Appliances and electronics are dependent upon the habits and environments of an individual. E.g. to buy a refrigerator, a person must consider the dimensions and measurements of the kitchen. The internal features of the appliance need to match with the person's lifestyle. Homes themselves have become smarter and more connected, e.g. you can control your smart devices through your smart TV. Hence, setups and installations are more complex and use cases have become specialized.

Product Configurators are extremely efficient and provide a systematic way to select specific features, configure products or particular setups to address special needs and requirements, e.g. setting up a home office or creating an entertainment space. They also have the ability to display a comparison between products, as well as facilitate digital PDF handouts and lead generation functionalities.

Consumer electronics and white goods both contain products with complicated features, and consumers have a tough time understanding these technicalities. Imagine a person is searching for a washing machine, but they are not aware of the wash cycles and don't have enough knowledge to consider whether they need security or time-related features. Normally, you will find guides and lists of information on product features, but this isn't useful or optimal.

With Product Guides, you can translate complex technical product features into the customer’s language, by asking first about their needs and habits. E.g. instead of merely stating a washing machine's wash programs, a Product Guide will ask what kind of clothes does the person regularly wash. If a person is sporty or outdoorsy, they are bound to have a regular lot of soiled clothes. By understanding such insights, the Product Guide is able to provide a precise recommendation in a matter of minutes without ever having the customer go through an exhaustive feature list.

One of the challenges for these categories is the difficulty to present insight-based advice online. Sometimes, customers can also have queries that normal product data cannot answer. In a store, a salesman can advise based on his experience and intuitiveness regarding a customer's needs along with his knowledge about products, but you can also add the value of such product knowledge to your Ecommerce website.

With a Guided Selling solution such as a Product Guide, you can use AI to make your product data smarter by re-categorizing it based on your intuition and product knowledge. But there are more benefits, AI naturally learns and fine-tunes its recommendation behavior, it also measures and provides valuable analytics on customer profiles, preferred products and features, product performance in international markets, etc. Product Guides also provide relevant recommendations for cross-selling accessories, related products, as well as up-selling, thereby increasing sales.

There are other factors that sway customer decision such as cost of ownership, financing offers, maintenance and repair services etc. Using a Product Guide, you can provide customers features such as cost calculations based on selected configurations, cost-effective options for the long-run, along with the available services and warranties for the product. The customer hence has a transparent picture of how much a product will cost, pre- and post-purchase, strengthening their decision to purchase.

This category in particular needs service points for customers. Chatbots are particularly useful to provide answers to FAQs and are available 24x7 to the customer. The same goes for integrated live chats and other forms of online customer support. Product Guides also add value in-store, as customers can easily find what they are looking for through an interactive screen. This lends additional support to your on-ground sales and store staff.