As an entrepreneur or business owner, you may be wondering if chatbots are indeed essential to your business. You may have noticed the astronomical growth in the usage of chatbots by companies and firms that cut across various industries. The fact is that technological innovations are driving business growth and it is foolhardy for you not to consider implementing one. To beat the competition, increase profitability and reach your goals, you need to adopt these innovative technologies on time. The chatbot messenger is one of these technologies that can add immense value to your business.
Without exaggeration, every business needs a chatbot ─ whether to boost brand awareness or to create an ‘always present’ customer support strategy or to enhance business productivity, the essentiality of chatbots cannot be questioned.
In the last three years, there has been wide acceptance of chatbots by businesses across varying sizes. This is unsurprising because they are effective in simplifying the communication between customers and businesses. Multinational corporations like KLM, Air France and Nike, among others, are redefining their social media customer service strategy through the use of chatbots.
Let’s show you why chatbots are essential for your business:
Round-the-clock customer service
For your business to remain competitive, it is imperative to provide 24/7 customer service to customers. We live in an era of globalisation and the usual 9-5 customer service hours are no longer acceptable by millennial standards. The world is now characterised by hypercommunication, fast-speed internet connectivity and instant messaging. Quality customer service is now synonymous to round the clock customer service. This is key to boosting customer satisfaction, increasing brand loyalty and sales.
While round-the-clock customer service is highly advantageous, and the lack of it is inexcusable, it is challenging to provide it. At a cursory view, it is cost-intensive and will Involve the hiring of large staff running graveyard shifts.
The chatbot is the most effective solution which you can utilise to provide 24/7 real-time, uninterrupted customer service and support to customers. Integrating a chatbot to your website and social media platforms will always signal to customers that your business is caring, sensitive to their needs and always ready to assist them. Time is a critical factor, and chatbots can help your customers to get real-time solutions to their enquiries and complaints.
Lowers operational cost significantly
Annually, businesses collectively receive a total of 265 billion support requests by customers. Businesses spend more than $ 900 billion to service these support requests. The utilisation of chatbots can cut down these costs up to 35%.
Chatbots lower operational costs through the following ways:
- The chatbot is an affordable, 24/7 customer service solution for businesses. It costs the same to use, whether for 10 hours or 24 hours. You will never lose customers due to service unavailability or inaccessibility.
- By utilising chatbots, you wouldn’t have to channel expenses and financial resources towards the frequent training of staff. It is necessary to train or update human agents in the latest products, software and other pieces of machinery. Intelligent chatbots are capable of self-improvement through machine learning. If you have newer data to add to the chatbot’s knowledge base, you can update the central system, and it will automatically flow to its mode of service.
- Chatbots also boost profits and increase sales through enhanced user experience and customer engagement. Chatbots can create rapport with customers and recommend personalised products. This will ensure brand loyalty and customer retention.
- Staffing expenses and labour cost is on the rise; lower resources mean mediocre customer care service, leading to dissatisfied customers and depleted revenue. With the use of a chatbot, businesses can now lower labour cost. A single chatbot can cater to as many customer enquiries as possible simultaneously. This leads to less delay and more happy customers. In the case of enquiries with varying degrees of complexities, chatbots can pass them to human agents.
Interactive customer experience
Chatbots can create a fun-filled and appealing customer experience for your customers. This will appeal to your customers, boosting customer loyalty. Here’s how:
- AI-powered chatbots can create personalised experiences for customers. Through the use of machine learning and user data, chatbots can offer personalised recommendations, especially on Facebook messenger. This will help your business build a rapport with customers and create trust.
- Chatbots can enhance customer engagement. For instance, messenger bots can be used as Facebook auto liker, instantly liking customer comments on your page. Bots can also share multimedia contents like animations, quizzes, GIFs and images.
- You can also ‘personify’ your brand by humanising your chatbot ─ assigning it a name and a personality. This will improve your brand appeal and increase conversion.
