Chatbots rose drastically in popularity in 2017(https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=chatbots). Since then, search trends have generally plateaued. Chatbots are underutilized by ecommerce sites. They should be more widely deployed as a dynamic means of on-demand communication that benefits the customer.

Many ecommerce businesses tend to view the 'bot' portion of chatbots with unfair disdain. While bots mean a loss of some one-on-one communications, they should ideally increase the quality of communication on both sides of the dialog. In the short term, bots can more quickly answer quick questions in cases where a personal tough is not needed. And for more personalized questions, the chatbot can collect required information quickly in order to maximize the time spent by the individual on the business side of the chat.

Generally speaking, our process begins with deploying a very general bot that can help with the most common questions. Each 'helpbot' includes buttons in order to direct chats initially. In the case of Shopify sites, it's easy to add options to check order statuses and find products with Tidio's built-in Shopify integration. The bots always include paths leading to open ended questions. When answered by the customer, these trigger a live chat notification request.

Over time, the paths can be developed further to add new common options that arise in live chats. Rather than looking at chatbots as an alternative to live chat, they should be viewed as a complement that can improve the quality of live chat over time.