Chatbots have become extremely common for businesses with an online presence, which basically includes almost all businesses now. You’ve definitely come across one of them when doing your online shopping or trying to buy a Charter Spectrum internet package.
But what exactly is a chatbot? It is basically a piece of software used to have a conversation with humans based on a set of textual or auditory prompts. Its basic purpose is to carry a conversation and answer the questions customers usually tend to ask.
Therefore, whether it’s a food delivery app or a complaint portal for your electricity connection, a chatbot basically gives a set of predetermined answers to questions or concerns people are expected to ask. If a question is out of its ambit, it often includes a message which refers you to a human customer service representative or whoever the relevant person is for your needs.
If you have your own company, you can see how convenient a chatbot can make things for you. It can reduce your hiring costs and significantly save time and effort on customer queries. However, if you’re still double-minded about it, here’s a thorough overview about chatbots and their various use-case scenarios.
Types of Chatbots
There are basically two types of chatbots, transactional and conversational. A transactional chatbot is designed to give customers a set of preset choices. People can choose their query or complaint from a list of expected prompts and will receive a preset answer.
However, it doesn’t just end there. The chatbot will guide them through the process of solving their problem until they get to a solution. A good example of this would be the Windows help center.
On the other hand, a conversational chatbot is designed to be contextually aware and sound as human as possible. Using artificial intelligence, it can pick up on the issue a customer is facing, and give the appropriate answers accordingly. Many online social platforms use this approach.
Read More: Why You Should Use Artificial Intelligence
Benefits of Chatbots
There are a lot of benefits associated with using chatbots on your company’s communication and customer service portals. The most obvious one is that you don’t have to hire a huge team of customer support representatives around the clock to respond to customer queries. Other benefits include:
- 24-hour availability
- Consistent answers
- Instant responses
- Customizability
- No emotional outbursts
- Increased sales
- Wider customer outreach
- Deeper insights
This is just the tip of the iceberg. If you really get into chatbots and explore their full potential, you can use them to optimize your company. Take a look at how you can use them to your benefit.
Chatbots in Customer Support
The most common and obvious way you can use chatbots is for customer support. Just do a thorough overview of what problems your customers can possibly face, and what the relevant solutions are. Then, all you have to do is program your chatbot with the relevant text prompts, with all the possible answers recorded as well.
Most customers have some pretty basic questions and complaints which you don’t need to dedicate human resources for. Let a chatbot take up this tedious task, and see your company’s customer experience improve.
Chatbots in Marketing
You can also use chatbots to increase your customer outreach. When it comes to email marketing and social media campaigns, you may want to target thousands or even millions of customers. It would be highly impractical to assign human resources for this purpose.
Instead, program a chatbot with the necessary details in an engaging tone. You can reach out to more people with automated messages and take them into your marketing funnel with minimal effort and cost.
Chatbots in Sales
Chatbots are also pretty useful when you want to close sales. Once your marketing team or chatbot has a customer convinced, the final step is customer on-boarding. If you expect a large volume of customers, you need to assign a chatbot to streamline the purpose. It can take customers through your subscription or purchase process, and guide them through payments as well.
In addition, when it comes to e-commerce, you can use a chatbot to convince people to actually buy the items they have in their carts.
In conclusion, chatbots are an excellent tool for a wide variety of purposes. If you use them properly, you can really reap the benefits.