“Chatbot are the future of marketing.” This is not what we are saying, rather this is believed by many experts across the globe.
Technological advancements are in a hurry in every sector and they are delivering their true value as well. We must say that we are becoming a slave to the technology as without that it would have been impossible for the businesses to get the success they are experiencing now.
While, when we talk about the marketing world, especially digital marketing, chatbots have made everyone crazy about what they can do for the businesses. Despite being in its development phase, numerous companies around the world are using chatbots and experiencing the benefit. They are here to make the life of businesses a little bit easier with a great impact. Let us see in detail what chatbots are and what they can do for you.
Chatbots
You might have seen a chat box opened saying “How may I help you?” on some of the websites you have landed. This is the best example of a chatbot.
Now, if we talk about chatbots in technical terms, then they are software programmed to simulate a human conversation. They are designed to be placed on a digital platform like websites and applications to answer the queries of visitors either by speaking or by writing.
They are here to make things simpler and ensure more engagement from the visitors. For example, when a user with a defined goal of buying a white shirt lands on your website, he/she has to manually navigate to the page that shows ‘shirts’ or they can use the ‘filter’ tab to see specified results. But, if a chatbot is there, all the user has to type that he/she is looking for a white shirt and the results will be there right on the screen. That’s how useful chatbots are.
This is just an example, chatbots are much more than that.
How do chatbots work?
As you know that chatbots are computerized programs that are designed to do certain specific tasks as programmed by engineers. Thus, their working will also be dependent on the functions fed by the designers and the purpose of their implementation. There are three types of chatbots, let’s see them in detail:
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Rule-based Chatbots
These types of chatbots work around a defined set of rules and require the user to make some selection. They are considered to be one of the simplest types of chatbots and people can interact with them by clicking on the buttons as provided. These chatbots only help users within their pre-defined set of rules as embedded by the programmer.
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Chatbots powered with machine learning
These chatbots are more advanced when compared to rule-based bots. They are powered with machine learning, a computer’s ability to learn things on its own using the input data, and the pattern of interaction. We must say that these bots have the intellectual power to recognize certain words or phrases on which they are trained.
For example, if you say “how to create a Facebook account”, here, chatbots will recognize the words create, Facebook, & account, and based on that a relevant pre-defined answer will be shown to you. Another example that will make things easier for you could be the chatbots installed on e-commerce sites that say “what are you looking for?” and when you answer say “formal shoes”, these words will be recognized by the bots and you will see numerous options of formal shoes on your mobile or desktop’s screen.
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AI-powered chatbots
Though artificial intelligence is still in the developing phase yet it has achieved so much that it is hard to believe. AI technology is also implemented with the chatbots and this combination is certainly doing a lot of good for businesses as well as individuals.
AI chatbots are one step ahead of ML-powered chatbots as they run with a combination of natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML). This combination has made them smarter with the ability to understand & respond to the queries better. It can be trained for the queries on how and what to answer plus, it is dependable as well. One can trust AI-powered chatbots on showing relevant results to the queries raised by the visitor on your site.
These bots will also help you maintain a good image of your brand by interacting with visitors humbly irrespective of the condition that a visitor is angry over something or annoyed. This is how beneficial a chatbot is for a business.
We have seen how and what chatbots can do for businesses in this technologically advanced world. Now is the time to discuss their benefits in detail.
Benefits of chatbots
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Improved customer service
The growth of a business revolves around customers, if they are not happy or satisfied with any brand, it cannot compete or grow. All businesses make efforts to attract customers and retain them for long. And in this process of grabbing customer attention, chatbots can play a big role.
Implementing chatbots on your website or application will make customer’s experience better and if they love the way you interact, they are going to stay with you for long.
Chatbots assist visitors in navigating to the page they are looking for on your site or app. They are also helpful for the visitors who are unsure about the product they should buy or the one that will fit best. The better will be the assistance more time visitors will spend on the website.
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Round the clock availability
Chatbots are known to be available for visitors 24*7 and 365 days across the globe without any need for human presence. This is one of the key benefits of implementing chatbots on your site as you can assist visitors anytime.
This could be a huge plus for the customer support of your company and your customers will love to get assisted as per their convenience. Another benefit of your round the clock availability is that you need not hire a dedicated support team. Doing this will also help you engage your team in much more important tasks
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Proactive customer interaction
The theory of passive communication is becoming outdated as the competition is going fierce day by day. It’s the time of proactive communication which means ask a question to your customer before he/she does. This could be done in a much better way by chatbots and show your visitors that you already have an idea of the purpose of their visit to your site. Or if not the purpose, businesses can greet their visitors when they land on their website to ensure the effective start of a communication.
This will be of great help if we see it in the long run and you will experience more customer engagement than before.
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One bot multiple interactions
Imagine having a team of 10 customer support executives that are there working dedicatedly towards clearing even the simplest of customer queries. In this scenario, your team will be able to only handle 10 queries at a time and the 11th customer has to wait to get a response till one of the executives become free.
But this is not the case with businesses having chatbot installed because it can simultaneously interact with thousands of visitors without any difficulty. Thus, you can dilute your customer executive team from 10 individuals to 5, and rest can be utilized for other important business operations that require more human brain.
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Save money in the long run
As you have seen that a chatbot can do the work of many employees especially those who are engaged in customer support, thus, there is no need for you to hire a big customer support team. Considering this will save you the cost of extra employees that you might need to hire if you don’t implement a chatbot.
No doubt that you need to spend a bit on the implementation of a chatbot but, it is also important to understand that it is a one-time investment, and if you see it in the long run, it will save you a lot.
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Trendsetter
Along with helping businesses out, chatbots have also become a trendsetter. All good businesses have established a chatbot on their website to ensure better customer engagement and drive better results.
Not only on your personal website, but you can also establish your chatbot on popular social platforms like Facebook and Instagram. The reason for this is the huge number of visitors that are present 24*7 and in those social media users, you will also get the target audience that you are looking for. Placing your bot on those platforms will increase the chances of getting attention and you will see more people moving to your website after interacting with the bot.
Considering this might also save the cost of the development of a new application because the result you wanted could be achieved by just implementing the bot on the social media platform.
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Better lead generation
Chatbots are smart than we think and if implemented in the right way, they can generate leads for the customers. Now you might be wondering how? Don’t worry we will simplify this for you. Chatbots can send personalized messages to the visitors based on their search history or purchase history and guide them to the product that fits the best. This is done by asking relevant questions and guiding the interested user in the right flow.
Chatbots also send a notification to the sales team when things become difficult for them to handle. This is also a plus point to avoid people being annoyed and move further smoothly to their purchase.
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Ensure global reach
Chatbots can be programmed to talk in any language hence, it could not become a barrier for the business that offer their product or service across different parts of the globe. Be it Spanish, Russian, or Japanese, chatbots can handle it all with ease.
In this scenario as well, you won’t be required to hire extra language experts, only a few will do the job depending upon the size of your company.
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Ensure good customer satisfaction
Chatbots can humbly interact with visitors irrespective of their mood, and this is a big plus of their implementation. If a customer is not happy with your product or service, he/she will surely be angry and might use some offensive words. Chatbots doesn’t care about how people are talking, they just answer to their queries in the humblest manner (as they are programmed to) and move the chat to a real human customer executive when it becomes complex.
Receiving polite answers will make the customer polite as well and he/she will be happy enough to get the query responded with a positive approach. This ensures high customer satisfaction and will be also helpful in customer retention.
These are the benefits of implementing a chatbot for your company and ensuring your availability for customers round the clock. Undoubtedly, chatbots will make your work easier and ensure better customer engagement, more leads, and improved brand reputation.
Last Words
Social media is on a roll, more than half of the world’s population is on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram. It won’t be wrong to say that people spend more time chatting on such social media platforms when compared to other internet-related activities. There are also people who prefer chatting than talking over a phone call as sending a message is convenient than holding the phone right around an ear and speaking.
This habit of people will provide a great benefit to businesses after implementing a chatbot. It doesn’t matter whether you offer products or services, implementing a chatbot will be wonderful. Instead of calling to book an appointment with you, clients can simply text and get their appointment booked with ease. Similar is the case with finding something on an e-commerce website, a chatbot can help you get the right product options to choose from.
Chatbot technology is in its infancy and still it can do so much. If we talk about future aspects, there is much more to follow. We might not be wrong to say that the time is not far when companies will not require real humans for customer support as implementing a chatbot will solve all of the customer service-related problems.