8 Reasons you should be using a Chatbot in your business
Chatbots are leading the charge these days forging unique customer experiences on just about every kind of website and online niche imaginable. We're doing a deep dive into thier uses and why your business needs them to stay ahead of the competition.
Chatbots are omnipresent. They've also evolved and become much more sophisticated with their use of natural language programming cognitive AI, contextual learning and memory. Everyone has experienced a little comment/chatbox pop-up during a website visit. They're an expected level of service on any eCommerce site, customer support for service companies, tech assistance for technology and products, and a sales support team for your CRM. They are truly closing the gap between direct client contact, and your support team.
Read the "The Ultimate Guide to your building an ECommerce Website" by Click Creative
Chatbots have improved dramatically in the last 2 years and with hundreds of SAAS service and technology stack platforms competing the uptake over the last year has been tremendous. Combine that with the rise in online shopping as our behaviours adjust, and you have the perfect storm of adaptation.
What is a Chatbot?
The simplest explanation is a module or plugin on your website that allows your audience to interact with your business through a set of questions and answers in an intuitive native language chat flow. AI and cognitive programming are used to learn and iterate these communications in seamless natural language. The benefit to the customer is instant answers to simple queries and moving your customers further towards your conversion goals be it a signing up or sales. Chatbots can provide detailed calculations (such as shipping and taxes), automate your bookings or appointments, and automate a series of conversational tasks that save your company time and energy and bridge the gap between the customers' immediate queries and your support team.
Here are the top 4 reasons your business needs a chatbot.
1. Your business needs to be open 24/7
Your customer is looking for information at all hours of the day.
Chatbots encourage continuous communication between the seller and the customer. Your customers are searching for something for a reason, and they want instant access to information. In the age of shopping immediacy, a chatbot can bridge the gap between question and response time, especially in the retail industry, where the most extensive adoption of chatbots is present. Cart abandonment will lower significantly if they can get immediate answers. You'll build a customer for life with exceptional service where and when they need it.
2. A chatbot is an extra hand
A chatbot can answer thousands of questions at the same time. Thanks to the speed of the cloud, internet, and software mechanisms, responses can be provided instantly.
3. They help answer simple questions
"The most common frustrations reported by consumers included websites being hard to navigate (34%), not being able to get answers to simple questions (31%), and basic details about a business -- like address, hours of operation, and phone number -- being hard to find (28%). The takeaway: The online experiences businesses are providing no longer match the way people prefer to buy."
(source)
4. Most bots answer simple straight forward questions such as:
"Where are you located."
"What hours are you open."
"Can you process my Sole Trader taxes"
"Do you have it in this size/colour"
"What are your shipping rates"
Answering simple questions in a timely fashion can keep your client journey on track and move them towards your end goal conversion without taking up precious customer service time. Chatbots provide answers while you are soundly sleeping. Your clients get the answers they are seeking. This results in more sales, bookings and leads.
5. Your bot could speak multiple languages
Many newer chatbots support multiple languages - especially useful for global brands. Chatbots can detect the native language of the user via their input phrases.
6. Solve your human resources shortage
Bots can alleviate the simple questions, freeing up your customer support queue for urgent tickets and problem solving, and save your company resources and money. They can proactively and intuitively help your clients as if you are there holding their hand yourself.
7. Fill your sales funnel
Your conversion sales process is an ongoing challenge. Chatbots can help at every stage of the client lifecycle from warming up a client and building trust to booking a call, signing up for a free trial, sending a lead magnet or a newsletter sign-up. Your chatbots can turn browsers into bookings, build trust, and build brand advocates for your company.
8. Let Messenger chatbots be your sales tool
Leveraging your highly engaged Facebook audience with direct offers is one of the best practices your business can implement for ROI. Using quizzes, surveys and uniquely viral questions are incredibly effective methods of garnering information and catching the attention of your followers. Mobile Monkey and Manychat are amongst the most robustly developed conversational sales tools that help you nurture and convert your sales leads through Messenger APPS.
The best chatbots for 2021
Qualify leads, book meetings, provide customer support and scale your one-to-one conversations.
You can start with HubSpot's chatbot builder for free. If you're looking for features to automate your marketing operations you'll have to upgrade to the Starter, Professional, and Enterprise editions of Marketing Hub. Given that they're a full-stack marketing system it's well worth the price.
The free version includes 1 chatbot with limited capability but access to flows and CRM to fully explore all the paid features.
Click Creative are Hubspot Partners and fanatical about all the amazing tools that the Hubspot platform offers.
This is a super easy to use robust chatbot with some great integrations including LiveChat, Facebook Messenger, Chat Widget, Slack, Zapier, Mailchimp, Shopify, Dropbox.
There are multiple customer experiences and templates to choose from to get started: engage, nurture, qualify, convert, and easy-to-design drag and drop templates for lead generation, discounts, customer and customer satisfaction.
$50 a month gets you 1 chatbot flow, +1000 chats and all the bells and whistle integrations.
Build and automate interactive 2-way conversations in minutes for Instagram, Direct Message and Facebook Messenger. Capture phone numbers and emails, deliver coupons, newsletters, promotions and booking confirmations. Integrates with Google Sheets, Shopify, Zapier, Hubspot, MailChimp, Paypal and Stripe
Start with the freemium including basic features, 2 flows and up to 1000 contacts, or $15 Pro with all advanced features, complete all in one toolbox with templates, unlimited drip, tags, split testing, buy buttons and remove branding.
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Drift for integrates is for a more robust sales and lead process. Its custom designs let you qualify leads faster, automatically book meetings with your sales team, and connect your customers with the right business solutions more efficiently.
The Premium (entry-level) solution include custom chatbots, lead routing, Intel and personalisation, SAlesforce integration and data encryption end-to-end.
higher levels include features like A/B testing, audiences, virtual selling assistants and multiple languages.
Automate marketing, lead gen, support, and more with a bot. Build yours in an afternoon with our drag-and-drop builder, trusted by the world's largest brands.
The freemium version includes access to all features and 50 users with Facebook Messenger and Instagram plus drip sequences. $15 a month gets you all the features, an expanded user allowance, chat support, Facebook Shop and Shopify Integrations.
Using chatbots are a great way to create a seamless live chat option that integrates with your sales and marketing plan, tools and your team. Using these automation tools can help you connect to your clients, be a proactive solution provider before your audience even knows what they need, and bridge a gap that might otherwise be unachievable in your team or company.
If you need help with automating your marketing we'd love to hear from you!.
