Learn How Chatbots Improve Your Customer Experience

Chatbots are the automated assistants and conversation tools that pop up on various sites to lend potential customers a hand. In a fast-moving age where people require instant answers and demand ever-increasing levels of engagement with companies, these clever pieces of software are becoming increasingly useful. Research indicates 80 percent of companies intend to implement chatbots by 2020. If you’re not sure how a chatbot could benefit your business, consider these five ways chatbots could improve your customer experience.

Improved Engagement

Chatbots simulate real conversations. It’s even possible to tailor a chatbot’s conversation style to reflect the personality of the business. This helps with customer engagement and makes them feel like they always have a way to speak directly with your company and get the kind of responses they expect. This inspires them to feel valued as a customer.

Instant Responses

Trying to contact a company is sometimes a frustrating experience. Maybe you want to call, but it’s after business hours, or you send an email, only to get an automated response saying the answer could take several working days. Chatbots help minimize these frustrations by being available to answer common questions night or day, seven days a week.

Improved Human Response Times

Chatbots can’t handle every query, but by providing the most common answers to frequently asked questions they reduce the workload for the live customer service team. Because more of your customers are in a position to find the answers to common questions themselves, fewer people contact support. The result is shorter wait times for phone calls and quicker responses via email.

Easier Sales

A chatbot is always available to help guide a customer through the purchasing process, popping up on a product page to provide additional information and advice or assisting during checkout. You even have the opportunity to instantly deliver a promo code to the user. This level of service makes the purchasing process easier and increases the chance of sales.

Efficient Data Collection

Customer data are incredibly important but not always easy to acquire. The average web form length in 2019 is only five fields, but customers would still rather avoid filling out forms at all, if possible. Chatbots let you acquire similar data without the boring forms and stores customer responses during interactions to build a better picture of who that customer is and what he or she needs. It’s possible to use chatbots to:

•         Collect a customer’s personal data

•         Collect an email address for a newsletter subscription

•         Gather preferences

•         Ask for a star rating or review for a particular product

•         Get customer feedback

Making data collection less of a chore improves the user experience and also increases the amount of data you collect. It’s then possible to use the data to further enhance the user experience by identifying pain points and customizing interactions with specific customers.