How to Recover Abandoned Carts Using WhatsApp & SMS Automation

E-commerce is a cut-throat business, and what makes things tougher is cart abandonment. With 7 out of 10 carts getting abandoned, it’s not just about avoiding abandonment—but also recovering abandoned carts effectively. At Provis Technologies, we believe abandoned cart recovery shouldn’t be seen merely as an extra sales opportunity, but as a way to reclaim sales that slipped away by a narrow margin.

You can potentially recover around 30% of lost sales if you plan and execute a solid recovery strategy. The key lies in understanding what drove the customer away, persuading them with the right message, and guiding them back to complete the purchase.

Tools like WhatsApp Business and SMS automation have become game changers in this recovery process. Before diving into how they work, let’s break down the fundamentals of a strong cart recovery strategy.

Abandoned Carts: How to Recover Them

Source: https://www.shopagain.com/blog/here-is-how-you-can-recover-abandoned-carts-and-revenue/ 

Sending an Email is a traditional way to recover abandoned carts. Having an abandoned cart email strategy is the first thing to do if you want to bring the user back to the cart. Email, though it has a slower response rate, brings professionalism in approach. It can build credibility with the user if you add a personal touch to it.

A mail with a subject line like: Hey Shrishti, you left something behind, or Your cart is calling you, please listen, can shoot up the open rates. Just ask yourself how likely you are to open a mail with an interesting and personalized subject line in comparison with a mail that is plain in tone and emotion. Something with a heading like cart abandonment mail gives a feeling of an automated reply, which most likely goes into the dump box.  

Apart from the mail call backs are very effective. Your sales representatives reach out to the user within a few minutes of cart abandonment and ask what went wrong. A polite apology and offering a solution with some extra discount is a quick success strategy to recover abandoned carts. Using a callback, you can bring a bit more humanized touch, which might be lacking in the email. It’s not like you should opt for call backs and not emails, or vice versa. Rather, the idea is to have a fine mix of both. 

WhatsApp and SMS automation have opened another path to go and recover abandoned carts with high success. With WhatsApp and SMS, you can reach out to the user more effectively and drive the desired action. 

Recover Abandoned Carts: The Power of WhatsApp and SMS Automation 

Source: https://botpenguin.com/blogs/integration-of-ai-in-whatsapp-ecommerce 

WhatsApp has over 2 billion active users, which means it has widespread reach globally. WhatsApp Business and WhatsApp automation are already used in business marketing to drive sales. 

However, apart from bringing new sales, these tools are effective to recover abandoned carts. Here is how it changes the game for e-commerce firms and drives sales:

• Open rates: WhatsApp messages have an open rate of a massive 98%. This is huge when you compare it with 20% to 25% open rates of emails. This means 9 out of 10 messages you send to recover abandoned carts would grab the users’ attention. This makes WhatsApp an effective tool for getting the cart back to sales.

• Freedom to customize: WhatsApp offers a free hand in order to present your message as creatively as possible to the user.

• You can send a graphic in regards to the product in the abandoned cart to highlight how effective it is and why the user should buy

• Sending a video message to the user, persuading them to complete the purchase

• A personalized message, like something is missing you, or your skin would love this moisturizer, etc., can be sent via WhatsApp

• Bulk messaging: SMS automation and WhatsApp both offer the option of bulk messaging. You can schedule messages to be sent at a defined interval to the user. This way, you reach out to the user multiple times within 24-48 hours of cart abandonment, maximizing the chances of recovery. 

• Round-the-clock service: With automation you can keep reaching out to the user 24/7 as and when the cart abandonment happens. For example, if a user is shopping at your e-commerce store at 2 AM and abandons the cart at 2:05 AM, then by 2:10 AM, they would get a cart abandonment message on WhatsApp. Thus, you don’t miss out on reaching the user immediately after cart abandonment at any point in time. 

• Easy to integrate: One best things about WhatsApp API is the smooth integration with e-commerce stores. It has plugins in Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce, etc that help to integrate the e-commerce store to WhatsApp within a few minutes. You can quickly do the setup and start sending messages to the users.

• Show credibility: If you use WhatsApp Business, then it offers you a blue tick (based on subscription package), which is Meta-certified. This helps you build credibility that you are a genuine and renowned e-commerce store. Further, it allows the option to create a store on WhatsApp where users can buy products and complete purchases. This way, you can recover abandoned carts from WhatsApp without even taking the user to your website or app.

Conclusion 

Recovering abandoned carts is a challenge, where WhatsApp and SMS automation lend a helping hand. The fact that these automations are cost-effective and offer bulk messaging makes them more suitable. Chalking your cart recovery strategy with WhatsApp and SMS automation at the centre, and emails and push notifications as supporting elements you can drive your sales up by around 30%.