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5 Benefits of Using Chatbots for Business

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By Kayla Matthews

If you want to stay ahead in today’s business world, you need to leverage technology. AI is one of the most promising aspects of technology today, and chatbots are an excellent way to use it. Chatbots for business is a growing field and one you should consider looking into.

The word “chatbot” may make you think of the robotic, monotone voices you’ve heard on calls in the past. Today’s bots are far superior, though, and are a handy resource for any company. Here are just five of the ways you can benefit from a chatbot for your business.

1. Increased Profits

Traditionally, you’d answer customer questions with an employee, either a dedicated customer relations agent or whoever’s free. This model can end up being costly, though. You may not be able to afford a dedicated service agent, and answering questions can distract employees from their regular work.

If you automate the relations process with a chatbot, you avoid these expenses. Chatbots don’t need a salary, and you allow your employees to focus on their other tasks, accomplishing more at once. Some researchers even suggest that chatbots will save businesses $8 billion a year by 2022.

2. Unlimited Availability

Chatbots are also available at any time on any day. You can only work for so long, but you never know when your customers may have questions. With a chatbot, you can help them get the answers they need whenever they need them.

Even during regular business hours, traditional customer service systems can have trouble keeping up. If you have more callers than you have service reps, you may have to put people on hold. Chatbots, on the other hand, can talk to multiple people at once, so everyone gets immediate service.

3. Versatile Customer Service

When you use a chatbot for your business, you also create a more versatile customer service platform. For example, 64% of consumers prefer texting over calling, so you want to provide the same experience across both. Since the same chatbot system can handle both calls and texts, it can deliver consistent service for all customers.

Chatbots also allow for multilingual support. Finding an employee who’s fluent in many languages is challenging, but finding a robot that is isn’t. That way, you can help your customers no matter what their needs are.

4. Fast Responses

Your consumer base may be just as busy as you are. They want information as fast as they can get it, but traditional customer service systems can be slow. Since AI works so much faster than people, chatbots can offer almost instant responses.

There are many reasons why a human employee may be slow to answer a customer. They could have to think about the answer, think about how they’d phrase something or they could be distracted. Chatbots don’t experience any of those pauses, so they can work faster.

5. Fewer Errors

Another benefit of chatbots for businesses is that they reduce the risk of human error. If your employees are tired, distracted or have a momentary lapse of judgment, they could accidentally tell a customer incorrect information. Chatbots don’t have this problem.

Chatbots don’t forget anything, and they don’t get distracted. They will almost always give the right answers. That kind of reliability is hard to ignore as a business.

AI Will Drive Tomorrow’s Business World

The potential of chatbots for business is substantial, and it’s growing as the technology gets better. If you want to improve your customer service, you should consider investing in chatbots. Not only will it help your customer more, but it’ll save you time and money.

AI applications are driving industry, and will likely shape the business of tomorrow. Resources like chatbots will become standard practice before long, and you can see that trend is already starting to take place. If you want to move your business into the future, consider chatbots.

 

About the Author: Kayla Matthews writes about communication and workplace productivity on her blog, Productivity Theory. Her work has also appeared on Talent Culture, MakeUseOf, The Muse and Fast Company.

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

Give your site a pulse with live chat help

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“A shopkeeper should always have a ready smile”

One of the most impactful changes my company has made in the last couple of years is our addition of live help on the website. It has made a big difference in sales, and I’m convinced that it’s our version of the “ready smile” mentioned in the Chinese proverb.

The cheery greeting “bonjour!” rang out every single time I entered a shop on our trip to France years ago. It didn’t matter if the shopkeeper was in the back, sweeping out front, or behind the counter. It made us feel welcome–and more likely to linger and strike up a conversation.

live chat is a smiling shopkeeper

To power our “ready smile,” we’re using a service called SnapEngage, but there are a lot of other options out there, including LiveEngage, Moxie’s Chat Spaces, and Velaro.

According to a Velaro white paper, “although statistics show that over 66% of all ecommerce shopping carts are abandoned, online customer service (live chat) improves the chance of a purchase by 40%-60%.”

But it’s not really about the technology. It’s about having a person with a ready smile on the other end of the chat. We often get people question the popup box, “are you a robot? or are you a real person?” Our staff is likely to reply with a friendly joke. What better way to make a connection with a visitor than making them smile?

Here’s how to maximize the benefits of live chat on your website:

  • Be selective about where you use the proactive popup. Consider disabling it on pages that show video, or other media that might be interrupted by the popup.
  • Wait a few seconds before it pops up. Let the visitor come all the way in and take a peek before you prompt the chat window.
  • Make sure someone is staffing it. It does take a commitment to staff the live chat; make sure you have internal staff ready to respond if you have the chat window enabled.
  • Train employees to react appropriately to different questions. Incoming questions from visitors can be unpredictable…it can be sales oriented, a customer question, a technical question, or something completely off the wall. Be sure your chat staff is prepared. Does the sales team want an email address collected from prospects? Ensure that message is communicated to those staffing the live chat.
  • Analyze the data (what types of questions, where are they coming from, what browsers are they using, what pages are they lingering on). You’ve got a treasure trove now. Use it to inform your content strategy, your marketing materials, your sales messaging, and perhaps even your product documentation.
  • Define the purpose of the popup (is it customer support, or sales, or both?). Make sure it’s clear to your visitors, and your chat staff is informed.
  • What’s your business personality? Share with your chat staff the tone you want to communicate. Are they free to use smilies? Can they make jokes? We go for a tone of friendly professionalism; often it’s a good idea to follow the lead of the visitor.

A live chat service on your website can be a direct conduit to your visitors’ thoughts.

But perhaps more importantly, it’s a technological version of your “ready smile.”

How do you greet your website visitors?

Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for social strata — a top ten company to work for on the Internet . Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee