Through the aid of artificial intelligence and natural language processing, bots are quickly becoming the way of the future for developing more effective sales and marketing tactics. They are easy to program and use, automate business processes, and work wonders for improving the customer service experience. Before implementing bots into your websites and social media pages, it is important to understand just how they work and what they accomplish for your company.
What Are Chatbots?
Chatbots are software that is easy to build and program with certain actions for them to operate all on their own. Through text conversations with customers, they dive deeper into consumers’ thought processes and use that information to help determine where they are in the buyer’s journey.
Their design offers a more personalized ad structure and softens the sales approach, all while reaching a wider audience. According to Neil Patel Digital, 57% of consumers prefer personalized ads when shopping online, which means chatbots increase your chances of success when selling online. Additionally, humanizing bots by giving them a name or personality makes people feel like they are having a face-to-face conversation with an actual sales representative.
They also allow your business to be more proactive in terms of initiating the conversation with customers. By reaching out to consumers first, it creates a dialogue that may have never happened with a traditional passive approach. This makes consumers feel more comfortable and trusting of your brand, sometimes to the point where they share more sensitive information because of the safe space the bot provides them.
Benefits of Using Chatbots
Conversations exchanged through a chatbot provide a larger engagement capacity. As reported by greengeeks.com, nearly 92 percent of consumers are more satisfied with their experience when using live chat, and two out of three consumers are likely to spend more money with businesses that offer exceptional customer service. Companies that are active on their social media profiles tend to have a larger, more engaged following and chatbots mimic this. By providing quick responses, there is greater potential for the consumer to get what they want when they want it.
Bots can also analyze customer feedback and provide better insights into what consumers are looking for, giving you powerful marketing data. This could replace time-consuming surveys by integrating questions into the conversations happening between chatbots and customers. Furthermore, the information gathered as a result of chatbot interactions can help in restructuring your marketing model to better target the customer’s needs.
You want the buying process to be enjoyable for your customers, and chatbots can make communication with your brand a fun experience. The one-on-one interaction and personalized approach can leave a good, lasting impression. This will pave the way to a stronger bond and allow more time to suggest and share links to increase website visits. Bots can be programmed to encourage customers to visit other relevant pages or blog posts for related products or services.
Chatbots Used Internally
Lastly, chatbots are a great way to keep communication among your marketing and sales teams quick, easy, and concise. According to Rocketbots, the average employee receives 88 emails per day. In the same way, bots are used to communicate with customers, it allows employees to “personalize, target, and connect the relevant content to the right employee at the right time.” When an open dialogue exists between coworkers through chatbots, it fosters a positive environment without the unnecessary clutter of other communications channels, such as email.
To Sum It All Up
Chatbots are an easy and effective tool to add to your marketing and sales strategies. You don’t have to be a technology aficionado to understand their basic programming, they can save you money by providing customer service 24 hours a day, and in some cases, can do 100 percent of the selling for you. To see chatbots in action, read our second blog of this series . Bots are only just the tip of the iceberg, though. For more on the best marketing and sales practices and trends, stay up-to-date on our blog or sign up for our newsletter.