in exchange for something. There's a report recently, uh, where it's saying it's over 55 percent of consumers are happy to provide their mobile phone number in exchange for a free gift.
Um, just, you know, I think people are, uh, being certainly more, uh, customized or so acclimatized to, to sharing at least some of their personal information.
Claus Lauter: Yeah, no, I would agree. Now, obviously, you can have a, or it's not a question if you want to use AI in your business or not. It's the question is how good are you in using AI and you can have a bit of an unfair advantage in jumping on the train.
Early enough. So give me a bit of the idea how your app works within Shopify. What's the day to day life of a merchant of a store manager working with it?
Marshall Cowan: Great. Thanks. Class. Yeah, I have a bit of a saying that in the You know, and I used to say in 10 years, but it's probably more like five years now that there's going to be two types of companies, those that use AI, leveraging AI and those that have gone out of business.
So, um, certainly utilizing AI, as you say, and early, early adopters have a real advantage here. And it's not, it's certainly not common for people to be leveraging, um, you know, AI shopping assistance yet. Um, I do think that that's. Certainly changing as people are becoming a lot more aware of it. It's more of a question of why wouldn't you do it?
As I said, you know, it can provide a fairly, fairly obvious increase in your conversion rate and average order value. Saves you time in responding to queries and cuts out that first level of support. Also provides that ability to do so in a 24 7 and multilingual. So, you know, you find one and test them out, that the find one that's right for you.
Um, so in terms of, uh, a normal adoption of Converse Agent for our, our merchants, uh, I would. Go to the Shopify store and you can search for Converse Agent, um, directly in the, um, The Shopify app store and you can go in there and install it takes three to five minutes to, uh, to ingest it's called, it's a weird way of putting it.
People say training, it's not actually training, but it's ingesting. Uh, so it learns about all of the products on the website. It learns all about, uh, you know, the policies and your FAQs, et cetera. And then it's, you basically use your theme editor to put it where you want it, whether you want it as a floating, et cetera.
thing in the corner, or you can, as I said, add it with embedding. It's just drag and drop, so it's very easy to set up and it's ready to go. Um, then you can go into the admin area and you can add additional information about, you know, background of your industry if you want to provide additional information.
So it's very easy to set up, very easy to tweak and control and kind of add more information. Um, and then it's, it's up and running. Um, we have an additional one of the things that's probably different, uh, in in our tool to certainly other chatbots out there that we have a secondary AI that actually analyzes a lot of the conversations and provides insights.
And that, I think, is probably one of the most important areas, as I said, like all of these solutions, they better provide you with an uplift in conversion rate and average order value. But certainly some of our customers have said that the best, the bigger benefit that they get even over increasing their sales is that control and insights.
around their business. It can, you know, really provide, um, you know, strategic business insights as to what they should be looking at, because it's a real pulse on the customer, like an actual bricks and mortar store, uh, shop assistant would do. They're not just there to sell. They're also there to tell you, Hey, you We had five people come in asking for this particular, uh, wine maker.
And this is a real story for one of our customers. Uh, he got, uh, a number of people coming to his, uh, uh, wine reseller eCommerce store. Uh, and people were asking for this particular winemaker and he didn't have them in stock, but he could see these conversations from an hour, uh, our agent and he's now brought that into his store and, um, yeah, he's, he's added an extra line item, uh, to actually go to what the customers want again, comes back to that conversational commerce, right?
Claus Lauter: I love the story and it was actually my next question would have been around success stories and you just gave a perfect example there and I think it's something that people are learning right now that is not just static customer service and I'm using this in my marketing day to day work basically asking the AI is that what can I do better so it's it's far more than just this normal conversation that's really getting advice.
From the data that is there. And I think that's a very important fact for the future is you get more than a app. You get a additional manager in your store. So you talk briefly about the onboarding process. Uh, who's your perfect customer?
Marshall Cowan: Uh, perfect customers, probably small e commerce businesses and scaling e commerce businesses.
So. There are people who, you know, you've got a number of staff who are there, you know, not, not really ideal for people who don't have traffic to your website, but you've got a business and you're, you're, you've got something that, you know, you can scale, whether you've also got a bricks and mortar store or not, that's a little bit irrelevant, but it can certainly provide with that additional ability to be.
You know, people, people who are looking for increasing their efficiencies around their sales, uh, as well as increasing sales and looking to really grow their business. They're really the people who are going to get the most out of using an AI shopping assistant like Converse agent.
Claus Lauter: Okay, tell me a little bit about the pricing structure.
I think that's something that a lot of people are still don't get their heads around where companies make their money with. How does that look for a Shopify version?
Marshall Cowan: Yeah, it is interesting because, as you say, there's not really a well understood, Way of, of, of, uh, you know, I suppose tracking and, and, and proving out the, the, the, the benefits, but our, our model is certainly, you know, we've designed the pricing model to be the most.
Understandable from a merchant's perspective. So it's not, it's not just, you know, total number of visitors that you have, and it's not tokens or something like that, which is very, you know, AI specific that most merchants won't understand at all. Ours is based on number of conversations. So it's a usage based scale.
We've got a couple of different price plans, uh, 20 US, 40 US, and 100 US. Um, and really that, and then we do have enterprise level solutions as well. We've got a number of enterprise customers. Um, but the, those levels and that usage based pricing model really helps because it means that as they grow and as they scale, the merchants I'm talking about here, that, and they're getting that engagement.
That's how we're actually making our money is by improving your engagement.
Claus Lauter: What advice would you give e commerce brands that are just starting to explore conversational AI? Where should they start? What thought process should they go through first?
Marshall Cowan: Yeah, I think, I think first, first and foremost, if look, if you're looking at, you know, conversational e commerce and, and particularly in conversational AI and, and.
How you can leverage that is, is looking at probably the different options for you. Uh, I don't, you know, don't, don't just go in and start adding every tool that has AI in it. You know, I think, I think you really want to think what's, what is it that I want to get? And, and you know, you can look, some people talk.
You know, there are some tools out there that just talk about really high R. O. I. Numbers. And, you know, that can be a little bit questionable because that's not very transparent about how they're coming up with those. So really, you want to think in terms of, you know, what is it that I really want to be getting out of this?
And if it is better connection and improving your personalization and brand, then you can look at tools like converse agent. Um, but really you want to trial, trial them. So look for, look for tools that have a, a, a risk free trial. Um, you know, Conversation certainly has a, a 21 day free trial on all of our plans.
Um, and so you can go on and try the, the largest plan and, and just see how you go. Uh, it doesn't, as I said, it really takes very little time to, to connect and set up. And then our team can also help. And, and that's the other thing, you know, you don't want to, uh, And by, by doing these trials, you can also find out a little bit more about the company behind them because again, you know, there's some AI tools that are out there, which have been pumped out as part of the hype train over the last year with AI.
So you want to make sure that there's a bit of service behind them. So, you know, contacting the team and getting to know them because, you know, the, the companies that, uh, Are there to really help you on your e commerce journey? Are there for the long haul? Yeah, I highly recommend, yeah, trying a couple, connecting with the companies and checking out their reviews.
Um, and then having a play with it yourself. Uh, you can, there's a number of demo sites as well. You know, it's, it's quite fun. Uh, you, You know, to, to see what kind of things you can, it can answer in the way it can do it.
Claus Lauter: The perfect match marketeers and store managers are usually very curious people. And as I said, you have a free trial.
So I would just recommend to go there and try it out before our coffee break comes to an end today. Is there anything that you want to share with our listeners that we haven't covered yet? Probably
Marshall Cowan: the main main things that I really want to focus on. Uh, and probably more, more so to just highlight us as my key takeaway.
Uh, that's probably a good way to put it. I think, I think if you are looking at, uh, You know, really improving that brand awareness and personalization, saving yourself time by leveraging AI, then yeah, look, look at some of these tools, but really, you want to find one is really going to help you grow and unlock that e commerce efficiencies around your, uh, your process and customer engagement so that you can actually really increase your sales and ultimately find something that will help you understand your customers better.
Uh, that is one of the best ways for you to maximize your revenue growth.
Claus Lauter: Okay. No, that sounds good. Where can people find out more about you guys?
Marshall Cowan: Yeah, you can find out more about us at converseagent. app. Uh, that's our direct website as, and also you can go find us by the Shopify app marketplace. You want to know more about me, uh, please.
Hit me up on LinkedIn. I'm always keen to chat about, uh, broader AI, uh, as well as e commerce and in particular, certainly a big passion of mine. So yeah, please reach out. It's funny because I say that at a lot of, uh, and very, very few people actually do do it. So do it. I've challenged you. Message me. I want to, I want to hear from you.
Claus Lauter: Okay. I will make it easy for our listeners. I will put all the links in the show notes, then you just want to click away. And I hope a lot of people reach out to you, Marshall. Thanks so much for giving us an overview of what's happening right now in AI, how chat GPT can help you with your store and how you can get a additional manager in your store and not only something that helps with customer support.
Thanks so much for your time.
Marshall Cowan: My pleasure. Thanks a lot. That was great to have a good chat with you.
Claus Lauter: Hey Claus here. Thank you for joining me on another episode of the e commerce coffee break podcast. Before you go, I'd like to ask two things from you. First, please help me with the algorithm so I can bring more impactful guests on the show.
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com. Thanks again, and I'll catch you in the next episode. Have a good one.
