Feature Announcement: Magento ecommerce integration

Abandoned carts, order confirmation and many more
Ever since we created the first version of multichat.ai there were multiple options for webshops to utilize the solution. A friendly lead qualification conversation or a simple campaign offering new products. However, we felt the need to turn things up a notch and offer a more advanced and streamlined experience for our users when integrating multichat.ai into their sales funnel processes and that is why we have partnered with Itegration, a company that has probably the biggest experience with Magento based solutions available today and a tremendous history in building successful ecommerce sites. Together we have created a Magento extension that can be set up with a few clicks, works right out of the box without any extra licenses needed and offers simple templates that cover the typical use cases.
There were two important areas that we wanted to focus on. First is abandoned carts, as it is a huge issue globally affecting every single shop. Browsing through statistics we see some shocking numbers, the abandonment rate can be as high as 67% simply meaning merchants lose more than half of their potential revenue right before customers would pay for their order. We also saw that rightly crafted e-mail reminders can bring back to life up to 40% of the carts forgot untouched so we thought why don’t we let our users send out these abandoned cart reminders through instant messaging apps as these have 3-5x times better open rate than e-mails anyway.
The second part is order confirmation, also sent through instant messaging apps. It is easier and more convenient for customers to communicate with a brand through a channel that they use every day to communicate with their friends and family. They can set up Facebook Messenger for example as their preferred contact method and see the updates coming in right where they handle most of their communication anyway. The big advantage of the integration compared to e-mails is that there is an option for sending instant automated replies when the user contacts our brand, there is no need to forward the message internally and assign one of our customer service staff. This boost in customer experience can make your brand to stand out from the competition and win over potential buyers.

How does it work?
We have kept the configuration easy and quick so you can get to a working setup within 10 minutes. All you need is a Magento shop and a multichat.ai account as a start and to get the ball rolling you simply authorize the two systems to communicate with each other starting from Magento. Multichat.ai needs to have access to some basic cart information so it can automatically send out reminders or order confirmation messages. Once the initial authorization is done, you will be guided to your multichat.ai account where you are now able to use the Abandoned Cart and Order confirmation templates.
When setting up the abandoned cart messages you have multiple options for customization, you can pick a preferred header image for the messages, you can predefine the time that needs to pass before the reminder messages go out and there is even a cool addition that allows you to include a discount code by default, encouraging customers to return to their cart.
Order confirmation works pretty much the same way but requires less customization as it serves a different purpose. As multichat.ai knows the content of the cart, the messages will also display the items that are there to be purchased or the items that were purchased along with the payment method, price and shipping address. Yes, it is really as easy as that. However, if you would like to have a more advanced setup, you have the option to extend the communication with custom conversations for example automatically answering questions about shipping times and fees or stock info on certain products.

What is next?
We certainly don’t want to stop here, we have some pretty bold plans on our roadmap already that will be following this initial feature set. As we could see from the F8 announcements, messaging platforms will support shopping more and more and we will take advantage of that. Imagine being able to pay instantly for the items that were recommended by the AI assistant right within the chat window with your fingerprint. If you have some great ideas to discuss or would like to be among the first users trying out the new extension please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us.