8 Ways To Use Chatbots
There are many ways to improve communication between your company and its customers. One cost-effective way for any company to improve its level of customer service is to use chatbots. The use of chatbots in recent times is through its use in many types of businesses in various fields, and it has already recorded amazing success rates.
In this blog, we will share with you the use cases of chatbots in the areas of customer service, marketing, and sales. But first, let's get to know some key points about automated chatbots.
In general, a bot is a software that is designed to perform certain tasks automatically. The goal of chatbots is to conduct text or voice conversations with humans. This is done by designing chatbots to simulate how a person behaves when talking to other humans, and thus can answer questions and conduct conversations for him.
Cases of using chatbots in customer service
1. Use the chatbot to answer questions and inquiries
Suppose a company is holding an event. Prior to the event, the company promoted it through marketing, hoping to attract as many attendees as possible. It is now up to the customer service team to guide attendees and answer their questions.
If the attendance is small , we say 20 to 50 people then this is not a difficult task. But what if 1,000 people come to a corporate event? or 5000?Or even 10,000? What will happen here !?
In this case, providing quality support and guidance will never be an easy task. Therefore, using a chatbot here, with its 24/7 availability and instant response-ability, would be very beneficial.
The use of chatbots in companies makes the customer service department work from a limited time during the day to a service that is available around the clock, seven days a week, and even the ability to respond immediately.
A company that organizes an event such as a conference, seminar, or workshop can set up a chatbot to answer some common questions, such as
- What is the cost? Where do I get it?
- How do I get there?
- Who will speak at this event?
- What is the event agenda?
- Are there any hotels nearby?
2. Using a chatbot to find products, check stock, and recommend items to customers
Sometimes, the only obstacle standing between you and completing the sale process is the customer's inability to perform a simple action such as finding the product they want or how to make the purchase.
In such a situation, the customer is simply looking for an easy way to contact a customer service agent to help him resolve his "problem". This issue can be as simple as inquiring about the type of item, or it can be something more complex such as checking the availability of an item and the available shipping speed.
For a customer service agent, these are stressful tasks. Inventory verification can be done through customer searches and visits to the product page. As for answering inquiries, customer service agents know that the process of researching and suggesting a specific product may take a lot of time.
One solution to help save customer service agents some time, in order to have the opportunity to serve other customers, is to provide a chatbot to handle these types of questions. Here's why:
- The chatbot is quick to search for data: the customer service agent will have to manually check if the product is in stock. The chatbot, with its quick ability to search your website's database, can provide an immediate response.
- Chatbots are incredibly helpful in making personalized recommendations. It is possible to ask each customer some questions before they can make their purchase. Based on these responses provided by the client, the chatbot can make suggestions that match what the client is looking for.
3. Using the chatbot to process return and exchange requests
One of the most common requests that a customer service agent has to deal with is when a customer wants a return or an exchange. Companies often have a clear policy in dealing with customer requests. This way, giving most returns & exchanges becomes repetitive and tedious for customer service agents.
So, if a chatbot is designed to implement a company's return and exchange policy, it can easily perform these tasks in place of your company's customer service agents.
Cases of using chatbots in marketing
4. Using a chatbot to generate leads using a sales approach
Many companies today are investing a lot in sales teams to find and convert customers. Their goal here is to reach out to uninterested customers to boost their interest in the company's products and services.
Nowadays, there's another effective approach that many companies are adopting, one that involves focusing on customers who visit their websites. These visitors are already informed about the company and what they might like. Lead customers are often at the top of your sales funnel. They have already interacted with your company's website and may be more open to purchasing. These people need more customer support and more examination of their potential needs.
The sales team will not be able to communicate directly with all of your potential customers, because the website visits are anonymous and there is no way for the company to identify and contact customers who have visited its website.
In order to improve the conversion rate, you can use chatbots on your website. They can ask customers questions and answer subsequent queries. It could also be used to direct customers to your products and how they can complete a purchase.
5. Use chatbots to help build more effective email lists
If companies want to collect the email accounts of their customers, potential customers, and even website visitors, they usually have no choice but to use a form for the customer to fill out. This form can be a full-page pop-up or a small form in a corner that is barely visible. While these models do work, most people simply turn them off or ignore them. This is because it is seen by many as a type of advertisement, in addition to their feeling that it disturbs the experience of browsing the website.
Chatbots provide less annoying and more engaging means of gathering information about customers. Unlike traditional models, which ask your customers for email addresses directly and explicitly search for them, a chatbot tries to start a thoughtful, effective conversation by asking the visitor what they would like to do and how they can help them.
6. Using a chatbot to help you improve your marketing funnel
When a business first meets someone new, they do not expect that person to buy something. This can make them come across as desperate and hurt their chances of having return customers.
Instead, the company should make the visitor feel welcome on its website by listening to their needs and requirements and asking if they'd be interested in learning about some additional content, such as an ebook, free email course, or getting started. with a free trial.
Interacting with visitors in this way is likely to build trust. In addition, once they provide their email in exchange for receiving content, the company can send them marketing messages featuring additional products and offers. Over time when these email subscribers receive marketing messages, many of them will buy the products and services offered by the company.
To make visitors feel welcome on the website, using a chatbot would be an effective way to achieve this.
Cases of using chatbots in sales
7. Using a chatbot to direct customers and show pictures of the required products
While companies should try to give a variety of choices to their customers, they should do so with caution. If companies give customers too many choices, customers may not make the purchase.
Research has already shown that too many choices can confuse and frustrate customers because it makes them question their choices instead of feeling confident in them.
Therefore, the best solution would be to categorize products into specific and limited categories, and then gently guide visitors through product listings and ask them which products they would like to see.
This makes it easier for the customer to understand the huge range of products available to make a purchase decision with confidence, and faster.
This process can be repeated several times using the chatbot until the customer reaches the products that he has chosen, only those products that the customer actually wants to see are displayed.
8. Using a chatbot to do the work of sales agents
Every company dreams of operating 24/7 and having its customers served even after the shop is closed and the workday is over. But for many medium and small businesses, serving customers day and night is not possible. And if you do, getting your salespeople to work 24/7 won't be easy.
This is where other solutions come in. While a chatbot is less effective than actual sales agents, it can still do great deals for you, as well as interact with customers all over the world. With its simple, clear conversational style, and the ability to chat with valuable content like images, GIFs, and videos, a chatbot can generate amazing sales if used to pitch products to your customers.
And that's not all !!!!
Even if a customer does not purchase a product, a chatbot can still obtain their email address or personal information about them, and send promotions or offer free trials. So, companies or businesses can get a highly efficient sales agent who can bring them sales 24/7, at a fraction of the cost and time required to build a full team of sales agents.
How to build a chatbot
We will review all the necessary steps to develop a chatbot that helps you increase profits and achieve the goals for which it was designed.
Step 1: Select the type of chatbot you want to build
Why would you build a chatbot? What help do you want to achieve for your actual and potential customers? The answers to these questions will guide your choice of the appropriate type of bot.
Step 2: Choose a communication channel
You will need to track your existing and potential customers and provide chatbots on the platforms they prefer to use. Will the bot be deployed on your website, mobile apps marketing, or Facebook chats? Your customers determine that.
Step 3: Choose a technical service provider
Now that you know the customer problems you want to solve and the platforms you want to use, you now have to choose a technical service provider. You can choose one of the pre-built systems and have bot developers design your bot, or you can design your own by using one of the chatbot builder platforms.
Step 4: Design the conversation
Once you have identified a technical service provider, you can build a chatbot by designing virtual conversations. If you do this using one of the platforms that allow you to design the bot yourself, the process is very simple, all you have to do is choose from a few premade responses.
Step 5: Train the robot
If you create a simple chatbot based on preconfigured rules, you can skip this step, but if your bot uses artificial intelligence, you need to first train it on a huge set of data. What we want the bot to be able to understand is the intent of its users, and this is done by teaching the bot all possible questions that customers could ask.
Explanation of Chatfuel
Chatfuel is the largest platform for building chatbots on Facebook chats. With it, you can automate your Facebook inbox, create a bot to manage your marketing and sales, and provide support to your customers. With Chatfuel you can design your own business chatbot by choosing from some pre-made designs. Chatfuel platform easily provides all types of businesses with chatbots that will help you get more customers, increase your sales, and manage your marketing while you are away from it.
Main features :
- Automate your responses to frequently asked questions.
- Create smart responses using AI engines.
- Segment your audience and assign appropriate responses to each part of them.
- Launch automated marketing campaigns using Facebook conversations.
- Integration with your CRM software.
- Accept payments directly through Facebook Conversations.
Explanation of ManyChat
ManyChat is a service that allows you to create a chatbot for Facebook conversations. You can use these chatbots for a range of purposes, such as marketing and customer service.
The main advantage of the platform is its ease of use. ManyChat says it can set up a chatbot with no software design required and in less than 10 minutes. They also claim that anyone can do it since it doesn't require any programming skills.
In addition to the above, you can use ManyChat to fully automate your marketing on Facebook chats. You can integrate it into many of your CRM programs, allowing you to create more targeted marketing campaigns.
Conclusion
Entering this world and achieving success in it requires knowledge of all its components and auxiliary factors in this regard, which have proven to be very effective in the success of the online store project in the recent period.
Chatbot systems are among the most important factors that help in e-commerce, which have already proven their ability and effectiveness in this industry.
During this Blog, we learned in detail and accurately what a chatbot is, its advantages in e-commerce, and how to build a chatbot. This is in addition to explaining how you can practically use chatbot programs in your online business project.