Chat Influences Consumers’ Purchases When They Use It

Chat is still a distant second choice to a GUI when consumers are navigating online offerings, but when they use chat, it impacts their buying decisions. Retailers should embed chat within the consumer purchase journey for a number of reasons: 1) Consumers are comfortable engaging brands via chat; 2) chat impacts purchase decisions; and 3) messaging platforms are rolling out new features to support the full commerce cycle and improve customer experience (CX). But today’s subpar retail chat experiences affect consumer preference of this channel. This report analyzes chat’s role in the retail buyer journey and outlines how retailers should take a CX-driven approach to build a chat strategy.