Contactless Commerce

Date: 20 March, 2022
Category: Sales, e-commerce
Industry: Insurance, e-commerce

Business Case

In the last two years the pandemic had turned the world upside down in terms of what we had assumed as normal in the way we interacted with fellow human beings, either for our personal needs or in the context of running a business. As the pandemic wrecked havoc all over the world, many businesses worldwide struggled to streamline operations and sustain during the crisis. At the same time, many businesses and countries are getting used to new normal and continue to reinvent themselves, both from a business process perspective and also with the aid of technology.

Another key factor is the rise in usage and reliance of the messaging apps to get things done. Reports suggest that messenger apps usage went up significantly during the lockdown and especially Whatsapp usage went up as high as 51%.

The business requirement was to implement a contactless business model, combining a popular social messaging platform like Whatsapp with the traditional eCommerce sales engine offered at brick and mortar storefronts. How do we let the customer place an order through Whatsapp and delivered at home / picked up at the storefronts?

Solution

While eCommerce has been part of the mainstream for decades now, the pandemic triggered a new operating model or online buying experience for the customers in what is termed as BOPIS – Buy Online Pickup in Store. Many businesses are increasingly adding BOPIS into their omnichannel strategy. To enable BOPIS, businesses need to have the ability to connect with their customers online, most preferably through their favorite messaging platform like Whatsapp, along with the ability to do curb-side pickup on the store.

In matter of few weeks, we could add Whatsapp as a channel to the eCommerce application and built a Conversational AI application that enabled their customers to place orders in Whatsapp.

Why purpleSlate?

We are a Conversational AI startup, driven by passion to build great software solutions for our customers. As machines become increasingly proficient in the language we speak, we see Conversations, in Voice and Text, as the primary mode of providing and consuming services. We help our customers build the next generation Conversational AI Applications that primarily use Language as the Interface. Our platform and applications, primarily offered as a low-code offering and our belief in modern, lean software engineering principles helps our customers with higher effectiveness and time to market.