Consumer preferences

for Conversational
Commerce & AI

How consumers around the world

view conversational commerce,
messaging, AI, and bots in the
context of engaging with brands
Table of contents

03 Methodology

04 Executive summary

06 The “commerce” part of conversational commerce

has finally arrived

08 Conversations, not cookies, can help brands

provide trusted personalization

11 Conversational AI is gaining favorability,

but empathy remains key

13 Consumers want commerce and customer care to

continue to shift to the digital realm

2
Methodology

In September 2021, LivePerson commissioned an online survey of 5,172 consumers

aged 18 and older across the following six countries:

USA (2,105 respondents)

UK (752 respondents)
France (509 respondents)
Germany (534 respondents)
Japan (516 respondents)
Australia (756 respondents)

The goal was to understand the attitudes of consumers in major economic markets with
regard to conversational commerce, customer care, and conversational AI. They were
asked a series of questions on the topics of messaging, bots, and automation, and how
they prefer to engage with brands. The results are summarized in this report.

NOTE: Some of the findings in this research paper reference changes year-over-year. In these cases, the comparison is based on
questions asked a year earlier and published in October 2020. That report is available here.

3
Executive summary

Key takeaways
• The vast majority of consumers worldwide say they prefer brands that let
them use messaging to shop and make purchases.

• Consumers are looking for personalized experiences and say they

spend more when they feel personally connected to a brand. They trust
conversational experiences, where brands can directly ask for their info,
far more than the cookies and web tracking brands have previously used
for personalization.

• Consumer sentiment towards AI-powered conversational automations, better

known to many as “chatbots,” is more positive than ever. Brands can use
these automations to scale the personalized experiences consumers want.

Innovative brands worldwide have rolled out the option for consumers to connect
with them via their preferred medium for communicating with family and friends —
messaging. This takes many forms, including SMS texting, the native messaging apps
of iOS and Android, messaging platforms like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, and
messaging on brands’ mobile apps and websites.

By layering in artificial intelligence and automation, brands can scale their messaging
experiences to levels far beyond what human agents can handle on their own, making
conversations more convenient, personalized, and satisfying for more consumers.

While brands have traditionally used AI-powered messaging for customer care, this
year’s report indicates that consumers are highly interested in messaging to browse
products and services and make purchases.

4
This research highlights a number of consumer attitudes that brands should bear in
mind as they implement their conversational strategies:

→ 83% of consumers worldwide would browse or buy products in

messaging conversations

→ 77% are more likely to make a purchase if they could browse or get answers
over messaging

→ 63% of consumers say messaging with a company would make them feel a
more personal connection

For the full report, read on.

5
The “commerce” part of conversational
commerce has finally arrived

The vast majority of consumers worldwide now say they prefer brands that
let them use messaging to make purchases.

Consumers are looking to engage with brands through messaging today more than ever
before, and not just to get customer service questions answered or to look up tracking
numbers. In fact, brands that allow their customers to shop and make purchases in
messaging conversations have a leg up on their competition.

• Almost three-quarters (74%) of consumers are more likely to do business with

a company if they could message them rather than call them

• 77% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase if they could browse or get
answers over messaging

• 83% of consumers worldwide would browse or buy products in messaging

conversations

• Over three-quarters (78%) of respondents would like the ability to securely

message with any business

There’s still a large gap between the channels consumers say they want to
use and those they’ve actually been able to experience.

• The digital channels consumers say they’ve used to date to communicate with
brands include email (76%), text messaging (41%), and social media (33%).

• Messaging is growing, with 5% more consumers saying they’ve texted with a brand
compared to 2020, but brands can still go a long way to meet consumers in this
channel.

6
Are you more likely to do business with a company if you
could text message them rather than call them?

74% 26%

Yes No

Are you more likely to make a purchase if you could

browse or get answers over messaging?

77% 23%

Yes No

Would you browse or buy products

in messaging conversations?

83% 17%

Yes No

7
Conversations, not cookies, can help
brands provide trusted personalization

Consumers report they are looking for personalized experiences with brands,
and would spend more when they feel personally connected to them.

• 86% say they are more likely to do business with a company that interacts with
them in a personalized way

• 79% of consumers say they’re more likely to make a purchase from a brand with
which they feel a personal connection

But not all personalization is created equal. Wide majorities of consumers

report they do not trust brands that use cookies to track their information, but
do trust brands that ask for their information via messaging.

• 76% of consumers are concerned about websites using cookies to capture

their activity

• Crucially for brands looking to create personalized experiences, 62% of consumers

are comfortable sharing information with a brand when asked
directly in a messaging conversation

• 63% of consumers say messaging with a company would make them feel a
more personal connection

A strong majority of consumers also say they are comfortable with brands
proactively reaching out to them via messaging.

• 58% of consumers say they are comfortable with brands reaching out via
messaging with customized sales, coupons, or offers

8
“I’m more likely to do business with a company that
interacts with me in a personalized way”

(i.e., knows information about me from previous transactions)

86% 14%

Yes No

“I’m more likely to make a purchase from a brand

with which I feel a personal connection”

79%
Yes

No

21%

9
 “I’m concerned about websites using
cookies to capture my activity”

76% 24%

Yes No

“I’m comfortable sharing information with a brand when

asked directly in a messaging conversation”

62% 38%

Yes No

10
Conversational AI is gaining
favorability, but empathy remains key

AI-powered conversational automations, better known to consumers as

“chatbots,” are critical to scaling the personalized, convenient experiences
consumers say they want from brands. And consumer sentiment towards
chatbots is more positive than ever.

• 61% noted they have a positive view, compared to 31% who took a positive view
in 2020

• Consumers say the top strengths of chatbots include that they are:
» convenient (52%)
» faster than human agents (43%)
» easy to use (42%)

• Consumers have also become more comfortable using chatbots to handle common
interactions with brands, including to:
» Renew a contract — 51% (up 6% year-over-year)
» Reorder products they regularly buy — 60% (up 7% year-over-year)
» Predict why they’re engaging — 44% (up 5% year-over-year)
» Remind them to order presents for upcoming holidays — 54%
(up 6% year-over-year)

Still, there’s room for improvement when it comes to AI-powered experiences.

Consumers want to see more personalization and empathy from brand bots.

• When asked what they see as weaknesses of chatbots:

» 56% say they can’t address all of my questions
» 41% say they lacked a human touch
» 36% say they are not personalized

This feedback indicates that brands working with Conversational AI and automation should
ensure conversations can be escalated to human agents as needed, design warm and em-
pathetic conversations, and integrate with back-end systems that can better personalize
conversations.

11
 Consumers have become more comfortable
using chatbots to handle common
interactions with brands for...

Yes in 2020 Yes in 2021

100%

75%

60%
54%
51%
50% 44%

25%

0%
Renewing a Reordering Predicting why Reminding them
contract products they’re engaging to order presents
for upcoming
holidays

12
Consumers want commerce and
customer care to continue to shift
to the digital realm

77% of consumers say the ideal shopping experience is at least

partly digital

• When asked, “Ideally, how would you prefer to buy most products or services?”:

» 22% say they would prefer never to speak to a person

» 55% say they sometimes prefer digital and sometimes prefer to speak to a person
» Just 23% say the ideal way to buy most products or services is by speaking with
a person, and that number fell 6% year-over-year

When it comes to humans vs. bots, more than half of consumers prefer to
interact with a chatbot for the following common brand interactions:

Telling them their account balance 60%

Updating their address 56%

Booking an appointment 53%

Finding a product for them 50%

13
“Ideally, how would you prefer to buy
most products or services?”

The ideal shopping experience is at least partly digital

The ideal way to buy most products or services is by speaking with a person.

23%

77%

14
About us
LivePerson (NASDAQ:LPSN) is a leading Conversational AI company creating digital
experiences that are Curiously Human. Every person is unique, and our technology
makes it possible for companies to treat their audiences that way at scale. Our
customers, including leading brands like HSBC, Orange, and GM Financial, can now
meet consumers where they are across social media, messaging, email, voice, and
more. Nearly a billion conversational interactions are powered by our Conversational
Cloud each month. Out of that comes a uniquely rich data set for AI for brands to
build connections that are anything but artificial.

To talk with us or our Conversational AI,

please visit www.liveperson.com.

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