“By 2022, 70% of white-collar workers will interact with conversational platforms on a daily basis.” - Gartner
As more millennials enter the workplace, so does their demand for digital connections and instant responses. The technological answer to this has been the emergence of the chatbot with more companies realising the massive benefits this platform offers for customer engagement. Read on to find out why you should be considering chatbots to better connect with your current – and potentially new – customers.
What are chatbots?
Chatbot technology uses natural language processing (NLP) to simulate human conversations and automate responses for customer queries and requests. Because of the conversational language used by chatbots, customers find them easy to engage with, while businesses enjoy the many benefits of automating repetitive tasks. Also known as virtual assistants and conversational agents – think Apple's Siri, Google's Google Assistant and Amazon's Alexa - chatbots can communicate via text or audio input, making them a highly accessible tool.
Chatbots allows your business to implement two-way, advanced messaging into your digital strategies and communications. It enhances your interactions with customers in ways that simple emails or one-way marketing cannot. Chatbots can supercharge your customer experience with conversational messaging and provide personalization, automation, and promote proactive communications—making your digital CX more convenient and seamless than ever before.
Different Types of Chatbots
There are several varieties of chatbot within the AI realm, it’s just a matter of knowing which format best enhances your customer engagement. To give you an idea, here’s an overview of some of the more prominent chatbot types:
Quick reply / scripted chatbots: These chatbots will interact with your customers according to pre-defined questions or menu. The customer progresses through the conversation depending on the selections made.
Keyword-recognition chatbots: These chatbots attempt to listen to what your customer inputs and adjust the response accordingly.
Hybrid chatbots: This is a combination of the quick reply and keyword-recognition chatbots whereby your customers can use either the menu selection or ask questions directly.
Contextual chatbot: These chatbots use AI and machine learning (ML) to recall interactions and improve responses over time.
Voice-enabled chatbot: These chatbots use your customer’s spoken dialogue to prompt responses – as in the virtual assistants used on smartphones.
What are the use cases of chatbots?
You can partner with a developer who will build a conversational user interface – or chatbot – to assist your customers with everyday activities. Some of the uses of chatbots include:
Accessing the latest score for sports’ game
Receiving customer service reminders from a provider or brand
Finding nearby restaurants or events
Accessing real-time weather conditions and updates
Setting reminders for upcoming events
Ordering and processing payments securely
Getting assistance for loan applications
Top 8 Benefits of Chatbots
This user-friendly platform presents businesses with a unique opportunity to engage directly with their customers, to provide them with the answers they need, without impacting employee time. Here’s a look at how.
1. Chatbots provide lead generation
The technological strides being made in chatbots is making interactions with them incredibly smooth, thereby facilitating multiple purchases. Where a customer might be on the fence about a product, a simple response from a chatbot can easily persuade the potential customer and secure the sale.
2. Chatbots save on business costs
Customer service is a vital part of successful business operations but 24-hour customer service is expensive and often untenable. Chatbots provide you with an informed operator that can provide responses and assistance to customers every day of the week, and week of the year. This saves businesses on staff costs and ensures customers are satisfied at the end of the day.
3. Chatbots gather customer data
Data is one of the most valuable assets in modern business, and companies not using data to their advantage are likely to get left behind. Chatbots provide you with the opportunity to not only communicate directly with customers, but to gather useful customer data for a much more personalised user experience. Information shared with your chatbot can be put to great use, resulting in increased customer satisfaction.
4. Chatbots streamline operations
According to Harvard Business Review, customer loyalty is reliant on minimising the amount of work a customer has to do to solve a problem. This means businesses need to anticipate their problems and offer quick solutions – such as chatbots. Depending on how you programme your chatbot, it’s possible to streamline a number of different functions directly through this one app. From providing responses to frequently asked questions (FAQs) through to processing payments, it can all be done on chatbot.
5. Chatbots provide instant communication
The modern consumer wants information on hand as soon as they request it. Fortunately, chatbots can meet this need for instant communication. While the customer is engaging with the chatbot, the bot is already accessing useful data so that the answer is provided almost instantaneously – something that can’t necessarily be achieved through emails or phone conversations.
6. Chatbots provide useful feedback
Call-to-actions included at the end of emails or telephone calls often go unnoticed or simply ignored, but customer feedback is incredibly useful to streamlining operations. Through reviews, it’s possible to identify areas of weakness and take advantage of your strengths. Chatbots provide you with the necessary data to analyse business operations and make the required adjustments.
7. Chatbots drive customer engagement
The ease and convenience of the chatbot platform actually encourages customer engagement. There is no longer a wait for delayed email responses or the infuriating sound of call-waiting music while on hold, customers can get information they need about your service or product immediately – and they will. With such an intuitive interface, even those with limited technological skills can engage unimpeded.
8. Chatbots boost customer satisfaction and brand loyalty
With all these incredible advantages of the chatbot platform, you’re benefitting from a massive spike in customer satisfaction and, ultimately, brand loyalty. Whether customers are getting straightforward questions to simple company questions, or your chatbot has generated a sales lead and is processing a purchase, customers are coming away with a better connection to your brand.
Why you should choose Clickatell
When it comes to implementing a chatbot and two-way, advanced messaging into your organization, the quality of the offering can make or break your brand. Clickatell can assure you of only the best. With a Clickatell chatbot you’re enjoying:
Seamless integration and worldwide communication
A smart, cloud-hosted portal
A scalable SMS platform for high-volume messages
A 100% secure engagement with end-to-end encryption
Contact Clickatell today to find out more about the chatbot solution for you!
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