Marketing
If you’re in eCommerce today, you’re no stranger to software comparisons. In fact, as you’ve built your tech stack, you’ve probably seen hundreds of them. The internet is full of "us vs. them" comparisons, but an "us and them" comparison is much more helpful. And when it comes to understanding the relationship between Humankind’s 1:1 concierge platform and Attentive’s SMS marketing solution, you’ll see why savvy marketers quickly come to understand that the answer is often “both.”
But before we get to that - conversation commerce tools are all the rage today…
Let’s start with a definition of Conversational Commerce:
Conversational Commerce is when Ai and human expertise combine to facilitate personalized, one-on-one sales conversations with customers.
In other words, conversational commerce platforms like Humankind and Attentive enable the use of today's messaging technology to facilitate conversations and transactions between businesses and customers.
This approach to e-commerce provides a more personalized and convenient shopping experience, where customers can receive product recommendations, make purchases, and get support through a conversational interface.
Conversational commerce is not only more convenient for shoppers, it means that transactions can take place on various messaging platforms, including social media messaging apps, messaging within mobile apps, and on your website.
As CAC (customer acquisition costs) have increased, it's become more important than ever to focus on customer loyalty and retention. Customers are the lifeblood of any e-commerce business, and they need to be supported during every stage of their journey. That's where Humankind and Attentive come in.
On the surface, they may look like direct competitors, but the reality is much more nuanced. Smart marketers use them to complement one another and provide slightly different value to your customers and your brand.
Let's take a look at them side-by-side.
Humankind is a sales enablement tool. It’s a conversational commerce software that directly connects shoppers to product experts who walk them through each step of the buying journey, creating a 1:1 human connection. The goal is to unlock the superpower of human interaction and build a Trusted Advisor relationship between the customer and the brand. The goal is to turn casual shoppers into brand loyalists and turn brand loyalists into raving cheerleaders.
Humankind studied more than 1,000,000 customer interactions to build a platform that is intuitive for experts to use, and even more enjoyable for customers to interact with. Customers shop, have real-time conversations, and get personalized recommendations while having a direct number to connect to their Humankind remote concierge.
Think of this relationship as texting a friend for a product recommendation or having a specialist on speed dial.
Product experts, also known as "remote concierges," are hired internally or externally, educated on your products, and trained by Humankind on how to effectively build meaningful connections through conversation.
Attentive is a mobile messaging platform designed to help businesses reach their customers through SMS/MMS campaigns. Attentive has the ability to add automated recommendations based on customer data, such as past purchases or browsing history. It also allows businesses to create automated messages that are sent out in response to customer actions, such as abandoning a shopping cart or browsing a certain category of products.
Typically, Attentive is used for marketing purposes, such as announcing promotions or launching new products. It has the ability to track customer engagement so you can gain valuable insights.
If you've ever gotten a promotional text message after shopping with a brand that offers you special offers, bundles, or notifications when a product is back in stock, you've seen Attentive SMS in action.
1:1 Conversations with Humans.
Reach exponentially more customers with half the effort while driving entirely new streams of revenue.
SMS/MMS campaigns with automated recommendations.
For shoppers, begin the experience with a “Get to Know You” quiz, start chatting via SMS so the expert can get a full picture of the shopper's needs, view all personalized recommendations on custom landing pages, and convert on one-click checkout.
Delight, convert, and retain customers through hyper-personalized expert recommendations.
Create automated messages that are triggered by customer actions and send SMS/MMS campaigns to announce promotions or launch new products.
Rich Customer Data and Preferences
Gather insightful information about shoppers through surveys and quizzes — then increase conversion rates with hyper-personalized product recommendations.
Design campaigns that succeed in a few easy clicks.
This is another place where Humankind and Attentive differ.
Humankind can help support staffing your expert in one of two ways.
First, if there is someone internal to your organization who has a natural knack for product knowledge and is enthusiastic about spreading the word on your brand, we can take that person and train them on the arc of conversational commerce and train them on our software.
Secondarily, if this person doesn’t yet exist within your company, we have staffing partners where we can pair your product with an expert whose personal interests are in alignment. This person would be staffed remotely, but trained on your brand, cross-trained on the product, and of course, trained on the Humankind Software and conversational commerce best practices.
It’s important to know that these product experts will only represent your brand and your products so they can deliver an excellent level of experience and knowledge.
Attentive primarily utilizes a larger workforce to support its brands, like a call center that supports multiple organizations, the individuals your customers will be speaking with aren't product experts but customer service representatives. If your customers have specific questions about a product then the customer service agents have to reach out to the brand before delivering a response...
This can lead to long waiting times and lower-quality shopping experiences.
Here's a comparison for Humankind's conversational commerce and Attentive conversational commerce:
Based on the initial comparison, it appears that both Humankind and Attentive are quite similar in terms of features and capabilities although they differ slightly in how they focus their efforts on getting results.
We want to emphasize the ‘AND’ of the conversation, as we promised at the top of this article. With Humankind, the SMS experience will be tied to a single phone number that connects to a specific expert at any time. Meaning you could text Julie, from this SkinCare brand at 555-123-4567 and the text works both ways at any time.
As a brand, you ALSO might want to have a strong promotional SMS strategy; Whereby more general sales or promotions come from 69480 (not a 2-way text phone number) and share information re: sales and promotion.
You wouldn’t want Julie just blanket-sending promotions that aren’t relevant to the shopper’s purchase history or experience.
THUS creating an experience where the shopper associates 69480 with promotional messaging, but 555-123-4567 with Julie (her personal shopper).
Humankind’s Conversational Commerce technology AND Attentive’s SMS solution.
Ultimately, the best way to make this decision is to consider what you want to accomplish with your conversational commerce solution. If you're looking to primarily create sign-ups and opt-in from SMS marketing campaigns, Attentive is a good first step…
If you're looking to utilize a remote concierge to walk customers through the purchasing process that is led by humans, Humankind might be a better fit. If you're looking for powerful integration and advanced analytics, either platform can do the job by itself…
And, both platforms can be stacked to create a better brand experience for your customers!
No matter which one you choose, we'd recommend that you start by evaluating your workflow needs and assessing what your customers would value most.
If you're currently looking to create more personalized shopping experiences, book your demo of Humankind. After studying more than 1,000,000 customer interactions, we've built a platform tailored to what your customers care about. Let us help you deliver the shopping experience your customers crave and create a memorable journey that keeps them coming back for more!
