How to Use Facebook Messenger to Tackle Abandoned Carts and Improve Customer Lifetime Value

If you look at everydays communication nowadays, chat is absolutely dominant. You can probably also relate to that yourself. People use instant messengers instead of calling, if they plan their next trip with friends, they use group chats and even businesses started using chat for internal communication (e.g. slack or skype). Actually an instant messenger is the most used app in pretty much every country around the world.

So why is business-to-consumer communication still mainly based on email? If consumers prefer instant messengers over other channels, why not leverage that for your business as well?

It makes totally sense to shift your marketing from email to instant messenger as the common metrics like open rates and click-through rates are incredible high compared to email. Around 90% open rates and 30% click-through rates are totally common in instant messengers.

That’s what a new plugin for WooCommerce enables you to do! chatchamp, a Germany-based startup developed a tool to use instant messengers as an enhanced communication channel between e-commerce shops and their customers, also known as Messenger Marketing.  In addition to providing custom solutions for bigger brands, they recently released a plugin for WooCommerce that is free for trial use.

By integrating a Facebook checkbox into your add-to-cart and checkout process, you can give your customers the chance to opt-in in order to receive updates sent through Facebook Messenger.

The following features will help you to increase your customer lifetime value:

• Send your customers an automated timed reminder about abandoned carts, once they leave something in their cart without checking out. This also gives your customers the chance to find their product again, in case they change the device they are browsing your shop on. In average roughly 75% of all carts are abandoned.

• Remind your customers when payments fail and give them the chance to use alternative paying methods or simply to try again, once a payment fails. The payment message is also sent automatically to Facebook Messenger.

• Once a customer purchased a product you can now send them sequenced automated messages about their parcel status. So your customers don’t need to look for the tracking ID and check the status regularly on the delivery companies page anymore. chatchamp’s plugin works with most logistic companies worldwide.

• Since your customers are now subscribers of your Instant Messenger channel, you can send them relevant updates about products they might be interested in. This is a great way to generate loyal customers and increase your customer lifetime value. Especially because you can use chat to also get feedback about your shop, products, service and use this information to either provide more relevant content, or to improve certain parts of your business. It is highly more likely for your customers to just quickly click a button in a chat, rather than replying to an email.

To be able to fully use the plugin, you need to have a Facebook Page for your shop, since your messages are going to be send through the Facebook Page. chatchamp integrated a tutorial for the installation of the plugin, so the easiest is to just go to their website www.chatchamp.io and log in. You are then guided to WooCommerce for the installation of the plugin ‘Messenger Marketing for WooCommerce’ (chatchamp’s plugin).

The e-commerce market is changing with the change of customers’ behavior. The world is becoming more and more mobile, that’s why we are building mobile first webshops. People are chatting on their phones more than ever, that’s why you as a shop owner should also try to be where your customers are, in chat! :)