Over the past year, the chatter about chatbots has escalated their status in the digital marketing world from a luxury feature to the industry norm. The standard 9-to-5 no longer satisfies our digitally-centered society, where constant and instantaneous connectivity between customers and businesses has come to be expected. This 24/7/365 business model isn’t anywhere near feasible for most companies, and even if it were, it would come with astronomical staffing expenses.
That’s where chatbots come in.
Chatbots can act as your company’s all-in-one customer service agent, sales representative and brand ambassador, with the ability to connect with a potentially limitless number of customers in an instant. Take it from someone who has experienced their power firsthand: Our company integrated chatbots into our business model in early 2018, and our lead acquisition quadrupled in the first six months alone. As chatbot technology continues to get more complex, so do the number of ways your business can use them to your advantage:
1. Improve your customer service.
Like any relationship, the “Getting to Know You” phase is one of the most pivotal points of correspondence between a business and a prospective customer. The more transparent, helpful and timely your customer service is from the first interaction, the more confident a prospective customer will feel moving forward with your business.
One of the most efficient ways to utilize chatbots in your favor is to employ it as your on-site customer service representative.
Program it to be able to answer simple, commonly asked questions related to your business, such as: “Where are you located?” and “What are your services?” This will help to satisfy the needs of the majority of your website visitors still in the “Getting to Know You” phase, while freeing up your human staff to adequately handle more complicated customer service inquiries.
2. Handle off-site sales.
Long gone are the days when consumers need to visit a storefront or company website to make a purchase. Technological innovations over the past several years have enabled online shopping integration across multiple social media platforms, trimming down an hour at the department store into a few quick swipes on their news feed.
Chatbot technology can supplement this by playing the role of a hospitable sales associate, available to guide your customer through their buyer journey. Program your chatbots to answer simple inventory-focused queries, like “Do you sell shoes?” and continue in a logical flow down the sales funnel — including the final payment — all within the chat window.
3. Inject brand personality.
Your chatbot may be a robot, but it doesn’t have to act like a robot. Regardless of your industry, customers value interpersonal communications when interacting with a business. While your chatbot cannot provide an actual human-to-human interaction, giving it a personality of its own can help to create a seamlessly humanlike automated customer service experience.
Your chatbot’s personality should reflect the tone, style and attitude of your business — think fun and quirky for a young, hip clothing brand, or professional and direct for a lawyer’s office. Be sure your chatbot’s personality is present in every interaction to add consistency to your brand’s public image. Flesh out your chatbot’s personality thoroughly enough, and your customers might not realize they’re chatting with artificial intelligence (AI) at all.
4. Collect user feedback.
When we think about chatbots, we often think in terms of how it can best help customers. However, something that is often overlooked is the value it provides your business when determining the needs of your consumer base.
Each interaction a customer has with your chatbot provides a wealth of information regarding what your audience is interested in and what your business can be doing better. For instance, if there are recurring questions your customers ask that your chatbot does not have an answer for, your business has the opportunity to tweak its logic flow and programmed responses to provide better customer service in the future.
This breadth of direct user feedback is extremely difficult to collect through traditional crowdsourcing mediums like client surveys, so use it to your advantage and routinely update your chatbot and business offerings based on the responses provided.
5. Generate leads.
Do you know when your customers are the most active online? Consider the average day for your primary audience. If they are likely to be working during the typical 9-to-5 schedule, they probably do not have free time to browse the web until your office has already closed.
One of the greatest insights our business has received since integrating chatbot technology on our website is how many leads come in late at night. Many of our chatbot interactions happen between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m., long after our staff has clocked out for the evening. Because our chatbot is operational 24/7, this allows our business to be “awake” to carry on a conversation at all hours of the night, whereas most businesses would not be available to respond until the next day.
No matter how well-established your business might be already, integrating chatbot technology can help to virtually transform even the soundest strategies both on and offline. Your customer service might be quick, but chatbots can make it quicker. Your sales might be strong, but chatbots can make it stronger. Your lead acquisition might be steady, but chatbots can make it steadier. Forward-thinking businesses in 2019 must be willing to adapt to meet the needs of their customer base. In an AI-focused digital world, that might mean it’s time for your business to see what the chatter about chatbots is really all about.
