SILICON SLOPES, Utah (June 2, 2015) – Needle, the leader in advocate-powered customer experience (CX), today unveiled its Advocate-Assisted Shopping Cart capability during the 2015 Internet Retailer Conference and Exhibition (IRCE).
E-commerce businesses still settle for an average 2 percent conversion rate – watching 98 out of every 100 shoppers leave their store without making a purchase. Needle’s platform already enables these companies’ most knowledgeable and passionate advocates to connect with online shoppers in real time, resulting in 6-10 times conversion over self-service and 3-10 percent lift in total site revenue. Now, armed with the capability of adding products directly to the shopping cart, Needle-certified advocates can make the shoppers’ experience even more personalized and convenient – and the impact on conversion and sales even bigger for online businesses.
“With Needle’s Advocate-Assisted Shopping Cart, we’re bridging the gap between brand advocate and personal shopper,” said Morgan Lynch, founder and CEO of Needle. “This not only provides a new, human element of convenience to the shopper, but will also be huge in improving conversion rates for our e-commerce clients.”
As part of the normal online chat flow, advocates routinely suggest products to shoppers based on their needs. Up until today, advocates did not have the ability to progress the conversation beyond that point. The new shopping cart capability allows both advocates and shoppers to add products directly to the cart from the chat window.
TaylorMade advocate Jackson Sveen reviewed the new demo with Needle employees at IRCE in Chicago.
“If a customer wants a customized driver, I can now create it specifically for them and place it in their cart,” said Sveen. “Shoppers don’t have to do heavy shopping or browsing any more. They can tell advocates exactly what they need, and we can help customize their order and send them directly to checkout.”
Key features of Needle’s Advocate-Assisted Shopping Cart include:
- Dual Transparency – Adding products to online shopping carts is not a new concept; however, the dual transparency of Needle’s latest feature makes it stand out among competitors. For the first time, both advocates and shoppers have the same, shared view of the cart.
- Customized Basket Build – With enhanced product tray functionality, advocates can proactively suggest other relevant products to shoppers and custom build their shopping carts.
- Improved Mobile Shopping Experience – On-the-go shoppers no longer have to toggle between chat screens and online carts in a complicated mobile checkout process. Rather than fussing with minimizing and opening new windows on a smartphone, shopping cart contents now appear directly in mobile users’ chat windows.
- Ability to Apply Unique Promo Codes – Advocates have the ability to add unique, time-based coupon codes to further increase the likelihood of conversion.
- Simple Integration for Online Retailers – For most e-commerce platforms, implementation of Needle’s Advocate-Assisted Shopping Cart does not require any additional integration work or set up for retailers. They simply provide cart API documentation, and Needle takes care of the rest. Needle’s Advocate-assisted Shopping Cart integrates with all major e-commerce platforms, including Demandware, Megento Bigcommerce and Hybris.
Needle’s Advocate-Assisted Shopping Cart builds on the company’s foundation as a pioneer in advocate-assisted commerce. The company quickly ascended to its market leadership position on the strength of its robust advocate network, with more than 50,000 experts in all major verticals. In 2014 alone, Needle powered 2.6 million live interactions between advocates and online shoppers.
About Needle
Needle helps companies bring the power of human connections to e-commerce. Founded in 2010, Needle’s software identifies online customers who need help making a purchase decision and matches them, real-time, with certified advocates who have first-hand knowledge of the products they’re considering. The result is a truly awesome customer experience that builds trust and increases satisfaction with customers, while delivering incremental revenue and long-term customer value for businesses. Needle is a privately held company based in Salt Lake City. For more information about how Needle works and for whom Needle works, visit www.needle.com.