Chatbots are rapidly becoming a necessary tool for e-commerce and websites all around because the need for conversation is growing. Users who need help from time to time seek customer services through social media. Then, companies hire several employees to attend customers. Employees might have fun at first, but after a few months of working in customer service, they’ll have left as much patience as a blowfish.
Fortunately, every day more and more brands decide to get on board and explore the opportunities of using chatbots. Many have arrived at their destination with impressive results.
Contents
- Chatbots save billions
- There’s no need to complicate things
- Here’s why chatbots matter to your online business
- Chatbot solves something we hate about apps
- Bots increase sales in online business
- How is it like to talk to a chatbot?
- Chat blasting will get you more traffic and sales
- Here’s where you can find an Outstanding Chatbot Plugin
- The quick, beautiful and undeniable conclusion
Chatbots save billions
Customers notice and all of a sudden, the business suffers. This is where chatbots come into play, and they are projected to save businesses billions in the next couple of years by distributing customer service and e-commerce based on bots. Please read the last sentence out loud. It will leave you a smile.
Some owners think consumers perceive chatbots as cold and/or impersonal, but with most that are not really the case. Many consumers prefer to communicate with because they offer answers and solutions way faster than humans do. In fact, I bet a bot will someday come up with an explanation for climate change.
Of course, your customers are smart and they will notice when they are engaging. And that is okay. Don’t hide it. They only need to provide extra value to the user’s experience. For example, Domino’s chatbot enables users to customize and order pizzas, just like they would online without having to leave Facebook. How cool is that?
There’s no need to complicate things
A bot is simply a computer program that automates specific tasks and often chats with a user through an interface for conversation.
By all means, there’s a big difference between chatbots answering “yes” or “no” questions and those that grant more worthwhile experiences. For starters, some tell you straight: “please, see a doctor”.
Some bots are so top-notch they are powered by artificial intelligence that helps them understand complex exchanges, personalize responses and improve interactions. Indeed, the majority of bots don’t have this technology and are programmed by a nerdy, binary, or non-binary human via a bot-building platform. You could just order a list of if-then statements and write the responses, often without needing to code.
Bots accomplish their tasks, from start to finish, in the place where you already spend 8 hours a day…no, not your job…your messaging apps. Yes, bots integrate and are available to chat within Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, WeChat, or Telegram if your hipster.
Here’s why chatbots matter to your online business
Let’s say you want a new digital camera to take pictures on your next vacation in Malta. You could visit Canon or Sony’s website, scroll through 20 product pages, select the one you think would look better on you, fill out your shipping and payment information, and so on. It’s a long, annoying process and you might lose interest in that digital camera.
But if it had a bot, you’d simply tell it: “Hey, I think these are my requirements” and it will guide you through the best options and place the order for you. While you take care of the shop, the bot is minding its own business as it collects information to understand your intention and finally delivers the content to satisfy your specific needs.
When consumers research, they want the information as quickly as actually is possible type in Google Search. Therefore they turn to social media to learn information about brands they care about. Yet, sometimes you subscribe to a site, and then you are overwhelmed by 10 notifications a day, plus 6 of them are about plane tickets even though it’s a shoe brand. Therefore, it’s ideal for providing value in social media and messaging apps, for helping consumers find answers without wasting minutes in search, forms or irrelevant content. The only objectionable content that’s cool is cat videos. Those are always welcome.
Chatbot solves something we hate about apps
One excellent characteristic of bots is that it solves something we hate about apps: You don’t need to download something you’ll never use again. Most users stick to only a few apps, and bots might end up replacing a bunch of them. Yes, you read correctly. Bots might replace apps. Take a look at virtual assistants, they become more popular every day. Asking Siri or Alexa or Natasha to find something for you is way easier than searching through an app and finding the information yourself. It saves time and headaches. And yes, I know there is no “Natasha”…yet. I’m sure there will be. We are getting closer to a science fiction reality where we just tell out computer what we want and Natasha seems like a beautiful name.
Bots increase sales in online business
Bots are not also great for customer service but also for other aspects of a digital marketing strategy. They are a huge boost to retain users and increase sales in your online business.
Chatbots are excellent tools that collect data from many sources and put together the information to build a bigger and more complex picture of the situation. The more information they take, the more bots can analyze preferences, understand behavior and act accordingly.
Communicating with it is like talking to a salesperson without the annoying part of actually interacting with a salesperson. With them, consumers don’t feel ignored by companies as they get quick responses to their FAQs or concerns about shipping.
How is it like to talk to a chatbot?
Technology has come a long way since the Turing Test thanks to AI and language processing (NLP); therefore, it’s getting harder to identify if you are talking to a human or a machine.
Chatbots are not uncomfortable to talk to, and if they were, we might as well get used to them since most researchers say that customers may manage up to 85% of their brand interactions without ever even speaking to a human by 2024.
So think about it this way: Chatting with a bot is (or should be) like communication with a human that knows everything. Simply imagine you are talking to Sherlock Holmes. If you use a bot to change a hotel reservation, it should know whether you have credit, how do you like your sheets and how many drinks you take in an open bar. Maybe not deduce that much, but bots could absorb your record information and help with a product or service personalization.
Creating a comprehensive and smooth conversational flow might take a few months. It takes some improvement to make your bot the fundamental tool of your conversational strategy. This will be enhanced as voice-based programs continue to grow and make the job easier for customers to interact with your brand and vice versa.
Chat blasting will get you more traffic and sales
This is a practice that I guarantee will get you more traffic and sales. Chat blasting is a tactic used to reach and engage with customers in a similar way to email blasting but in chat. Chat blasts can be either non-promotional or promotional. The first ones include examples like informing people about recent events, sending reminders and providing information in several categories such as sport, gaming, religion or eGames, which is a combination of all of them.
On the other hand, promotional blasts are the ones intended to sell a product or service. Some examples might be comparisons with competitors, introducing a new product or informing consumers about discounts.
To get this process going and increase traffic to your site or conversion funnels, you have to send messages to contacts on your list through Facebook Messenger chat app, and they can be either paid (Facebook Ads) or organic (free).
To build a good chat blast, you need to tap into your audience’s curiosity, sense of urgency, your brand’s likability, or the need for social proof. Also, try to make your messaging visually exciting and offer a clear way to unsubscribe as those engage more users.
You should let your consumers know that they are in control of the messaging they receive from your business. This will allow you to maintain low block rates and a higher engagement since users see you as a trustworthy brand.
Here’s where you can find an Outstanding Chatbot Plugin
One of the examples of the powerful messaging platform is the WP-Chatbot plugin by MobileMonkey. It’s like another Facebook Messenger window fully integrated to your own site without the need to open an extra browser tap. One of the benefits of this plugin is the way it’s built and how cleverly everything is implemented. The more thorough overview is available here: https://www.bestcloudtools.com/reviews/10-essential-wordpress-plugins- in-2019/.
The quick, beautiful and undeniable conclusion
Chatbots are a thing of the present and also the future. Like reptilians, they are already here, and they will remain here because they are absolutely great for business.
They will enhance your user’s experience as they navigate smoothly through your site search for answers and solutions. They provide the best and the fastest assistance for consumers and don’t worry, they are not weird at all!
Implement this tool the right way, and you’ll see how your site gathers more visits, the sales increase and you become each day a happier e-commerce owner. Maintain the conversation and you’ll maintain the clients.