Are you a small business trying to get your leg up on the competition?
Do you belong to that pool of businesses that have limited resources but an unlimited fire to provide superlative customer experience?
Are you one of those enterprises doing well with regards to generating awareness & interest for their products or services online, but facing an overwhelming situation with insufficient bandwidth to service the leads?
If the answer to any of the above is yes, chatbots are your calling.
What exactly are chatbots?
The Chatbots Magazine defines chatbot as “a service, powered by rules and sometimes artificial intelligence that enables one to interact with and via a chat interface. The service could be any number of things, ranging from functional to fun, and it could live in any major chat product (Facebook Messenger, Slack, Telegram, Text Messages, etc.).”
If I have to explain very simply, a chatbot is a computer program that can emulate a human conversation with some pre-assigned instructions.
These programs aren’t particularly a new invention, but the last couple of years with rising trends of artificial intelligence have ushered a wave that has made them far simpler, more efficient and cost-effective than you could have imagined earlier.
Here Are 3 Sure Shot Ways How Chatbot Can Help Your Small Business –
1. Ensure Prompt Communication
A prompt response never goes unappreciated. There was a research study published in The Chatbot Report that concluded about 43 percent consumers viewed a business having chatbots as innovative, whereas 22 percent felt that the company was more efficient.
Chatbot as an instrument helps to give out instantaneous replies and also communicate new developments with customers. This is a good way to build a positive image and also share latest developments at a negligible cost.
2. Attend Customer Queries
Customers are already acquainted with interacting with automated voice systems and emails. In that sense, chatbots are an intuitive alternative.
Assigning the task of answering queries to an individual puts a limitation on the number of possible questions answered and people attended to.
Automating the procedure with a bot multiplies the serviceable quantum possible. It’s a way more efficient mechanism to respond to frequently asked questions. The comfort it offers is immense even to the customer since the bot is available 24×7 and the Enquirer doesn’t have to talk to a real person if he or she doesn’t want to.
3. Gather Customer Insight
The best way to improvise on any kind of offering is to step into the customer’s shoes and assess from their viewpoint. In the present age of technology, data is a very powerful and reliable way to capture customer insight.
As a company with limited amount of resources for research, chatbots can serve as an excellent way to collect information. They can be designed to get answers to multiple-choice questions in a quick & non-intrusive way as compared to individual representatives chasing feedback from customers.
Words Of Caution
ChatBots are beyond doubt, a great element to add to your marketing arsenal. However, it’s essential you exercise some caution & use them mindfully.
Here are some don’ts to keep in mind with regards to using chatbots.
1. Never work without a strategy
It is essential to acknowledge that no technology works without a strategy. A bot should not be the sole navigator of your customer communication. It can almost never happen that a single channel can simply cater to the interests of the entire target group.
2. Technical glitches are not impossible
No technology is glitch-proof. There’s always a chance of a breakdown or technical issue arising. It’s important to be alert and responsive to the same.
It’s also a good idea to have a stringent testing mechanism, in the beginning, to observe how the bot is responding to different kinds of questions. Being cautious beforehand can keep problems from arising at bay.
3. Don’t consider human resources as fully replaceable
Lastly, it’s also imperative to realize chatbots are a great way to supplement your human communication but not replace it. Bots are efficient, cheap and very useful. However, they can’t completely take over your talented marketing and sales team. They can’t come up with innovative ideas or adapt their responses and behavior based on customer sentiments. The human touch in many cases is irreplaceable.
It’s fair if you have initial hiccups with regards to the technical implementation of a bot for your business. However, you’ll be happy to learn they’re really simple to create and streamline your marketing endeavors.
There are many online platforms available that can help you create one without any knowledge of programming. Each come with a series of simple steps you need to follow depending on the tool you choose. Following the same your bot gets ready within a few minutes only.
It’s a good idea, to begin with a basic bot and take it forward from there. If implemented properly, they can really turn out to be a savior.
Some popular tools to build your own bot include –
Chatfuel
It is particularly helpful to create a bot for Facebook Messenger without any coding development knowledge. It allows you to customize the bot’s response by adding content by means of simple hyperlinking.
Flow Xo
This tool can be used to create bots starting from a very basic one to a fully hybrid human bot. It offers extreme flexibility in terms of process and options.
ChattyPeople
It is one of the simplest platforms available to create a bot. In addition to its speciality in creating bots for Facebook Messenger, it also allows you to integrate the bot with popular ecommerce platforms like Shopify.
MEOKAY
The USP of this platform lies in creating conversational bots. It supports in mimicking a remarkable human to human touch in the conversation.