Step-by-step guide to using AI shopping assistant

Remember when searching for stuff online felt like scrolling through endless lists or trying to guess the perfect keyword? Finding what you wanted could take ages. But guess what? AI is shaking things up in online shopping, making it way more interactive and personal. Instead of just sifting through filters, imagine having a digital expert who just gets what you’re looking for, no matter how specific, and helps you find it in a flash. That’s pretty much what an AI shopping assistant does.

These aren’t your grandma’s chatbots; they’re smart virtual helpers powered by artificial intelligence. Think of them as your personal shopping concierge online. They understand how people actually talk and can handle complex requests, giving you recommendations that feel like they were picked just for you. It makes the whole process feel less like a chore and more like chatting with someone who knows your taste.

This guide is all about how businesses can bring these cool tools into the mix. We’ll cover how they can not only make customers happier but also help things run smoother and boost sales. Picking the right AI tool can make this whole process surprisingly easy and effective, helping you keep up with what customers expect these days.

What is an AI shopping assistant?

Okay, let’s break it down. At its core, an AI shopping assistant is a digital helper that uses AI to guide customers while they shop online. Think of it as a big upgrade from just searching with keywords or using basic filters. Instead of just matching words, it actually understands what a customer means when they type something in, even if they’re just using everyday language.

This smart understanding comes from some clever AI tech like machine learning and natural language processing (NLP). These things let the assistant look at tons of data, learn from every chat, and figure out the context so it can give genuinely useful and accurate info.

While they might look like chatbots sometimes, AI shopping assistants are way more capable. Standard chatbots usually just follow a script based on simple keywords. If a customer asks something a little different, the chatbot gets lost. An AI assistant, though, can handle super specific questions and give unique answers, making the chat feel much more like talking to a real person who knows their stuff.

You might see these assistants pop up in different places – maybe a little chat bubble on a website, built right into the site’s search, or even through voice assistants like Alexa. No matter where they show up, their main job is to make finding products easier and help customers decide quickly.

Why implement an AI shopping assistant for your business?

Bringing an AI shopping assistant into your business isn’t just about getting new tech; it’s about making a real difference in how you connect with customers and how your business runs. The benefits for companies are pretty significant.

They make the customer experience way better by offering help 24/7 and giving instant, personalized answers, making shopping super convenient and engaging. Customers can get questions answered, find products that fit their exact needs, and get useful info like reviews or stock availability, all without waiting around for a human. This personal touch keeps people on your site longer and makes them feel valued.

Secondly, AI shopping assistants can really help your bottom line. They’re known for boosting conversion rates; some businesses have seen jumps as high as 35%. They can also increase the average amount people spend, sometimes by 25%, by doing a great job of suggesting related products or smart upsells based on what the customer likes or what’s popular. When shoppers can easily find exactly what they want and get helpful suggestions, they’re much more likely to buy and spend a bit extra.

Finally, these assistants make your operations run smoother. They can handle lots of common questions and simple support requests automatically. This takes a big load off your human support team, freeing them up to deal with trickier problems faster. Plus, the assistant is always collecting valuable info about what customers are doing and what they like. This gives you insights you can use for marketing, deciding which products to feature, and even developing new items. It’s clear businesses are catching on, with a good chunk planning to invest in AI for retail in the next few years.

The benefits of implementing an AI shopping assistant can include:

• Improving customer experience with 24/7 availability and instant, personalized answers.
• Boosting conversion rates (some businesses see jumps as high as 35%).
• Increasing average order value (sometimes by 25%) through smart suggestions and upsells.
• Making operations run smoother by automating common questions and freeing up human support.
• Collecting valuable customer data and insights for marketing, product decisions, and development.

What you’ll need to get started

Thinking about adding an ai shopping assistant to your business? Great idea! You’ll need a few key things ready before you jump into setting it up.

• Access to your business’s data: This means your product catalog with all the details, your frequently asked questions, any help articles you already have, and importantly, info from past customer chats or support tickets.
• Figure out where the assistant will live: This is usually your e-commerce website, but it could also be your helpdesk system (like Zendesk, Intercom, or Freshdesk) or even customer chat apps like Slack or Teams.
• The right AI software: This is the brain behind your assistant. It needs to be able to learn from your specific data and connect smoothly with the platforms you use. Choosing a flexible and solid platform here makes a big difference.
• Clear goals: You need to know what you want to achieve. What exactly should this AI assistant do for you? Knowing your goals, whether it’s cutting down on FAQ tickets or selling more of a certain product, will guide the whole setup process.

How to setup your AI shopping assistant

Setting up an AI shopping assistant might sound like a huge task, but breaking it down makes it much less intimidating. While the exact steps can change a bit depending on the specific AI tool you pick, the main stages are pretty similar. Choosing a platform that’s built to be flexible can honestly make these steps way easier.

1. Define your AI assistant’s specific use cases and goals

Start by getting super clear on what you want your AI assistant to actually do. Will it focus on answering questions about products, giving personalized suggestions, helping with returns, or maybe just checking order statuses? Pinpointing these specific jobs is really important.

Make sure these tasks line up with what you’re trying to achieve overall in your business. If you want to push a new product line, your assistant should be great at recommending those items. If your support team is swamped with “where’s my order?” questions, focus on automating that. It’s often smart to start small, maybe automating answers to common questions, and then add more capabilities later. Platforms like eesel AI make this easy because you can create different bots, each trained for specific jobs or even different product types. This lets you start focused and grow as you need to.

2. Gather and prepare your training data

An AI shopping assistant is only as smart as what you teach it. You need to find all the right information sources that will train your assistant to give accurate and helpful answers. This means pulling together your product database, everything on your website, help articles, FAQs, and importantly, insights from past customer conversations and support tickets.

It’s key to make sure your data is clean, accurate, and well-organized. Any mistakes in the data the assistant learns from will show up in its answers, which isn’t great for customer trust. The quality of this information is fundamental to how well the assistant works. eesel AI is particularly good here because it can learn from tons of different sources, not just help articles. You can use past tickets, Google Docs, Confluence, PDFs, and over 100 other integrations. Plus, it automatically syncs, so your assistant’s knowledge stays fresh without you having to constantly update things manually.

3. Choose and integrate your AI platform with e-commerce and helpdesk systems

Picking the right AI platform is a big deal. Look for one that not only has the features you need but also connects smoothly with the systems you’re already using. It needs to link up easily with your e-commerce platform (like Shopify or Magento) and your helpdesk system (like Zendesk, Intercom, or Freshdesk).

Once you’ve chosen your platform, you’ll connect it to the places where your customers talk to you. This could mean putting a chat box on your website, linking it directly into your helpdesk, or connecting it to messaging apps like Slack or Teams. The technical part often involves adding a small piece of code to your website or setting up a connection (an API) between the platforms. eesel AI makes this step much simpler with its ready-to-go integrations for major helpdesks like Zendesk, Intercom, and Freshdesk, and e-commerce platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce. This means way less hassle getting everything talking to each other.

4. Configure assistant personality, actions, and workflows

Now for the fun part: shaping your AI assistant! You’ll want to customize how it sounds so it feels like a natural part of your brand. Whether you want it to be professional, friendly, or something else, keeping the tone consistent makes interactions feel more personal and on-brand.

Next, decide exactly what your assistant can do. Besides just answering questions, can it look up order details (if it’s connected to your e-commerce system)? Can it automatically tag incoming support tickets based on what they’re about? Should it pass certain types of questions to a human agent? You can even set it up to trigger custom actions for more advanced stuff like processing refunds or updating customer accounts. Setting up clear rules for when to hand off a chat to a human is super important, making sure that when the assistant needs help, it passes everything along smoothly, giving the human agent all the context they need. eesel AI offers really flexible customization. It has a dedicated spot where you can just describe exactly how you want the bot to act, its tone, and the specific things it should do based on the conversation.

5. Test, Simulate, and refine performance

Before you let your AI shopping assistant loose on all your customers, you absolutely need to test it thoroughly. This step is vital for catching any mistakes, making sure it’s accurate, and confirming it works exactly how you want it to in real-life situations.

Try out all sorts of customer questions – cover the common ones, trickier requests, and even weird edge cases you might run into. See how the assistant responds and if it takes the right steps. Use this testing to spot any gaps in its knowledge – areas where the AI struggles to give good answers. Based on what you find, clean up your training data, tweak settings, and adjust how it handles requests. eesel AI has some really helpful testing features here. You can test how it would have responded to past support tickets, which gives you a realistic idea of how it will perform and helps you find those knowledge gaps before you go live. You can also roll it out to just a small group of your support agents first, getting real feedback in a controlled environment before launching it wider.

6. Deploy your assistant and continuously monitor

Once you’ve tested and fine-tuned your AI assistant and you feel good about how it performs, it’s time to launch it where your customers will see it. This might mean turning on the chat widget on your website or enabling the AI within your helpdesk system.

After it’s live, your job isn’t finished! You need to keep an eye on how it’s doing by tracking key numbers. How many questions is the AI answering all by itself (this is often called the deflection rate)? How happy are customers who chat with it (CSAT score)? Is it helping your team resolve tickets faster? Is it actually helping boost sales? eesel AI‘s reporting features can help you track these things, including analyzing where its knowledge might be weak and even a tool to help you figure out the assistant’s impact on your business in terms of money saved or earned. Use these insights to keep making your assistant and its knowledge base better over time.

Tips for maximizing your AI shopping assistant’s effectiveness

Simply putting an AI assistant in place isn’t the whole story; you need to optimize it to get the best results. Here are a few tips to make your assistant truly shine:

• Ask the right questions (in the assistant’s design): Set up the first few interactions to quickly figure out what the customer needs. This helps the assistant give more relevant recommendations right away.
• Educate shoppers along the way: When the assistant suggests a product, explain why it’s a good match based on what the customer said they were looking for. This builds trust and helps them feel good about their choice.
• Provide unbiased guidance: Position the assistant as a helpful, fair expert whose goal is to find the best option for the customer from your products, not just push certain items.
• Integrate across customer touchpoints: Make the assistant available wherever your customers hang out – on your website, in your app, or through messaging channels. Keeping the experience smooth across all these places is key.
• Keep data clean and updated: Your assistant’s knowledge is its superpower. Regularly check and update the information you train it on to make sure it’s always giving current and accurate answers.
• Ensure an intuitive user experience: Finding and chatting with the assistant should be easy. The conversation should feel natural, not awkward or confusing.

Pro tip: Use the data and reports the AI assistant collects to spot new things customers are asking about or common questions it struggles with. This helps you keep improving the assistant’s performance and adding to its knowledge base. eesel AI‘s ability to train on multiple sources, automatic syncing, flexible customization, and detailed reports are tools specifically designed to help you follow these tips and build an AI shopping assistant that really works for you.

What about costs? Understanding pricing models

When you’re looking into getting an AI shopping assistant, figuring out the cost is obviously a big part of it. Pricing can differ quite a bit between different companies, and it’s smart to look beyond just the initial price tag.

Common ways vendors charge include paying per agent, paying per resolution, or paying per interaction. Each has its good points and bad points. Paying per agent means the cost goes up directly with how many people are on your team, which can get pricey as you grow. Paying per resolution can be hard to predict and might lead to unexpected bills, especially if the vendor counts “resolution” in a broad way (we’ve seen cases where companies get charged even if the customer just closed the chat without their problem being fully fixed). Some vendors also charge extra for things you might think are standard features or more advanced AI capabilities, adding hidden costs.

eesel AI offers a clear, pay-per-interaction model which can be a really smart way to go. You only pay for the actual times the AI interacts with a customer, not based on how many agents you have. There are no hidden fees for the main features, and you won’t get hit with surprise charges if you stay within your plan’s interaction limit.

This straightforward approach means you can plan your budget effectively and scale how much you use your AI shopping assistant based on what you actually need, without worrying about costs getting out of control.

The future of AI shopping assistants

AI shopping assistants aren’t just a passing trend; they’re really changing online retail and how we shop. We’ll likely see them get even smarter, maybe even anticipating what you need and making decisions for you.

These assistants will connect even more seamlessly across all the places you interact online, making it hard to tell the difference between browsing a website, asking a question on social media, or getting a suggestion from a voice assistant. They’ll be able to handle more and more complex tasks on their own, becoming super valuable tools for both businesses and shoppers. The future of online shopping looks conversational, personal, and powered by AI helpers. eesel AI is a platform built with this future in mind, making it easy for businesses to bring in and improve advanced AI features within the tools they already use. This helps them stay ahead in the fast-moving world of e-commerce.

Ready to make your customer’s shopping journey better with AI?

An AI shopping assistant can bring huge value to e-commerce businesses. It helps boost sales, improve efficiency, and make shopping feel personal and effortless for your customers.

The setup is clear: define its tasks, prepare your data, connect it to your systems, customize its personality and actions, then test and refine.

Choosing the right AI partner is key. A flexible platform that integrates easily and offers clear pricing makes all the difference.

eesel AI connects seamlessly with e-commerce tools like Shopify and helpdesks like Zendesk. You can train it on your data, fully customize its tone and actions, and enjoy transparent, pay-per-interaction pricing.

Ready to level up your online shopping experience? Book a demo or start a free trial today to see how eesel AI can help.