In 2019, the e-commerce industry surpassed 10 trillion yen in market size, and its momentum shows no signs of slowing.
However, as competition intensifies, companies and brands are now locked in a fierce battle.
On top of that are numerous obstacles, such as increasingly strict advertising policies and labor shortages accompanying rapid expansion.
Mr. Kenya Sugino, President and CEO of Kurokos Co., Ltd., which sells the hand beauty serum “Siro jam,” and Mr. Yuki Onishi, who is in charge of marketing for the same product, were facing similar challenges.
(Mr. Yasutaka Onishi (left) and Mr. Kenya Sugino (right))
That was when the two of them began considering the introduction of a chatbot.
As a result, the CVR, a long-standing challenge in the e-commerce industry, improved by 140%.
In this article, we interview the two of them about the specific challenges they faced before introducing the chatbot, and the results they have seen since its implementation.
I am Kaito Takayanagi, leader of the Customer Success Team at wevnal Inc., which provides the chatbot service “BOTCHAN” to Kurokosama.
Although we had improved the first view and copy on the product landing page...
(Kaito Takayanagi, Customer Success Team Leader at wevnal)
Takayanagi (hereafter, ━━): To begin, could you tell us about the challenges your company was facing before implementing BOTCHAN, and the measures you were taking to address them at that time?
Mr. Sugino (hereafter, “Sugino”)
The biggest challenge is, after all, CVR (conversion rate). We were meeting a certain level of numbers, but I felt we needed to improve this further. In the background, competitors have been increasing one after another and ad reviews have become stricter, which has driven up our CPA (cost per acquisition).
━━ Every e-commerce operator talks about “improving CVR,” don’t they? What kinds of measures had you been taking in response to that?
Sugino
We had been implementing LPO (landing page optimization) measures, such as changing the first view and copy on the product LP. However, the impact on the numbers was limited relative to the amount of effort required.
Moreover, when we introduced BOTCHAN about a year ago, there were only two of us, including myself, handling marketing for Siro jam.
Given that we only have that level of resources, we were feeling the limits of continuing with our current improvement measures, so we were looking for some new, alternative initiatives.
Reasons for choosing “BOTCHAN” over other chatbot services
━━ So, while you were looking for measures that could have a major impact on improving CVR, you became interested in BOTCHAN.
Sugino
“I’d heard for some time within the e-commerce industry that ‘if you implement a chatbot, your CVR will improve.’ There are even some ASP providers who say, ‘If the landing page has a chatbot installed, we’ll handle your products.’”
━━ I see, that’s how it was. By the way, as you’ve been considering implementing a chatbot, have you also compared us with other providers besides BOTCHAN?
Sugino
That’s right. There were actually companies that approached us with proposals even before BOTCHAN. However, due to their pricing structures, we felt the cost-effectiveness just wasn’t there, so we decided not to move forward with implementation.
━━ With BOTCHAN, the pricing model is a quasi-performance-based structure where the price range changes according to the number of monthly conversions (CVs). As long as you remain within the same range, the more CVs you generate, the lower the price per CV becomes. I believe this pricing structure is one of BOTCHAN’s key characteristics.
Sugino
In our case, when things are going really well, the cost per CV can be around 100 yen, sometimes just over or just under, so this is extremely valuable for us.
What are the three proposals that achieved a 140% improvement in CVR?
━━ Next, I’d like to ask about your experience after actually implementing our solution. However, at the beginning we were not really able to deliver much in the way of results, were we...?
Sugino
Right. At first, we introduced BOTCHAN on a trial basis, installing it only on a limited number of landing pages, but it didn’t produce much effect. Then we received some improvement suggestions from Mr. Takayanagi and implemented those changes.
━━ We proposed three main areas for improvement. The first was the design of BOTCHAN, the second was revising the scenarios within BOTCHAN, and the third—and likely the one with the greatest impact—was using images for more visually compelling communication.
━━ First, regarding the “design of BOTCHAN,” we aligned BOTCHAN’s brand colors with the landing page colors to ensure consistency, and we changed the opening tagline from something simple like “Apply here” to “67% OFF on your first order” to better highlight the value.
(BOTCHAN (PC display) in colors unified with the product LP, featuring the copy “First order approx. 67% OFF”)
━━ Next, regarding the second point, “Scenario changes,” we rearranged the order of the questions so that customers can more easily enter their information all the way through to the end. And the third and final point is that we highlighted information such as “Sign‑up completed in 60 seconds” and “Money‑back guarantee” not only through text but also by using visuals.
(Use images to highlight the phrase “Lifetime Money-Back Guarantee” effectively, giving customers a sense of reassurance (smartphone display))
━━ We kept making improvements relentlessly until we reached the point where we could say, “If this doesn’t work, then nothing will.” As a result, once we implemented those improvements, the numbers went up, which was a positive outcome.
What are the side benefits of BOTCHAN beyond a 140% improvement in CVR?
Sugino
After we received your improvement proposal, our CVR improved by 140% compared to before. From there, we kept increasing the number of landing pages with BOTCHAN implemented.
━━ In your company’s case, your original CVR before introducing BOTCHAN was already high compared with other companies. Because your starting benchmark was high, it was quite a challenge to improve the numbers even further (laughs).
Sugino
Right now, we’ve installed BOTCHAN not only on Siro jam but also on landing pages for other brands, and we’re seeing the same kind of results there as well, which we really appreciate.
━━ By the way, aside from the quantitative effects, have there been any qualitative changes?
Sugino
It’s that we’ve been able to start doing upselling and cross-selling. This isn’t related to BOTCHAN at all, but with the cart system our company is currently using, we can only prepare a single type of thank-you page that appears after a customer completes a purchase.
However, by routing purchases through BOTCHAN, we are now able to display different thank-you pages for each product. It has been beneficial that we can use those thank-you pages to introduce other products and plans, enabling us to perform upselling and cross-selling.
━━ Oh, I see there were side benefits like that as well. And how about you, Mr. Onishi?
Mr. Onishi (hereafter, “Onishi”)
It’s that we are now able to offer “delivery to a parcel locker” as an option. This also relates to the cart system our company uses, but until now we were not able to do that.
However, by customizing BOTCHAN’s scenario, we are now able to automatically present the option to “deliver to a parcel locker” at the point when the address is entered.
━━ This is the first time that users of BOTCHAN have expressed their appreciation to us from that perspective.
Onishi
For some time, customers had been telling us that they wanted the option of a parcel delivery box, so I am pleased that we were first of all able to respond to their request.
As a result, the burden on us as operators has also been reduced. Until now, we used to receive individual requests about preferred delivery methods and then respond to each one separately.
Since introducing BOTCHAN, the effort required for handling those individual cases has decreased, which I believe has been beneficial for both our customers and for us as operators.
━━ Thank you very much. I’m sorry to end on a personal note, but your company is actually the client I’ve worked with the longest in my roughly one and a half years as a working professional.
I’ve been involved with you since my first year out of university, and to be honest, at the beginning I thought, “This company already has such a high CVR that it’s hard to make proposals…”. I’m glad we were able to deliver solid results in the end. I look forward to continuing to work with you.
Sugino / Onishi
Yes, likewise—thank you in advance, and I look forward to working with you.
...
If you are considering implementing BOTCHAN and would like concrete advice tailored to your company’s potential use cases and current situation, please feel free to contact us.
One of our consultants will be pleased to assist you.
