New Options Sports - A Case Study
New Options Sports is actually the very first client we had. This was back in our previous company, and once we integrated our AI chatbot with Shopify, they decided they wanted to join us in AINIRO and replace their old chatbot with our new chatbot. You can read more about our Shopify integration below.
New Options Sports is a very interesting client for a lot of reasons. First of all, they've been in business since 1977. Secondly, they're in what most people would consider "a highly traditional business", implying they're leveraging the hottest AI that exists, to sell products that have existed for decades. Third of all, they're a very large company in the US in their vertical, and they're very forward leaning, always asking themselves how they can leverage the latest technology to continue selling superior products with superior service.
Below you can see what Marc Trimble their CEO thinks about AINIRO 😊
AINIRO's responsiveness and attention to our AI project was second to none. What we thought may take months, was delivered in 3 weeks. Our T2M was cut by 9 weeks, and we were able to begin user testing, get feedback and improve. If you enjoy working with responsive, competent people, look no further. We've since added another BU to their roster. They're the type of partners we want to work with.
How it works
First of all, New Options Sports is using our Shopify integration. Our Shopify integration will ingest all products through Shopify's API once every 24 hours, including stock, inventory, prices, etc. This results in a "near live" ChatGPT chatbot experience, where the chatbot will know exactly what products are available today, for what prices, and recommend products based upon these facts.
In addition the chatbot will display product images, something we've got research in regards to that shows you might sell up to 16 times more product because of. See an example below.
In addition the chatbot has been "spiced" with individual pages from their website, allowing it to answer general questions, such as "How do I contact you?", etc. Research actually shows that 69% of users actually prefers AI chatbots like these because they provide instant answers, however the chatbot will easily transition the conversation to a human employee at New Options Sports if asked about it. This implies you get the best from both worlds
- You get an AI chatbot answering 80% of support requests
- A human being can easily take over the conversation if needed
This results in that in addition to that you might see an increase of sales by 338%, you could also cut support costs by 80%. For a company with a highly technical product such as New Options Sports, both of these unique selling points are obviously important.
Business Intelligence
In addition to the above two USPs, the chatbot will also collect historical requests, giving New Options Sports valuable insights into their customers minds, by anonymously storing questions and answers, allowing the company to peek into their customers wants and needs as these changes over time.
For instance, if 10% of customers asks for a product they don't have, it's easy to imagine New Options Sports using this information to get that particular product in stock. Or if 5% of customers asks for a specific category of products they don't have, New Options might see this as an opportunity for an additional 5% of revenue by starting to sell this category.
In addition the chatbot also provides New Options with valuable feedback about navigation, user experience, etc, since it's a natural language interface, echoing users feelings about the company.
Destinations
One of the unique things about New Options Sports, is that they intend to use the chatbot to create an "industry destination", where users can ask questions about braces and similar products. When you need products from New Options, it often implies you've got some sort of physical condition. Often such events happens because of personal trauma resulting in the individual becoming insecure and needs help the individual didn't previously anticipate.
Having an AI chatbot empathically "guide" you through this phase of your life, might feel comforting, by answering your questions, reducing fear and anxiety, comforting you in a challenging phase of your life. Studies shows that simply understanding your physical condition and what needs to be done, significantly increases your ability to heal yourself, both mentally and physically after a traumatic experience.
New Options Sports intends to leverage their chatbot as a "destination" for people in need of their products, to such help their users, and guide them through such experiences, resulting (obviously) in them as a company financially benefitting by users sometimes chosing to buy their products as a consequence.
Conclusion
All in all, we are super happy to welcome New Options Sports into our AINIRO family, and we're eager to see what the future brings for both them and us as a consequence. Having what might be perceived as a highly traditional company, having existed for almost 50 years, long before the internet even existed in main stream usage becoming a customer of us and installing an AI chatbot on their website, is for obvious reasons something we're very passionate about.
If you want to play around with their chatbot, you can find it below.
Notice, New Options have plans to in the future create a specific landing page for their chatbot, allowing people to use it in full screen mode, similarly to how ChatGPT works. If you cannot find the chatbot at the above link, try to look for it using their navigation.
Have a Custom AI Solution
At AINIRO we specialise in delivering custom AI solutions and AI chatbots. If you want to talk to us about how we can help you implement your next custom AI solution, you can reach out to us below.
I am the CEO and Founder of AINIRO.IO, Ltd.
I am a software developer with more than 25 years of experience.
I write about Machine Learning, AI, and how to help organizations adopt said technologies.
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