For marketers hesitating to get on board with the enormous potential for live commerce to help you deliver a better, easier, and more convenient digital buying experiences, a recent commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Emplifi may provide the evidence they need to take the leap.
There are numerous benefits to investing in Emplifi Live Commerce, leading to Forrester’s finding of a 306% return on investment over three years — and a full realization of monetary costs in less than six months[1]. To get a full understanding of how Emplifi’s Live Commerce platform could help your marketing team deliver a better, easier, and more authentic customer experience via social media, we recommend downloading Forrester’s full Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study. But here are some of the most impactful benefits:
10x increase in online sales conversion rate
In its research into Emplifi clients, Forrester found that the Live Commerce platform had a tremendous impact on their online sales conversion rate, boosting it from 2% to 20%. They said this was due to multiple factors that led to customers being much more apt to purchase from a sales associate talking directly to them than if they were merely browsing the website on their own.
“Emplifi Live Commerce increases a customer’s exposure and access to available specialist consultants, offering a more-customized sales approach and customer experience and increasing the conversion rate,” the Forrester study stated. “This uplift in conversion rate has a direct positive impact on the composite organization’s revenue.”
Not only are customers more likely to buy directly from a person — even via video — but the expert interaction allows them to be more confident and informed buyers, giving them more comfort with buying online and leading to a significant increase in conversion rates. Forrester tabbed the monetary value of this increase at $2.2 million over three years.
Average order value up by 28%
On top of the massive conversion rate increase, Forrester found that Emplifi Live Commerce was responsible for a 28% boost in Average Order Value (AOV), as positive video engagements with experts via video led customers to buy more than just the product they initially looked into.
“The expanded access to specialist consultants,” the study stated, “increases the opportunities of building a better rapport with a customer and upselling other products and services in comparison to a customer’s solitary and independent browsing journey or automated chat bot services.”
Because they’re speaking with an expert on the product they’re interested in, that expert has the opportunity to personally recommend related products and explain why other customers have packaged these items together. This is far more effective than merely displaying product images alongside “Customers also bought these items” sorts of language. Forrester valued this benefit at $927,000 over three years.
Time savings for client product experts
While companies enjoy greater conversion rates coupled with AOV, they’re also able to achieve these gains much more efficiently than previously, from an employee hours standpoint. For a variety of reasons, Forrester found that Emplifi Live Commerce clients’ product experts spend far less time working with customers in order to get those conversions.
“This could be due to the type of customers launching online Emplifi Live Commerce video calls,” the study noted. “Online customers who are prepared and confident to ask targeted questions don’t need much of a consultant’s call time and require less follow-up.”
In many cases, customers have already done a good bit of research on their own and have specific questions they need answered by an expert by the time they click through to Live Commerce. That makes for a quicker, more efficient interaction that’s more satisfying for both parties. Forrester calculates the savings here at $1.6 million over three years.
Get the full study
This is just a small taste of the full Forrester TEI study. To learn much more, including the impact of Emplifi Live Commerce on customer reach, data insights, shortened sales cycles, and customer journeys, and to see quotes from clients who use Emplifi Live Commerce every day, download the full study.
[1] Results from this study are based on a composite organization comprised of results from interviewees with experience using Emplifi.
