What are Chatbots and Why Businesses Should be Using Them

Chatbots are blowing up in the business world today and for good reason. They’re easy to use and offer a wide range of benefits for your potential customers, existing customers, and your company as a whole. But what are chatbots and how will they help your business thrive like never before? We’ll answer these questions and more!

So what are chatbots?

Chatbots are AI computer programs that simulate and process human conversation, making it possible for humans to interact with digital devices as if they were communicating with a real person. They can be simple like rudimentary programs that answer one line questions or more sophisticated such as virtual assistants who learn and evolve over time through gathering information from the user’s queries.

Chatbots are either task or goal oriented (based on how they are programmed) and data driven. This enables them to be able to predict human behavior in order to not only provide a more engaging experience, but to also drive individuals towards their business’s goals.

Here is a list of the top five reasons why small, medium, and large businesses need to incorporate chatbots as a marketing strategy, especially in this digital age.

1. Increase Customer Satisfaction & Experience

Back in the old days, when customers needed support from a business, they would call or send an email and wait for a response… This is a thing of the past, as chatbots are ready to answer questions, provide services, make reservations, or even simply provide a fun and memorable conversation.

A chatbot’s sole purpose is to provide excellent customer service through engaging intuitively with website visitors to make sure their every need is met. With chatbots, businesses are able to provide a more streamlined customer interaction that makes it not only easy, but also fun!

By thoughtfully engaging with website visitors, c

hatbots can be programmed to ask the right questions or even make suggestions to customers looking for something specific. With chatbot technology, your bot can not only answer questions and collect important information (email, phone, ect.). They can also get to know your customers through intuitive interactions tailored to a customer’s response. This means that chatbots have the ability to better understand customer needs, which leads to greater customer satisfaction!

2. Increase Leads and Sales

Through customer engagement and the ability to solve pretty much any question or problem potential customers may have, chatbots bring an element to any business marketing strategy that would do more harm than good to opt out of.

By understanding customer needs and responding accordingly, chatbots are able to not only connect with potential customers, but also create a strong database of very likely sales generating leads. In fact, Forbes magazine found that since using chat

bots as their form of customer service, business leader’s sales have increased by 67%!

Along with collecting valuable leads, chatbots are also more than capable of generating on the spot sales and bookings, it all just depends on what your site visitor(s) is after.

3. Open 24/7

Unlike you and I, chatbots do not need to sleep, allowing business owners the ability to rest at ease, knowing that there is always someone on the clock to support and connect with potential or existing customers. The age of waiting for a call back or email response is no more!

4. Build Trust

AI chatbots are the perfect opportunity to reach out and educate potential consumers about what your services can do for them. They’re a powerful way of forging bonds with new customers, which is why they should be among one of the most important tools in your marketing toolkit.

4. Simplify Your Life

With a chatbot, you can provide your customers with the customer service they need while freeing up time to work on other important tasks or spend time improving your face to face customer relationships. Chatbots automate the entire customer service process through engaging conversations. Not only that, but chatbots also weed out the most likely converting customers through their intuitive and data driven conversational process.

5. The Way of the Future

The future is in automation, in fact, the most current research shows that the more automated businesses become, the greater their customer satisfaction and revenue. Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook revealed that chatbots will be the secret to Facebook’s success over the next ten years.

Given current trends such as an increase of mobile internet usage and social media use, it seems like a reasonable solution for scaled growth without much cost. As customers are more demanding than ever before with increased technology access from their phone or computer screen versus call centers that have long wait times and frustrated customers — ch

atbots seem like a no-brainer business decision!

BUT WAIT…DON’T BE FOOLED!

As more and more businesses use chatbots as a marketing tool, there is an increasing need to make sure these bots are used properly in order for them to be beneficial.

Recently, many business owners have jumped the gun to cash in on this new trend before fully understanding how best they can utilize it. Just like any other tactic most people see what may seem promising or profitable at first glance; without taking time understand what strategies work best with their goals.

Many business owners jump head-first into using chatbots for marketing purposes out of desperation rather than making smart decisions based on research when deciding which strategies will bring success versus failure.

If you are a business owner who is seriously considering incorporating chatbot(s) in your business, consider these questions first:

1. What will the purpose/goal of your chatbot be?

2. Who is the chat for?

3. Which type of bot would you prefer — a more task driven or intuitive?

4. What type of personality would you like your chatbot to have?

5. What types of questions or inquiries do your potential and existing customers tend to have?

6. How would you like your chatbot to respond to these inquiries?

In conclusion, chatbots can provide us with an unprecedented opportunity to get closer to our customers and address their needs more quickly

By integrating chatbot technology into your marketing strategy, you are strengthening the emotional connection between customer and company by providing them a personalized experience that is both memorable for them as well as effective in generating leads.

The internet is changing the way we interact with people around us every day. Chatbots are here to accelerate this by making our lives easier and providing a convenient way for everything from online dating to ordering plumbing services.

Perhaps above all else, chatbots have the ability to deliver one of the most sought after human experiences — instant gratification at the click of a button!

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“There are three types of people, those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who are wondering what just happened.”

-Neil Patel