Sometimes, I get afraid of the thought that someday robots will really take over humans. Although that’s not possible the evolution we’re witnessing in the Artificial Intelligence has somewhere inculcated this belief in our mind. However, robots aren’t intended to harm us they are beneficial and many of us are already getting benefits from them. The best example I recall regarding this is of chatbot in business industries.
Chatbots (a species of robots) has provided so many benefits to the businesses that they’re relying pretty much on them. Maybe this is the reason that a survey from Oracle says that 80% of businesses will be using chatbots by 2020.
If you want to be one of that 80%, you can leverage a chatbot for your business now, no matter how big or small your business is. So let’s find out why and how you can use a chatbot in business.
Why You Should Use Chatbots In Business?
This has become quite obvious for those who are familiar with chatbots. But still many of them are not so let me lay out the reasons on why you should use chatbots in business:
1. Time And Money Saver
Customers ask similar questions again and again. Answering those repetitive questions wastes your employee’s time. Chatbots can answer these repeated questions and they do this efficiently, thus, save your time. They also save your money and resources you spend on handling these queries and also come in your budget.
2. Content Customers
Gartner says, Customer Service is the biggest factor for the success of a business. Chatbots improve customer service and do it by being available 24/7, replying to queries in no time, and reducing their typing efforts. If you want more pleased customers, you should implement chatbots in your business.
3. Expand The Audience
Chatbots use a clever method to grow your audience. It captures the data of the users who contact them on chat. They do it so neatly in the conversation that users don’t linger to provide them their contact details.
4. Eliminate Errors
Chatbots don’t forget things, they work on pre-written commands, and always do what they’re programmed for. Hence, they do not commit mistakes.
5. Drive Customers Through The Funnel
Chatbots can pitch and persuade users with offers and convert them into buyers by suggesting the right products they want to buy. This eliminates product browsing, thus, eases their buying journey.
6. Prompt Open And Engagement Rate
Chatbots boost engagement and open rates. Messages bots send to the users have an open-rate of 70-80% on average. Since the notification of these messages goes straight to the users’ personal device, open rates of these messages can go up to 60%.
7. Personalization
Smart or AI chatbots remember what products you asked them to show previously. They initiate the next chat with the same info so you don’t have to ask all the things again. This gives a personal touch to the chat that makes customers happy.
8. Request Handling Capacity
Doesn’t matter if it’s 10 or 100 questions at a time. A chatbot can answer each one of it efficiently without complaining.
9. Flexibility
Chatbots are something that can be used in every sort of business. There are chatbots for eCommerce, marketing, healthcare, finance, etc. are already using them. You can also use them whatever industry your business works in.
10. Automation Capability
This is something I love. Chatbots automate so many jobs we find tedious to do. They reply to repetitive questions, market your products, nurture and qualify leads, etc.
There are many other reasons for using a chatbot for business though, but I think I’ve given you enough. You must’ve understood why you should use chatbots in your business. Let’s look at how you can use them.
How To Use Chatbots For Business?
There is a strategy you should follow when using chatbots for your business.
1. Identify The Purposes Of Your Chatbot
If you’re planning to use chatbots in business, you must understand first why you’re gonna use them. What’s the purpose of using them in your business. This purpose can be the needs of your audience. You can use your bot to give your users what they want. It can be the answers to their questions, products they can buy, or articles they can read. Whatever it is, just recognize the intent behind building your chatbot and then move to the next point that is.
2. Selecting The Platform
You can create either a Facebook Messenger Bot or a website chatbot but it may not work for you. Why? Because this depends completely on your audience’s preference. You’ll have to classify what platform your audience uses to connect with you and then build a bot for it. To get a better idea of the chatbot platforms, you can have a look at the screenshot below.
The number of monthly users as of July 2019 on the most popular messaging apps in the screenshot below
These platforms are low-hanging fruit and have billions of active users. Classify what platform your audience prefer to communicate with businesses.
3. Choose How You’ll Make Your Bot
Commonly, there are two methods you can build your chatbot with.
- With Coding: Do you have great command in Python and other coding languages. And you can spend time and wealth on creating a chatbot. If you agree then this option is for you. You can create your chatbot from scratch and make it work your way. You’ll require a technical team for this.
- With A Chatbot Builder: If you’re not familiar with coding and don’t have enough time and money to invest, you can simply select a chatbot building platform. I’ve read many articles saying creating a bot takes 2-3 weeks and $25-30,000. Sorry to say but I completely disagree with this. You can build your chatbot in 5 minutes without investing a penny. There are some chatbot builders that let you do that without giving you any stress.
Whether you create on your own or choose a chatbot builder, once you get done, you just have to use it to get the benefits I mentioned above.
The Story In A Nutshell
Conversational Marketing is going to be the next breakthrough that will revolutionize customer service techniques. Chatbots are going to bear conversational marketing firmly. Those who are already using this technology have a head start but it’s not too late for those who aren’t using them.
You can still get your own chatbot for your business and compete with others. A chatbot that can generate leads, boost revenue, improve user experience, and reduce your incumbency.
We build such bots and if you also need one, don’t hesitate to contact us 1000 times.
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