Jumia partners Facebook to help shoppers make orders with AI

Jumia has partnered Facebook Messenger to introduced Jumia bot, a tool that will help shoppers to make orders through an online conversation.

Bots are virtual assistants that answer questions and help people get things done faster without needing to speak to another human.

According to the e-commerce firm, the Jumia bot, developed by Facebook and Jumia tech team, uses artificial intelligence and natural learning process to hone and learn users’ preferences over time in order to make recommendations that are personalised, timely and useful to the shopper.

The Chief Executive Officer, Jumia Nigeria, Juliet Anammah, said the shopping assistant worked by asking customers what they were looking for, then using their answers to uncover the best offers.

She said the innovation, powered and hosted by Facebook Messenger, would offer Nigeria’s 18 million Facebook users the ability to get their personal Jumia shopping assistance directly on Facebook messenger.

Speaking on the significance of the new service, Anammah said, “Jumia Bot has a very simple yet important objective: to help our customers to personalise deals onjumia.com.ng. We are pleased to unveil this new dimension of e-shopping for the Nigerian customer and excited about helping to pioneer the next wave of local content and tech tools within the ecosystem.”

In order to get access to the best hotel and airfare deals on Facebook messenger, the firm explained that users would simply provide their preferred date and destination to the bot in order to see the top recommendations.

Jumia added that once a user’s criteria had been selected, the bot would remember and use the research for the next order.

It said the shopper’s post-order experience had also been integrated into Jumia Bot, as such they could track orders and contact customer service team for follow-up questions.

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