Is a chatbot worth the investment for your business? The growing popularity of AI technology is not likely to slow down, and there are many ways in which businesses are utilizing chatbots to increase efficiency and stand out to consumers in a crowded digital marketplace. Chatbots can add immediate value to the customer service experience users are receiving, all while increasing proficiency and reducing costs for your business. In addition, providing streamlined assistance to customers in turn improves credibility and favorability among key audiences.
Aside from the customer service component, chatbots can serve to collect feedback and valuable insights from customer interactions. If taken into consideration, these insights can help you more effectively interact and market to future or existing customers. Enabling a chatbot is another powerful way to reach consumers on various messenger platforms. Keep reading to learn more about the ways a chatbot for your business can provide a drastic competitive advantage for your organization.
Reducing Costs
Chatbots will save a combined total of $11 billion for the banking, retail, and healthcare business sectors by 2023, according to Business Insider, with the majority coming from saved time and manpower that chatbot automation provides. The most measurable benefit from chatbot implementation is seen in the reduction of manpower. With automated support available 24/7, this reduces the need for customer service staff, who otherwise would be handling every customer service related inquiry across multiple channels.
By providing answers to customer’s inquiries simultaneously, chatbots can outpace the abilities of human representatives. Automating these repetitive tasks not only saves money, but provides uniform answers to common questions. Providing a consistent level of service to users instantaneously leaves them with a positive user experience, a factor that many consumers take into account when selecting between product options. According to Deloitte, 62% of companies view customer experience delivered by a brand as a competitive differentiator.
Collecting Feedback
When utilizing chatbots, businesses have the capability to collect valuable feedback and insights from customers to generate leads. By collecting feedback on their customer service experience, businesses are able to improve pain points in which they see high customer drop off or confusion. Making the needed enhancements to bots will provide a more efficient experience for customers in the future and enable them to reach their desired answer or product at a faster speed, potentially increasing conversion rate. Chatbots can also collect insightful information from users allowing businesses to better understand and target customers in the future with relevant information. For example, if a customer has made a purchase in the past, a chatbot can recommend the same or similar product to them during their future interactions.
Marketing
Using chatbots for marketing techniques can be an efficient way to reach consumers on their preferred platforms. For instance, Facebook Messenger, SMS, WhatsApp, and Google Messages are platforms where consumers are likely spending a measurable portion of their time. Initiating conversation through these channels allows businesses to reach an expanded pool of relevant audiences. One example of successful marketing through automated messaging was seen from the brand The Beard Club. With the use of a Facebook Messenger chatbot, the company received 30,000 new subscribers from their outreach to potential consumers. With a 92% open rate, this successful marketing effort illustrated how conversation automation can provide quick ROI wins and effectively scale a business.
