Masterclass: Assisting Shoppers (Virtually)

Helping shoppers find the right products and information can be the difference between a browse and a buy. Roughly 98% of the people heading to your site leave without purchasing, which means that assistance is far more valuable than you might think. 

Just ask ethical haircare brand Umberto Giannini, which uses Envolve Tech’s Virtual Shopping Assistant - an innovative AI chatbot - to drive on-site engagement and conversions while reducing support inquiries and inspiring product development.  

Chatbots are nothing new – 73% of shoppers expect retailers to have one. However, perhaps most interestingly, Envolve is available as an affiliate tech partner, meaning Umberto Giannini only pays for the sales it drives. 

Intrigued to learn more, we recently sat down with Rosie Donoghue, Digital Marketing Manager at Umberto Giannini, and Dan Harding, Commercial Director at Envolve Tech, for a special episode of Awin-Win Marketing Podcast.  

Listen to the conversation or check our write-up below.  

What is a virtual shopping assistant? 

Affiliate marketing has lots of uses. At Umberto Giannini, which sells more with other retailers than it does directly, it’s all about building awareness and strengthening its brand. 

You see, when customers learn more about Umberto Giannini, they soon realize it isn’t like all the other options on the shelf. 

Rosie: “It's all vegan, cruelty-free, PETA approved. Our mission is to get everybody to embrace their natural curls and coils, helping the environment, helping our planet, and just making sure we do everything with passion.” 

It takes a certain type of partner to assume the role of a virtual concierge to an audience of women with curly or frizzy hair, representing a certified B Corp with an all-female management team. But Envolve is an interesting case in its own right.  

What began as a tool built on Facebook Messenger is now an on-site widget deployed by hundreds of eCommerce retailers in English-speaking territories. Envolve’s primary role is to improve site navigation and product discovery by delivering useful information and product recommendations.  

Dan: “It's a piece of site technology that users can engage with when browsing, taking that in-store journey online and allowing customers to engage with the brand… The technology itself is designed to be on every single page of the site to support a customer at any stage of the user journey. And of course, this is a technology that supports sales, marketing, and customer service teams... We are not just discounting.” 

Envolve also generates a trove of useful insights by helping customers find what they need. These everyday conversations are gold dust, making it far easier for brands to spot ways of improving their experience. 

What are the benefits of a virtual shopping assistant? 

Since deploying Envolve’s Virtual Shopping Assistant to aid its web experience and direct customers through its site, Rosie says Envolve has become “another member of the team”. The ‘extra pair of hands’ line has cropped up in many of our discussions with brands deploying affiliate tech partners to unlock new features on their sites. 

For context, Awin has a number of plug-and-play tech partners like Envolve, which have become hugely attractive to brands like Umberto Giannini by producing solutions that cannot be delivered in-house due to budget or time constraints.  

The process couldn’t be easier: 

1. Find: Head to Awin’s Technology Partner Directory 
2. Filter: Search for a specific partner or choose your type of solution. 
3. Inquire: Hit ‘Get in touch’ and wait for a response from your partner.  
4. Build: Discuss your solution, outline your requirements, and get a preview.   
5. Launch: Get it live within a matter of days or clicks through the Awin MasterTag. 

In Awin’s recent survey with Forrester, the top attraction of the affiliate channel among CMOs was ‘gaining access to innovative new technologies’. Real-life accounts from the likes of Dan spell out why.  

Dan: “I happened to speak to a client the other day that we've spoken to, probably right at the start of our business… They've been trying to build something internally for five years and I think, ‘Oh, you've been doing it for five years? We could have been live with you two, three years ago.’ Unfortunately, they're not on Awin. Otherwise they probably would've discovered us a bit quicker. But it's just like you say, that ability to turn the key and access technologies.” 

How quickly can you deploy a virtual shopping assistant? 

Rather than investing years on an in-house build, it took just under a week for the team at Umberto Giannini to launch its Virtual Shopping Assistant with Envolve. The brand accepted the solution on its affiliate program, giving Awin the signal to deploy the script. Envolve was ready to start interacting with customers just a few days later.  

Initially, the solution leaned on cues from Umberto Giannini’s on-site information and FAQ pages. It was enough to have Envolve demonstrate its impact and usefulness without building a deep knowledge base that could be switched off as fast as it was switched on. 

Indeed, the beauty of running tech partners via the performance channel is that brands like Umberto Giannini can test, drop, or scale a new solution without committing to a lengthy contract or upfront investment. Nevertheless, while the brand’s web team were “ecstatic” to welcome a new feature they didn’t have to build, its senior stakeholders were a tougher crowd to please. 

Rosie: “I think they [the stakeholders] were more worried that it would divert attention away from the website. Obviously it's another pop-up – it's another way to grab the consumer's attention. So that was probably the only issue that we faced. But as soon as we got it live and it was going, I think the opposite was found.” 

Soon enough, Envolve was assisting shoppers and keeping them onside. 

Rosie: “It's actually a great way to direct the consumer through your site... They can just ask it a question or try to find something that they want. We found our bounce rate really dropped because people were staying on the site for longer… Because they actually had a way to navigate through if they couldn't find something. And that's why we kept it. It has been working so well for us.” 

How virtual shopping assistants work 

One of Envolve’s goals is to build a community feel around the Umberto Giannini brand. That goal is much more attainable when there is some form of representative on call, virtual or otherwise. 

Customers simply open up the chat box to request recommendations, check their order status, or ask for assistance on another matter. Like most modern chatbots, Envolve relies purely on automation to find the right answers. 

Usage of AI assistance is much higher in younger shoppers, like the ones Umberto Giannini largely caters to, but there is a growing acceptance among all shoppers. According to Zendesk’s CX Trends Report, 51% prefer talking to AI agents rather than humans if it means getting a quicker response, with similar proportions valuing their advice, recommendations, and even their empathy.  

Describing the service on offer, Rosie points to the conversational nature as a plus point.  

Rosie: “It just feels like you're talking to a friend, like asking it questions instead of having to email customer service and go through that rigmarole… It's about hair at the end of the day. So it's a very personal thing and we just want to make everybody feel seen and heard. We are there for them and we are there to help them with any questions that they have.” 

Envolve also uses AI to optimize and continually retrain its engine, learning from each interaction to produce more relevant results. Improvement and effectiveness are much more crucial for affiliate-based tools like Envolve due to their performance-based commercial model, which works very much in the brand’s favor. 

Dan: “It's in our best interest for this to work well for the client because if it's not… we're not getting any commission. We're not sat back knowing that we've got them tied into a 12-month contract for a fixed fee. We want it to be working for the client and the customers.”

How do you measure the impact of a virtual shopping assistant? 

In terms of KPIs, Rosie explains that while sales are “fantastic”, there is something to be said for how useful the technology is to the “overall experience”.  

Rosie: “The little widget, it has little buttons that you can press. And we can change where that directs to. So we use it as a kind of test and learn to see who's clicking on what, what's being clicked on the most, and obviously garnering sales through that, but I think click rate is such an important measurement for us. We're also looking at what consumers are asking and how that can lead our marketing.”  

If customers come to Envolve with the same questions, it can be a sign of a lack of clarity on the brand’s side and a strong indication of where it needs to improve.  

The unique insight Envolve has from dialogue, rather than clicks, hands it a role in everything from merchandising to promotions and product development.  

Rosie points to a recent example of the technology influencing the format of one of the most important aspects of its customer experience. 

 

Use case #1: troubleshooting a system 

Rosie: “A couple months ago we changed our loyalty scheme. It was more of a points-based system and I think it was just too complicated for everyone. We noticed that we kept getting questions about it on the chat box and that it was just clearly not working, and people weren't sure how to use it, or it wasn't converting either. So we actually switched it back to the old model. Because we'd never had questions on it before. It actually really helped inform that and has now also made our loyalty scheme so much better.” 

In these cases, Envolve has a vantage point that not many affiliates, or any partners, truly have. 

Dan: “There's so much value in that candid engagement of, ‘What are customers doing on site? Where are the holes in the current journey?’ This will feed into the whole ecomm team and the wider business. ‘What do people want to see out of products?’ ‘Where are we losing customers on-site?’ ‘Is there something that we're really helping clients highlight?’ And when we start working with them, 90% of the time, they're not getting that level of insight into that customer journey.” 

 

Use case #2: driving a targeted outcome 

Envolve can also respond to exit-intent signals, kicking into action and eliciting a response after the customer has a period of inactivity. This feature serves a dual purpose by keeping visitors engaged and directing them to key areas of the site. 

Dan: “If the user is on-site doing nothing, the technology can pop out from the widget icon itself and it will spark engagement. And that piece of real estate has about three to four buttons… Across Black Friday, it's about our Black Friday deals. One of the links is straight through to the bestsellers, whatever they might be.” 

Envolve takes another proactive step by scheduling trigger messages that mirror Umberto Giannini’s merchandising priorities on any given month, week, or day. It’s perhaps a more obscure benefit to those outside of the haircare industry that wouldn’t recognize the importance of highlighting an anti-frizz hairspray when the weather turns.  

Dan: “Umberto Giannini and team were able to give us their marketing calendar, and we were able to optimize based on that schedule. It was just running in the background.” 

Rosie: “Because we wanted to offer different deals to try and stand out from the crowd, it just meant that we could schedule all that ahead of time. As we all know, Black Friday week, it's just hectic… There’s just so much information thrown at you, especially when you land on site. Using Envolve, it really helped us navigate the customer's journey to get those sales.” 

What’s next for virtual shopping assistants?  

We couldn’t leave without asking Dan for his take on how the onset of mainstream AI tools might impact an AI assistant like Umberto Giannini’s. 

Dan: “Looking at large language models and how we can integrate them into our solution… A retailer's not necessarily going to be like, ‘I'm gonna put ChatGPT on my site’ – it's not accessible. But if we can leverage those large language models and integrate them into our solution, then clients will have that benefit… It is a focus for us.” 

As it happens, Envolve soon got ahead of this particular curve. Dan’s podcast interview dropped mere months before the company announced the relaunch of its Virtual Shopping Assistant, powered by Google Gemini. The new version is expected to deliver more natural, context-aware interactions, as well as sharper product discovery and insights – benefits that are ultimately passed straight to retailers.  

With so much value at their core, Dan’s advice for all advertisers in the affiliate channel is to make full use of tools like Envolve being available as a free hit, and to “test things that you wouldn’t usually test”.   

Dan: “We've got a great model – a performance model that extends across all of the partners available on Awin. Really leverage that and get out there and test everything. It's a vast network of connections that are already there at your fingertips. So get out there and test something. Don't just keep doing the same thing year in, year out.”