The Biggest Benefits of Chatbots

*This is a collaborative post.

When you first start your business, one of the essential focuses will be ensuring that your product is of the highest quality. No matter what industry you are in, it would be best if you made sure that your products and services are second-to-none. 

Part of your job as a successful business it’s a take care of your customers, which is why your customer service needs to be top-notch. 

It will probably be just you answering emails and any social media posts in the early days. After a while, they might become a little overwhelming while you’re running your business. You may take some social media staff, and then you need to work out what to do with your customer services. 

So what can you do to make sure that you have a handle on everything that your customers need without being personally available 24/7?

The answer is automation.

The answer to most business problems nowadays is automation. Automating the sales process, automating your social media posting, and finally, automating support for your customers’ needs.

Almost all businesses are shifting their focus to a customer-first approach. And it is this shift in focus that has seen companies of all sizes have an improvement in their sales. Having excellent customer service can help you establish loyalty in your customer base, encourage return buyers, and take care of issues when they do arise. 

One of the ways that businesses are making sure that they are available 24/7 is to have a chatbot implemented on their website. If you are looking to add Chat on your website, but you are unsure how it can increase your conversions and benefit your business, this article is for you. 

So let’s take a look at some of how a chatbot can benefit your business, increase conversions and leave you with a happier set of customers.

Engagement

The most remarkable thing about chatbots is they are programmed to have your brand’s personality, so when somebody messages you through the chat – they feel like they are talking to your brand. It feels cohesive. 

You can create an entire personality for your chatbot, which keeps the person on the other side engaged with you.

Try to consider this when you walk into a shop, and you’re unsure if the product you’re looking at is what you need. One of the things you might do is approach a staff member and ask some questions. 

The staff member will take over all of your questions and guide you to the right product or recommend something else you can use.

Your chatbot is taking the place of a real person – but giving all of the correct information. 

You must build a personality that is in line with your brands; for example, if you are a fun fashion brand, but your chatbot on your website is very formal, that might not necessarily be the best fit.

Ideally, your customer should feel like they’re talking to somebody who’s just like them, and this will help them finish making a purchase decision or get all of the information that they need.

You can also make your chatbot something that appears after a customer has made a purchase; It will ask for some feedback about how the experience was and if there is anything else to see you should know. 

This will keep the customer engaged by feeling that you are looking out for their best interests and creating a good user experience.

Make it short and straightforward so that your customers only have to press a button or two to give feedback.

Lead Generation

If your business model requires leads to be passed on to a sales team, then your chatbot can help to simplify this flow.

If you have one that works across multiple platforms, including websites, you can help to collect all of the information your sales team needs to follow up on that lead.

Your chat can be set up to ensure they get the user’s email address, phone number, and any other contact information relevant to your sales team. 

You do need to make sure that the person who is giving over the information is doing so willingly and understands what you might use the information for. Everything should be opt-in rather than opt-out, and this means that your chatbot should mention to the customer that they may receive a call from a sales team member.

That the contact details may be used to send information company updates, product updates, and newsletters.

FAQs

Customers have many questions, and those questions can let you know where they are in the buying process. You can program your chatbot to ensure it gives the customer all of the answers they need to those two questions. Often, customers who are just on the precipice of purchase need to have their questions answered the most quickly. 

So if you want your potential customers with information about your products and services, a chat is a great way to go.

As much as you might like to answer all of the questions you get for yourself, you will notice a pattern in questions that happen regularly over time.

You should make sure that you also have a faq page on your website so that people can search that rather than ask the chatbot. 

One of the best things about a chat loaded with faq answers is that the customer gets a question answered immediately.

24/7

As much as you would like to help your customers as often as possible, you do need to sleep as well as handle other parts of the business.

When you can provide the answers to your customer’s questions 24/7, you know that you’ll never miss a potential sale. 

One of the biggest perks about using an automated chatbot on your website that is 24/7 in there is a money-saving aspect. 

You don’t have to pay for an entire team of humans to be available 24/7; your chat will be able to take care of 80 to 90 percent of what the customer needs. Allowing you to budget for a smaller support team to handle anything that the chat couldn’t.

When we think about customer services, it is crucial to keep in mind that some people prefer to speak to humans immediately and will try to bypass a chat whenever possible – for more complicated cases, this should be an option that is available. 

Try to use a chatbot with a high level of functionality so you can offer your customers the best experience 24/7.

Easier work week

The couple of times within the article that you can save time by using a chatbot. And we know that outsourcing and using automation to do things like admin and customer responses can free up a lot of hours for a business owner.

But when a chat is doing things like generating leads, increasing your engagement, answering all of the most asked FAQs, and supplying 24/7 support, a lot of hours are saved.

Every single automation that you implement within your business should save you hours that can be put somewhere else, creating a more manageable work week for the average business owner.

Chatbots for selling

If your chat is programmed to offer a customized experience to your customers, they are more likely to go ahead and make a purchase.

If you have a chat but with sales functionality, this can give you more direct sales.

Once your customers ask specific questions about services and products, you have a chatbot that can be programmed to showcase things that match the customer’s request. Not only this, but they can shorten the sales cycle between a potential buyer and the sales team.

It is also possible that your chat work could be used to give a discount to those customers who appear to be just on the edge of making a purchase. This can be the difference between a customer who leaves and a customer who stays and makes a purchase through the chatbot interface.

Chatbots are a great way to make sure that you maximize all of the potential areas you could be talking to your customers. It is also crucial for your customers to know that they can come to your website and access the information they need nicely and quickly. 

Not all customers want to read through the FAQ or search the website for a specific product. So if you have your chatbot programmed correctly, you can take your potential customer through to a loyal customer in just a few steps.

Try to keep in mind that a chatbot is just one way for you to take care of your customers and that you should look at all of the other facets that make up a great customer support experience. 

It’s not just chatbot automation that can help you streamline your business; some platforms are excellent for finances: Using Microsoft Dynamics For Home Business Financial Management – Mummy in a Tutu.