We often hear that the Czech Republic has the most e-shops in proportion to its population in Europe. That's why we decided to find out how Czech companies are doing in online communication as a European leader in e-commerce.
We present to you the most comprehensive study on chatbot and live chat usage for the year 2023, created in our country! We draw on data from 9,570 websites Smartsupp works with.
Table of contents
Data on Czech e-commerce in 2023
How many e-shops are there in the Czech Republic? It sounds like a simple question, but the answer is a bit more complicated. In mid-August 2023, according to BizMachine data, there were 63,321 e-shops on the Czech market. And Heureka, a price comparison site, reported 70,242.
However, if we exclude online stores that are currently closed for some reason, we estimate that there were 39,512 fully operational e-commerce platforms in the Czech Republic.
In 2023, 9,570 Czech websites (4,569 of which are e-shops) used our products, which makes Smartsupp the largest chatbot and live chat provider in the Czech Republic.
Chatbots’ performance insights in 2023
In 2023, the Smartsupp chatbot was launched on 4,053 websites, and 974 of which were actively using it.
But very few Czech websites took advantage of just the chatbot. Over 90% of the clients using it also relied on live chat support. In many cases, the main goal of the chatbot is not to convince the customer to make a purchase but to collect contact info from the customer or to connect them with a live agent.
In the Czech Republic, a chatbot initiated a conversation with approximately 20.5% of site visitors. This is lower than the global average, which is 24.5%.
On the flip side, the conditions under which a chatbot reaches out to potential customers are up to each online store. Each website determines how many customers it wishes to reach with a chatbot based on its business goals.
How did chatbots impact revenue and productivity?
- AAA Auto: In the Czech Republic, the AI chatbot’s personalized messages have brought about a 10% rise in interactions between agents and prospects (20% increase in Slovakia, 30% in Poland), which was its main goal. The company gets 7,200 new email contacts per month.
- Dokonalá Káva: The average order value for conversations that did not involve an agent increased by 150%. The chatbot also freed up agents to handle queries requiring their expertise. According to the company’s data, many customers return because of the e-commerce site’s customer support — regardless of whether they interacted with a chatbot or a live chat agent.
- KetoDiet: A chatbot handles 35% of queries on its own, so it is as effective as a part-time live agent.
- ASKO - NÁBYTEK: The chatbot solves 50% of the queries without the help of staff and acquires 600 new email contacts per month.
- BRENO: The chatbot has reduced the customer support team’s workload and the company’s overall costs. It has also reduced the number of recurring queries by 50%.
Live chats’ performance insights in 2023
A chatbot can save agents a lot of work as it can solve a number of simple queries fully on its own. The numbers showed that live chat held a special place in Czech e-commerce in 2023, though.
According to Smartsupp’s data, an average, 55% of chatbot conversations were followed by communication with an agent. It certainly doesn’t mean that chatbots failed 55% of the time – in fact, they usually get a lot of information from the customer that the sales rep could draw on further (and didn’t have to ask).
Chatbots filter out a number of routine queries and save the whole team time. The customer contacts a live chat agent for specialist assistance only.
The Czech Republic has 39,512 active e-shops, of which 16.9% used live chat in 2023, and 11.56% used Smartsupp’s live chat.
Overall, Czech e-shops use 39 different live chat platforms, but 67.56% of e-shops chose Smartsupp’s live chat service.
How did live chat impact revenue and productivity?
- Dokonalá Káva: The conversion rate for customers who interacted with a live chat representative was 379% higher compared to the average e-commerce.
- KetoDiet: Thanks to live chat, KetoDiet received 30 extra orders per month with an average value of CZK 3,000.
- AAA Auto: The company has 23 highly qualified agents dedicated to live chat, available from 6:00 a.m. to 12:00 a.m., as customers contact them most often in the evening. If the chatbot is successful in getting a contact, the live chat conversion rate is 10% higher. Thanks to live chat, AAA Auto manages to sell 900 extra cars per month.
- inSPORTline: The conversion rate of customers who interacted with live chat support was 724% higher compared to the average e-shop. What’s more, the average order value of these customers was 2.3 times higher than the usual order. In the end, the company was able to increase its turnover by 9.7% (annual turnover: EUR 40-60 million).
- ASKO - NÁBYTEK: Thanks to the combination of chatbots and live chat, the company has gained CZK 1.1 million per month in new order value.
- BRENO: The live chat conversion rate is 169% higher than the average e-commerce business’. The order value of customers who interacted on live chat was 30% higher. Thanks to Smartsupp’s products, the e-shop’s conversion rate increased by 10.8% (the company’s annual turnover is over EUR 60 million).
Find out when your customers are most likely to contact you
It’s not just about whether customers approach you on chat – it’s also about when. Many customers do their shopping in the evenings, on holidays and at weekends so, outside working days and hours.
According to a study by AAA Auto, customers most often chat in the evening – and conversations at this time typically have a higher conversion rate than during the day.
And what does chat look like on weekdays? We’ll look at that in more detail now.
What are the exact days of the week do customers need help the most?
In the case of chatbots, the number of inquiries is evenly split between the first 3 working days of the week, with a slight decrease on Thursdays and Fridays.
However, the weekend statistics are quite intriguing. During Saturday and Sunday, the chatbot handles around 21.3% of all queries. That means over 20% of customers wouldn’t get a reply to their question if the online store doesn’t have customer service available on weekends.
These customers would be very likely to leave the e-shop because they may be missing the information they need to complete their purchase. The same applies to holiday and weekend shoppers.
The same is true for live chat, where, as with chatbots, Mondays are the busiest. Since most e-shops don’t have active customer service over the weekend, more live chat conversations are initiated at the beginning of the week than chatbots.
This is why some customers who prefer to contact a live chat agent put off their questions from the weekend to the beginning of the week.
Still, weekend inquiries make up 14.2% of all initiated conversations. The customer is usually aware they won’t hear back until the next working day, but they reach out anyway.
What are the busiest months of the year for customer service?
Customer support needs, including assistance with orders and payment methods, vary depending on the month. There are some tendencies, as shown in the graphic below, where certain periods of the year are busier than others.
As the 2023 data shows, people reached out for help through live chat at the end of the week. This tendency repeats each month and is stable throughout the whole year — as the week ended, there were fewer inquiries to answer. There were exceptions, like in November due to Black Friday, when many customers needed urgent assistance from a live chat agent.
For chatbots, the first months of 2023 were the busiest. During the summer months, the demand for chatbot support decreased a bit. In November and December, we noted a slight increase in inquiries resolved by chatbots.
Live chat and chatbots: how do customers feel about them?
Concerned about how your customers might react to chatbots and live chat? Let’s look at how customers of our client companies rate our services:
- Dokonalá Káva: 95.0% satisfaction rate
- BRENO: 98.0% satisfaction rate
- AAA Auto: 90.0% satisfaction rate
- KetoDiet: 95.4% satisfaction rate
- Vico Food Box: 98.0% satisfaction rate
Our clients at Smartsupp rate our partnership at a stellar 8.7 out of 10. They particularly appreciate our reliability, trustworthiness, quality support, and commitment to customer focus.
Interested in our results and thinking about implementing your own live chat or chatbot? Fill out the contact form. Our experts are ready to discuss the next steps with you.