To kick off the new season of Optily Radio, we had Rosie Bailey, Co-Founder and CEO of Nibble Technology on the show with us, along with our own Max Tomlinson. We chatted about the psychology behind haggling, how automation can help increase conversions overall, and the way conversation tech can improve the user experience.
Rosie gave us a bit of background on the inspiration behind the technology that came from her business partner, Jamie, haggling for a pair of tennis shoes at a Turkish bazaar. The lightbulb moment happened after he got the shoes for a price he was happy paying and the seller sold them for an acceptable price to him.
Bringing this very human, market-based exchange into the online sphere is quite innovative and can add a very unique element to your Shopify store experience. Aside from the financial benefit users get with a small discount, there are plenty of other less tangible aspects to using a technology like Nibble.
In this episode, some of the themes we covered off were:
- The psychology of negotiation
- Negotiation vs. discount codes
- The personal touch
Have a listen to the full episode wherever you get your podcasts or keep reading for more details on some of the topics we discussed.
Watch
Listen
Listen
Join the Optily newsletter!
Stay up-to-date on platform changes, digital marketing tactics, and industry news. We promise we won’t spam!
Who are Rosie and Max?
Rosie Bailey is the Co-Founder and CEO of Nibble. She and co-founder, Jamie Ettedgui, met while doing their Master’s at the London Business School. In addition to heading up Nibble, Rosie serves as Non-Exexutive Director for both STEM Learning UK and Forest Holidays. Prior to that, she was the Managing Director for RBC Capital Markets and the Executive Director of the UK investment banking team at Morgan Stanley. She was also named among the 40 under 40 by the Financial News.
Max Tomlinson is the Marketing Automation Manager at Optily. He is in charge of overseeing all of the automated marketing efforts, which include managing a library of background Zapier connections, automated sales and marketing emails, and our customer service chatbot. Before joining Optily, Max was a Graduate Business Analyst at F-Secure and worked in Consumer Marketing for Bing UK at Microsoft.
The psychology of negotiation
I mentioned my one and only experience with haggling at a Mexican market for a hammock (all in Spanish, I might add), I was really happy with the purchase. I got it $10 cheaper than the original price and there was a fun back and forth. At this point, Rosie brought up that there is research behind this phenomenon and we genuinely feel much more satisfied with purchases that we worked towards.
It’s over ten years later and I still fondly look back on that ten minutes in Mexico. Can’t say the same for the t-shirt and jeans I bought last week at the department store.
Aside from the financial aspect of making the sale for a price that both parties are happy with, there is the additional element of interaction that improves the overall buying experience. Like my fun back and forth with the hammock vendor, this can be replicated in an online setting with Nibble.
In this short clip, Rosie explains why Nibble is fun to use and, in many cases, even better than a live support agent.
Negotiation vs. discount codes
A question I had from the very start after learning about Nibble is, would people appreciate the conversational element or would they be annoyed? I’ve been on one too many robocalls as a screener before a customer service agent comes on, so I wondered if people might get tired of chatbots once the novelty wears off. If Nibble is set at offering a maximum discount, why can’t that just be a coupon?
Rosie had two really good points to address this concert. The first was in regards to the popup coupon: ”How many times have you closed a pop-up and then, later on, you think ‘How do I get that 10% back?’” It’s so true. Popups are just plain annoying and always seem to appear when you least need them.
The second was that negotiating with Nibble usually takes under a minute and it’s a fun experience. As she explained in the clip above, it’s less embarrassing and people feel very comfortable engaging with a bot.
From the seller’s perspective, a chatbot is better than a coupon because it negotiates like a human. It’s not a race to the bottom or a blanket 15% off sitewide, plastered across every page in bright red letters. Each user can get a unique discount, which is usually an uneven number like 7%, which would not be the best practice for a coupon offer.
The personal touch
There’s only so much you can say or do in a coupon or email to make it personalized. Sure you can segment your lists, but you’re only going to do so many versions of copy per email campaign. With Nibble, you can program in a wide variety of answers and really build up a relationship with your customer.
Nibble by default has a unique voice (try a negotiation demo yourself to see what I mean) and will make you smile, as Rosie said. If you’re logged in as a user, this opens up even more possibilities in terms of customer loyalty options and more. Based on what the user is haggling for, Nibble can go beyond just lowering the price of one item, but can improve AOV with bundling or bulk discounts.
Then, even if a purchase isn’t made because a deal wasn’t struck, Nibble can pass off the very warm leads and a human agent can take over for those who made a serious offer that was just shy of the threshold.
