Oslo, June 14, 2021 – A review of Sweden's 100 largest online stores shows that a small minority offer their customers the opportunity to chat. This surprises industry experts at Kindly.

Ehandel.se, the Nordic region’s largest meeting place for e-commerce, published an overview of Sweden's 100 largest e-retailers. The data looks into activities from this past spring.

Kindly looked into the report and decided to use it as a starting point for a deeper analysis into conversational commerce tactics employed by these e-retailers. Specifically, we wanted to identify how many e-retailers offer chat to their customers.

The survey shows that 67 of the 100 online stores surveyed have no chat at all.

“This is not good enough in 2021. Few customers prefer to make calls, and e-mail is often perceived as a cumbersome and sluggish communication channel. Companies that hide behind forms and call centers ignore chat as a communication channel and potentially leave money on the table,” says Arash Saidi, CEO of Kindly.

Of the 33 companies that do offer chat, 28 of them have a manual chat solution, which requires humans to respond to all enquiries. Only four of the companies in the survey have chosen a chatbot or a semi-automated solution.

The Kindly CEO, who himself has a master's in language technology, believes that Swedish e-retailers overestimate the challenges and underestimate the potential of chatbot technology.

“Chatbot technology is evolving rapidly. Until now, there have been some childhood diseases, but development in recent years has been very exciting. Many customer enquiries are repetitive and then a chatbot fits well, while some questions are more unique and require human handling. Those who have come the furthest in the area combine chatbots and manual chat,” Saidi says.

He says that it is not unusual for a chatbot to reduce the number of manual enquiries by 30-75 percent, and the number of incoming phone calls to customer service by up to 50 percent.

“Depending on the company's size and the number of customer enquiries, such a reduction can have a major impact on costs and customer relations,” Saidi points out.

Saidi says that among its own customers, half of all chat requests can often be resolved by a chatbot. This typically applies to package tracking, product search and stock status. Still, he warns that chatbots should be viewed as more than a way to save money in customer support.

“Until now, chatbots have largely been used to solve customer service-related tasks. In the future, we believe that chatbots will also play a central role in the buying process itself. Chatbots then go from being a way to reduce costs to also being a way to increase sales,” Saidi says.

About Kindly

E-commerce businesses choose Kindly as an innovative and reliable partner to build exceptional on-site customer experiences that boost online sales and improve customer satisfaction. Customers appreciate Kindly’s implementation services and determination to provide committed and dedicated customer support for all related needs. With offices in Oslo and Stockholm, Kindly helps e-commerce brands transform any encounter, using any channel, and at any stage of the buying journey into a first-class customer experience that enables shoppers to immediately receive the right answers to their questions. Customers include Helly Hansen, Elkjøp, Ellos, Conrad Electronic, Schibsted, Kahoot!, Adecco, Tidal, and dozens of other businesses.