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What is a Chatbot and what are they for?
A chatbot is a computer programme that simulates human conversations with users via text messages in a chat room.
This type of software is used to initiate text-based online conversations within a website or to solve doubts, problems or questions that users have while browsing or using our website.
Its main objective is to shorten response times and improve the user experience.
Why they are important
Chatbots are very useful tools for capturing sales but above all as a customer service channel for the companies that use them.
And the fact is that:
The Internet requires 24/7 dedication if you want to have satisfied customers.
But an organization cannot maintain a 3-shift sales or customer service staff as it is not profitable for your business.
With a chatbot, this time constraint no longer exists and they are perfect for continuing to deal with requests during off-peak business hours.
In addition:
They can hold simultaneous conversations with a multitude of users at the same time.
Avoiding bottlenecks and keeping customer service costs down.
Common uses of chatbots
Chatbots offer a wide range of applications and are not limited to a single industry or use case.
The usual use of these programmes is usually for:
1.- Customer Services:
Brands use chatbots in this area to:
- improve customer support.
- increase the productivity of your support teams.
- and to improve the user’s perception of your brand.
It is very common to find a virtual assistant or bot acting on the front line of customer care taking on the vast majority of repetitive cases to offload live agents.
They are able to segment requests according to the type of problem and, when necessary, direct them to human agents, helping to keep hotlines open 24 hours a day.
At the same time they can solve simple problems such as booking appointments or lodging complaints without human intervention.
In short:
Chatbots improve customer service and do so by being available 24 hours a day.
2.- Marketing – Bots for Lead Generation
Companies also use chatbots to diversify their customer acquisition strategy.
With chatbots, you can proactively engage website visitors and start them in the sales funnel to sell more products.
In addition, a well-designed chatbot can function as a lead generation tool.
They allow to capture:
- subscribers for newsletters
- sales contacts
- beta testers
- or even job applicants
Helping companies reach a wider audience with their message.
3.- Sales: Customer acquisition and lead generation
Chatbots can also be of great use to sales teams.
They help companies eliminate unqualified leads and connect sales reps with qualified ones.
This helps sales specialists spend less time acquiring leads and more time focusing on building relationships with potential customers.
Chatbots can tag, qualify and route leads to the sales team in real time, while using AI and machine learning to get better and better.
They even allow the qualification of leads and in some cases the closing of uncomplicated sales.
4.- Market Intelligence:
Finally, a little-known use of AI assistants is that they can be employed as a big data repository of customer insights.
The more the chatbot chats with your potential customers, the more data it gets about their needs and preferences. This helps businesses to better tailor their offers and messages.
And identify and segment customers by defining concrete actions for each of them.
Most commonly used types of chatbots:
Chatbots can actually be grouped into two broad groups or categories:
1. Transactional chatbots
Transactional bots allow customers to conduct a transaction in the context of a conversation. These can be used to validate leads
A transactional chatbot replicates the conversation with a sales agent on behalf of humans and interacts with external systems to perform a specific action.
2. Conversational chatbots
These are the most commonly used by marketing and customer service teams. In this type of chatbots, the aim is to deal with support requests, queries, invoicing, etc… that may be worrying a customer or user.
It aims to assist and support customers effectively with more administrative tasks. It also seeks to generate support for customer-centric strategies.
Benefits of implementing a chatbot
Chatbots help automate many business processes, particularly those related to customer service and sales.
In this way we are able to reduce the cost of acquiring a digital customer.
Or improve customer service by offering a much faster user experience.
But they also provide other clear benefits such as:
- ► Increasing customer retention
- ► Increase conversion rates
- ► Building trust and empathy
- ► Improving customer satisfaction
- ► Scaling up customer service without skyrocketing costs
Ultimately, companies are increasingly employing chatbots in their marketing strategies because they enable them to deliver personalized and consistent brand experiences while keeping costs in check.
In the long run, that translates into better brand awareness and more sales.
How to create Chatbot that Works - Best Practices
The easiest and quickest way is to use an existing platform that allows integration with different systems through an API.
Of course, you can always create your own chatbot from scratch.
Although we don’t recommend it unless you are an expert programmer, NLP and machine learning pilot.
The science behind such systems is somewhat complex for non-programmers.
And this option is not the cheapest.
Therefore, creating your first chatbot under the umbrella of one of these platforms will help you to bet on a low-cost solution and at the same time to know if this type of software is useful for your company.
In conclusion:
Chatbots make it easier for companies to expand their support services at a low cost.
Increasingly, brands are choosing to introduce chatbots into their marketing strategies because they enable personalized and consistent brand experiences.
In the long run, this translates into better brand awareness and more sales.
They are a great help for both companies and users to quickly manage many repetitive and boring tasks.
That is probably the essence of chatbots. Their goal is not, nor should it ever be, to replace a human. But to simulate a human conversation in as natural a way as possible in order to make way for new interactions.
Important: chatbots technology is not perfect, it is necessary to work well with templates and conversation filters to qualify the conversations before giving way to human agents.
Links and recommended reading:
Frequently Asked Questions
A Chatbot is a tool that helps automate conversations using machine learning, NLP and algorithms to simulate human interactions. To find out what they are and how to use them, we recommend you read our article in depth.
The quickest, most effective and easiest way is to use a platform that can be integrated into third-party software and that allows you to customize pre-designed templates or conversation scripts that can be adapted to your needs.