How Conversational AI 20x-es Instagram Sales On Autopilot

Conversational AI technology has been making its rounds throughout top tech companies for a while now.

And for everyday Internet users, AI caps out at helping you plan out the perfect vacation or helping you write an instant-hiring cover letter for that new job.

I'm here to show you how my team and I applied this conversational AI technology to increase sales, operational efficiency, and customer engagement.

But... What Exactly is Conversational AI, And How Will It Benefit Your Business?

To put it briefly, conversational AI is a technology used to emulate human speech using natural language processing.

It can hold an advanced conversation with the user that closely resembles human interactions.

In this blog, I will break down the 3-step process my team and I deployed for this Instagram account to add artificial intelligence to its IG.

Did I mention that it led them to convert 23.55% of chats into sales in RECORD time?

For some background, this business got 5 DMs per day and drove no sales through its Instagram profile.

(You better take your notepad out and jot this down.)

This conversational AI started 96 chats daily with everyone who engaged with their organic content or paid ads.

It collected emails AND converted 23.55% of all these chats into sales in an average of 8 days, 19 hours, and 10 minutes, without the help of human agents, while still maintaining the feel of a human conversation.

I’ll also show you what the AI did to achieve a $68.11 AOV, 19% higher than what the brand saw across all of its other channels.

If we haven’t met, I’m Liz, and since 2019, I’ve been running a DFY AI chatbot agency on a mission to change how online brands monetize their Instagram and Facebook channels, one conversation at a time.

On this blog I share strategies that help my clients make money with DM automation and conversational AI chatbots.

The Real Examples of the Benefits that Conversational Artificial Intelligence Brings to a Business

This was a family-owned business; they had 26k Instagram followers and a great product.

Like most businesses out there, they were looking into driving sales with their Instagram profile.

More importantly, they wanted to deliver instant value to their audience and increase customer experience by answering their questions on the spot using AI chatbots.

And not just yes or no questions; they wanted our AI chatbots to interact with their customers, answering questions that are surprisingly complex even for human representatives.

For example:

"How do I find my size?"

"How long is the shipping?"

There’s a trick for brands that are truly successful when deploying AI chatbots on their Instagram or Facebook pages, so read until the end, because this is something you do NOT want to miss.

Artificial Intelligence Conversations Are Your New DM Virtual Assistants

We decided to combine artificial intelligence and automation for them.

The tools we used for them were Open AI, Manychat, and our GROW AI revenue software.

Step 1: We trained their AI using their knowledge base so that every time someone typed something, the AI would take over and answer that question.

The AI learned to mimic human interactions and understand their everyday human language mannerisms and traits.

If it couldn’t, it prompted the user to speak to a human, notifying the human agents and setting the user's expectations around how long they had to wait.

We even took the guessing around out of the response time equation.

Pretty neat, right?

Getting Into What Really Matters

The goal we had for the AI was not purely customer support but sales-oriented.

So, once it confirmed the user’s query had been resolved, the AI agent prompted the user to continue, potentially taking a quiz, unlocking a mystery deal, etc.

All this depended on what that user had previously done, either in the chat or what they had purchased from the client’s Shopify store.

The trick was to make the customer interactions highly personal and contextual to each user’s current needs, offering the appropriate response to any question they might have.

Step 2: We built a few different sales chat funnels in the back end of their DMs that the AI chatbot could choose from and funnel people into.

These sales chat funnels captured email addresses and sent them to the client’s email service provider, in this case, Klaviyo.

It presented users with personalized offers based on their previous interactions.

But the best part?

If a purchase wasn't made, it continued to follow up and start new conversations over the following weeks.

Each artificial intelligence conversation was unique to each user.

For example, “Hey Liz, you mentioned yesterday that you were interested in X; here are a few things I put together for you.”

THIS type of approach achieved a 19% increase in AOV in users placing orders from the DMs compared to other buyers.

This is just the beginning of what implementing conversational AI technology can do for a business.

We're talking about increasing customer experience, decreasing the pressure on customer service teams, and bringing in customer data.

This is just the tip of the AI-powered iceberg.

Step 3: The AI chatbot started conversations with everyone who engaged with their social media organically and through paid ads.

These were people who followed them AND people who didn’t follow them YET.

We had their social media team model specific creatives from our internal library.

Pretty much what’s working best for our other clients right now.

We told them exactly what call-to-action to use in their content and what captions to write, and we had them post this specific type of content 3 times/week.

Natural Language Processing is the Future for Increased Sales

The final numbers?

From 5 DMs per day to 96 DMs/day

84.72% email capture rate in the DMs

89.1% of people opted into their DM list, which is like your email list, but on Instagram.

It allows you to send promotional free push notifications daily (Meta-compliant).

Our conversational AI technologies converted 23.55% of all chats started into sales in an average time to purchase of 8 days 19 hours and 10 minutes.

And the AOV in the DMs was 19% higher than this client’s other channels.

Here's the trick:

The most successful e-commerce brands, coaches, course creators, and influencers that I’ve worked with over the last four years who automated their social DMs for sales have understood ONE critical thing better than any other business.

They saw the potential of combining AI and automation behind their DMs and the capability to scale hundreds of conversions simultaneously.

They understood:

1. 1.They had to change their content structure.
2. 2.What it took to align this AI technology with their brand voice and what THEY wanted their audience to experience when they interacted with the conversational AI software within their brand (this one was critical).
3. 3.It’s never 100% artificial intelligence or automation. It’s usually about 90% automation, and the rest goes to a human agent who steps in to handle the most complex queries.
4. 4.The customer service teams needed to match the AI's speed to answer frequently asked questions, offer quality responses AND maintain the brand's voice.

If you, like these clients, remember these four points, I promise you'll have the highest possible customer satisfaction.

Want more strategies like this? Watch our step-by-step breakdowns on YouTube, and follow us on Instagram and Facebook.