3 Essential Aspects Every Business Owner Should Know About Guided Selling

As a business, you want your customers to not just buy a product, but to buy the right product for their needs. Helping your customer connect with the right product is a powerful way to positively impact his or her relationship with your company and brand. However, it can be difficult to deliver in an online experience. This is where guided selling comes in.

What is Guided Selling?

Guided selling helps your potential buyers quickly select the product or service that best suits their needs. With guided selling, you use automation to assess your potential customers’ requirements, narrow the product choices, and identify which product(s) are the right fit. This can quickly increase your company’s conversion rates—particularly in comparison to traditional marketing strategies that don’t generally use consumers’ data purposively.

Guided Selling: Taking the In-Store Experience Online

By directing your customers through their decision-making process, you help them understand the landscape of the available products that can meet their own needs and wants. You are leveraging the knowledge gleaned about how your customers make purchasing decisions to help them more quickly zero in on the right fit in real time. In essence, guided selling lets you recreate the in-store experience when you are selling to customers online.

It starts by asking your potential buyers questions to help them identify their needs and even their wants. Based on their answers, you can then recommend products, solutions, or even services in line with your customer’s goal.

Online Tools and the Future of Guided Selling

A good example of a personalized guided selling experience is Loreal’s Paris Skin Genius. This online tool uses artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze their customers’ skin’s specific needs to help them create a more personalized skincare routine.

Another excellent online tool that successfully up levels the in-store experience is the KitchenAid product finder tool. The tool asks the potential buyer a set of questions about their personality and preferences and the purpose of their purchase. Then it offers them product recommendations.

These two tools effectively mimic the interaction of in-store consultants helping potential buyers in a physical store. Customers are offered more personalized experiences and navigation to options that drive an easier decision. The interesting aspect is that it feels more personal thanks to the power of technology, primarily AI and chatbots.

For today’s customer, the value of their experience is critical. In fact, 80% of customers now consider the experience a company provides to be as important as its products and services. Guided selling is a key component of delivering that online.

Guided Selling in eCommerce

eCommerce, the buying and selling of goods primarily via the internet, is growing at a very rapid pace. This growth both has a negative and a positive side. The good news is your product or service can be readily available once you’ve set everything up in the right platform for as long your customer has access to a stable enough internet connection. The bad news? This works the same way for all other enterprises out there.

Today, you are competing with hundreds, if not thousands, of other online sellers that are vying for the attention of potential buyers. Generally, most online selling platforms allow customers to choose their products by selecting through a category structure or by simply typing in a search term. Consumers can also easily navigate these search results by selecting the correct pre-determined filters based on consumer data. Using guided selling in your online business takes this strategy a step further, adding in a very human, personalized feel—without requiring the involvement of your live customer service agents.

How Clickatell Supports Guided Selling

The best way to be sure you’re taking advantage of this new customer engagement opportunity is to find a trusted partner with a track record of success. For over 20 years, Clickatell has been creating innovative solutions to enhance your customer’s overall experience. Our chat commerce solutions enable your customers to not just engage with you for information and support, but actually buy your product or service via chat channels. Clickatell offers a Chat Commerce Platform as a service with low/no code tools to help you connect, interact, and transact with your customers in chat apps. Let’s talk about how to incorporate guided selling to save your customer time, strengthen your brand, and increase sales.