We are living in an era of fierce competition in e-commerce.

In recent years, influenced by the rise of the term “D2C” and the growth of stay-at-home consumption driven by COVID-19, the e-commerce industry has become an even more fiercely competitive arena.

In the midst of this kind of confusion, the person who told us that they had been “looking for measures to stand out from other mail-order companies around us” was Yukihito Kizawa of Red Vision Co., Ltd.

(Mr. Kizawa from Red Vision Inc.)

However, at that time, Mr. Kizawa had repeatedly experienced failures with tools he had adopted after being told, “This will definitely work,” and had become somewhat distrustful of such tools.

Amid these circumstances, what was the decisive factor in choosing to introduce BOTCHAN, the chatbot service provided by wevnal Inc., as a new initiative?

also from Red Vision Inc. Ryo Inoue making a total of two people we interviewed.

(Mr. Inoue from Red Vision Co., Ltd.)

The interviewer belongs to the Customer Success Team at wevnal Inc., Keigo Matsumoto.

(Matsumoto from wevnal Inc.)

"Does it really work?" "It absolutely does."

Matsumoto (hereafter, ━━): To begin with, how did you first come to know about our company’s BOTCHAN?

Kizawa (hereafter, “Kizawa”): At first, I met your company’s sales representative, Mr. Suzuki, at a kind of networking event where people from the e-commerce industry gather. And, you know, Mr. Suzuki is a really nice person.

(Suzuki, a member of the sales team at wevnal Inc.)

━━ Yes, thank you. (laughs)

Kizawa: While I was talking with Mr. Suzuki, he said to me, “Please let me make a proposal for BOTCHAN.” So meeting Mr. Suzuki at that networking event was how I came to learn about BOTCHAN.

━━ When Suzuki first proposed it, what was your initial impression of BOTCHAN?

Kizawa: I understand that BOTCHAN is a product designed to improve our site’s CVR. But my question was, “Does it really deliver results?” The reason I ask is that, even before we implemented your BOTCHAN, our company had already tried various EFO and LPO tools.

Among those efforts, we also tried using chatbots from other companies. However, including those, we were not really able to achieve any notable results.

━━ Based on your past experience, you felt some anxiety about introducing a new marketing tool. Given that background, what was the decisive factor that ultimately led you to implement BOTCHAN?

Kizawa: What really struck me was Mr. Suzuki’s strong confidence in BOTCHAN. I must have asked him many times, “If we implement BOTCHAN, will it really deliver results?” And each time, he replied, “It absolutely will.”

They actually prepared a simulation sheet for us, and we confirmed that if the numbers improve by about this much by introducing BOTCHAN, it will be profitable. Since Mr. Suzuki was willing to go that far, we said, “All right, let’s do it.”

So in the end, we decided to implement BOTCHAN.

“I think it’s pretty common to roll out a new tool and then just leave it unused.”

━━ Since you actually implemented BOTCHAN, how have the numbers changed?

Inoue (hereafter, Inoue): In the end, compared with before we implemented BOTCHAN, our CVR improved by around 200%. I think “we want to reduce cart abandonment” is an issue that anyone running an e-commerce business faces, but for us it was an especially significant challenge. Our cart abandonment rate was high compared with typical figures at other companies.

━━ We are very pleased to have been able to support your company in resolving these challenges.

Inoue: I think we were seeing relatively good results from the beginning, but from there, thanks to the various suggestions Mr. Matsumoto made, we were able to improve the numbers even further. He proposed ideas such as changing the order of the questions within BOTCHAN and inserting product reviews we received from customers into the scenario as images.

Moreover, those kinds of proposals are not just random ideas; you base them on proven results, such as “initiatives that are delivering numbers with other companies’ BOTCHAN,” so we find that extremely valuable.

(Scene from a scenario in BOTCHAN)

━━ If you praise me that much, I start to feel a bit embarrassed, you know (laughs).

Inoue: To be honest, I think it’s pretty common to roll out a new marketing tool and then just leave it there without ever really making good use of it. But BOTCHAN’s management dashboard has a modern, easy-to-read design, and above all, I feel that wevnal has a very solid customer success structure in place.

After receiving instruction in CSS from Mr. Matsumoto, I am now able to revise BOTCHAN’s design on my own.

“Inside the company, there was this feeling of, ‘Aren’t chatbots basically useless?’”

Kizawa: In today’s e-commerce industry, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to outperform the competition compared to the past. Everyone I talk to in the e-commerce space is going through a lot of trial and error. In this environment, everyone is looking for effective measures that will help them stand out from the crowd.

━━ So, as a new initiative in the context of this kind of challenging environment, you decided to implement BOTCHAN this time.

Kizawa: In fact, I’ve had many experiences where, as a user buying something online, I felt, “Wow, payment is such a hassle.” So I can fully understand the logic that putting a chatbot there would increase the conversion rate.

━━ Yes, that’s right. One of BOTCHAN’s key features is that, through its conversational UI, users can complete the entire process, including payment, within the chatbot.

Kizawa: However, as I briefly mentioned at the beginning, while trying out various initiatives, we had previously used another company’s chatbot, but at that time it did not produce any results.

So within the company, there was a general feeling of, “Aren’t chatbots basically useless?” That’s why it was really good that Mr. Suzuki made his proposal to us with confidence.

━━ Likewise, we are truly pleased that we were able to support your company in solving its challenges. Finally, if you have any requests for new features or ways to use BOTCHAN in the future, we would very much like to hear them.

Inoue: Something I found interesting when I was talking with colleagues the other day was the idea of automatically switching scenarios based on the position of the CTA. It’s obvious when you think about it, but depending on which CTA on the landing page the customer clicks, the information they have at that point and their level of interest are different.

If we can automatically tailor and deliver different scenarios to match each customer’s situation, I believe the range of things we can do with BOTCHAN will expand even further.

━━ Thank you very much. This is a very helpful idea...

Inoue: If this feature actually gets implemented, please make sure our company at least gets it for free, not as a paid option (laughs).

━━ Please let me consult with you again when that part is actually implemented (laughs). Thank you very much for taking the time for this interview today.

Mr. Sato, who is in charge of sales for another product, “Alpoca,” at Red Vision Co., Ltd., will also be joining us.

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