How can a customer support chatbot enhance my businesses' success?
I'm planning to add a chatbot on my website to improve the customer experience. I'm looking forward to reading reviews from those who are already using chatbots. How has it benefited your business?
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Oct 23, 2019
Simple chatbots scan the keywords in a customer's inquiry to deliver pre-packaged answers, while more sophisticated chatbots powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) can use natural language processing to create responses and conversations that are more complex. AI chatbots are more flexible when the human speaking to them doesn’t give the exact message they’re programmed to receive. Instead, they actively learn from the conversations they have to help customers reach their goals.
AI-powered chatbots are typically better integrated with the CMS and CRM platforms that underpin a brand’s online presence, allowing them to tap into customer information and provide personalized experiences.
1. Seamless Live Chat
Customers can engage with a chatbot in much the same way they would in an online conversation with live customer support employees, so the learning curve for customers to engage with chatbots is practically nonexistent. Since many chatbots use natural language processing methods, they can analyze the customer's question and deliver a response that meets the customer's needs.
2. 24/7 Support
Customers' needs often arise outside of business hours, so they need a way to seek out answers to vital questions at times when customer service staff members are unavailable. Chatbots offer customers the opportunity to get answers to their questions at any time, so they don't have to wait for a response from a voicemail or email message. The best chatbots can also offer the customer the feeling of conversing with a live operator at any time.
3. A Smoother Journey
To ease the purchasing process for the customer, your chatbot can pop up on any product page to offer additional information, video content or even a discount code. Chatbots can also help customers with the process of gathering information, such as the item they wish to purchase, the method they want to use for purchasing the item, and how they want it shipped. Maybe even those dreaded shopping cart abandonment rates will finally drop, too.
4. Personify Your Business
The flexibility of chatbots allows them the chance to engage with customers on many different levels. They can act as the customer's primary resource for technical support, account management, or sales information. Chatbots can also be programmed with different types of conversational styles, from precise and technical to friendly and helpful to snarky and humorous. The various types of “personalities” available with chatbots will keep customers coming back and re-engaging with the brand.
5. Cut Down on Operational Costs
Customer support costs can be significantly reduced with the help of AI chatbots. According to Chatbots Magazine, implementing virtual agents or chatbots can help businesses to save up to 30%. Chatbots give support and solve repetitive customer queries, freeing up service agents to handle more complex queries and provide better service to the customers. Therefore, chatbots help raise productivity for agents. Hiring agents with 24/7/365 presence and adding the resources needed to give support to the customers round the clock, can prove simply too costly for many companies.