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In the ever-evolving communication landscape, more and more Indians prefer to message businesses rather than sending an email, calling or visiting their website.

LimeChat, the world's first human-level chatbot startup that enables D2C brands to leverage conversational marketing, is developing a conversational marketing ecosystem to help D2C Brands improve retention.

According to Nikhil Gupta, Co-Founder, LimeChat, LimeChat has onboarded more than 175 D2C clients who love providing support and marketing to their customers via chat, leading to more sales and long-term brand recall.

LimeChat's specialisation in D2C e-communication conversations makes them one of the most advanced tools available for D2C brands across categories.

Here are the excerpts from an interview:

Q: How was the idea for LimeChat born? What is your USP?

A: LimeChat began when two IIT tech grads, who wanted to solve real-world problems with AI, had contrasting experiences with customer support. One was assisted and guided by a sales rep on Whatsapp, while the other was kept on hold for several hours by an IVR.

Realising traditional customer support is inefficient, and that the world was spending hours chatting on Whatsapp & Instagram DMs, Aniket & Nikhil both decided to zero in on an industry that would benefit the most from conversational commerce -- D2C and ecommerce.

Fast-forward to today, and LimeChat has onboarded more than 175 D2C Clients who love providing support and marketing to their customers via chat, leading to more sales and long-term brand recall.

Q: What is the size of the AI conversational market in India? Please also comment on the trends you are seeing which makes you bullish on the growth prospects in this space over the next 3-5 years?

A: According to International Data Corporation (IDC), India's AI market was valued at $3 billion in 2020, which is approximately 1 per cent of the global share. This is only expected to grow at 20 per cent among major economies over the next five years, behind only China.

India also produces 16 per cent of the world's AI talent pool, placing it among the top three talent markets.

About 85 per cent of executives from early adopters who have leveraged AI at scale spend 0.4 per cent, 0.7 per cent of their revenues on AI/ ML and realize an ROI of about 2-4x.

Alongside, the world is seeing high CAC (Customer Acquisition Costs) and Ad Spends, making it essential for D2C brands to optimise marketing campaigns. The need of the game is two way, engaging shopping experiences, where customers feel guided and feel they can depend on the brand for clarity and reassurance.

With dwindling SMS and email open rates, versus an open rate that is more than 95 per cent on chat, it is clear that thoughtful conversational commerce is the way to go.

Q: Some of India's top D2C brands are your customers. Can you share a few customer success stories with us?

A: The Neeman's team was looking for a partner that could help them with automating responses to repetitive questions concerning returns, payment, or orders and boost retention-led growth.

With Limechat's Level-3 AI, Neeman's was able to address customer queries 10X faster in a human-like manner. As of now, they have automated 70 per cent of all customer conversations!

They leveraged WhatsApp as a channel and used a Level-3 AI bot to personalize product discovery and address product-specific FAQs on chat. They saw a 6 per cent increase in website sales.

They also leveraged WhatsApp to send out abandoned cart campaigns, which saw close to a 90 per cent open rate and 3X cart recoveries (as compared to email and SMS).

Vikas Kabra, Entreprenuer in Residence, Neeman's, says that although we automated 70 per cent of chats, we achieved much more. The bot helped us boost our revenue by using conversational marketing, abandoned cart conversions, and an easy-to-use broadcast feature.

The Man Company (TMC) was looking for a pre-purchase sales bot that could convert inbound traffic on chat to paying customers.

LimeChat's technically superior Level-3 AI bot, built exclusively for eCommerce brands, helped TMC 3X their monthly sales, in comparison to the bot they were using before.

Brands like andMe 6x'ed their cart recovery rate with abandoned checkout campaigns on WhatsApp. All other post-purchase campaigns like order confirmation and order shipment saw a 70 per cent engagement rate as compared to other channels.

Brands like Clinikally and June Shop have observed a 3X increase in engagement with two-way COD verification campaigns. Sixty per cent of customers verify their COD orders via WhatsApp.

Q: What has AWS and cloud technology enabled you to do better? In terms of business outcomes, what benefits have you experienced because of running on AWS?

A: We continuously need to adapt to evolving market trends and demand. One of the key benefits of AWS for us has been that we can use diverse elements so that our application can scale as per changing demands

AWS enabled us to scale our systems to more than 200 clients easily.

AWS allows secure and quick host applications. This is one of the main benefits that help us to use their resources and capabilities optimally.

AWS cloud technology has scalable, reliable, secure, and robust systems. This has resulted in zero downtimes for us, making customers extremely happy and satisfied.