If your answer isn't a resounding "YES!" then you definitely need to read this article.
Many people haven't even tried chatbots for various reasons, yet they are one of the most efficient ways to manage big traffic loads. If you are working on growing your traffic (and hopefully seeing the results), customer enquiries will also increase; it's just how it works. Using A.I. to sort them out (and even solve some of them on the spot) greatly relieves your customer support workload.
Furthermore, chatbots can help with marketing efforts as they are incredibly efficient in reaching out to customers (as they are on the website already!). They can also help with data gathering, surveys and feedback collection and other activities. Due to their automatisation, they will help you save effort, time, and at the end of the day - money.
Are you not convinced? Let me present my arguments!
🤖 Chatbots Provide Seamless Service
Chatbots are often found on messaging apps and other communication channels, such as live chat, email, etc. They communicate with customers and potential customers by mimicking human behaviour.Some consumers don't even realise that they're chatting with a bot instead of a real human being. This is absolute proof of just how far the technology has advanced!
When the conversation begins, chatbots will pull any customer information from the store's database to provide exceptional assistance. If there's no data, chatbots will learn as they go.
The best thing about using chatbots to provide customer service and support is that they can perform most of the tasks customers request, such as displaying product catalogues, making recommendations based on customer preferences, answering questions, and providing solutions to problems.
Furthermore, they can engage in multiple conversations with different customers simultaneously. In addition, they can operate 24/7 without taking a break. This means that chatbots can provide continuous assistance where humans can't.
All of the things I just listed will help your eCommerce store reduce operational expenses by cutting down labour costs.
And that's not all.
The best part is that chatbots improve the more they work because they learn from conversations and interactions due to their machine learning capabilities.
🆙 Chatbots Complement Marketing Efforts
You have to engage and nurture leads at every step of their buyer's journey to ensure that most leads will convert into paying customers. This type of digital strategy is highly recommended by trusted lead generation companies, and is crucial for the success of your online store.As mentioned before, chatbots usually dwell on communication channels and messaging apps. You can use them as a medium to deliver specific personalised messages and offers to leads based on where they are in the sales funnel.
Such a tactic can significantly enhance the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. The main reason is that chatbots can be programmed to perform tasks when and how you want them to.
This is especially true for repetitive automated tasks such as sending messages to consumers at a specific time and place. The instant guidance they can provide is an excellent opportunity to reduce friction consumers might face during their journey.
When you send the correct customised and personalised offers, consumers don't have a lot of room to change their minds or reconsider their decisions. This can also considerably shorten the buyer's journey and encourage your leads to move further down your sales funnel, faster than it typically takes.
💬 Chatbots Improve Live Chat Efficiency
We all know that online consumers don't have a lot of patience for obstacles and inconveniences. Since they now have more control over their online decisions, they'll simply bounce and visit another store instead of waiting for a response.This is precisely why so many eCommerce stores implemented a live chat feature on their websites. Other communication channels, such as social media, email, phone, etc., just aren't reliable enough.
The issue with live chat comes with response time. Even though live chat is a much faster and more efficient communication channel, a human representative may still take time to reply.
Chatbots can fill that role instead of making customers wait until a team member takes over. Depending on how you program them, they can be very knowledgeable, so real human intervention may not be necessary at all.
However, suppose the chatbot cannot solve the issue or provide customers with the right answer. In that case, they can alert customer service and support representatives that there's an urgent query they must attend to.
This basically ensures a 24/7 line of communication where chatbots can do most of the work providing answers through live chat features.
📈Gathering data and analytics
With each conversation or interaction, chatbots become better at what they do.They learn from customers and gather information about them each time. Subsequently, they feed this information to your marketing and sales departments, making them an ideal data and analytics source.
All the information chatbots gather about customers, such as preferences, expectations, product searches and so on, can be used to improve customer experience.
Once chatbots gather enough data, they'll use it to make recommendations to customers. As a result, this can be an ideal medium for cross-selling and up-sell strategies.
Likewise, every customer chat is recorded and sent back to your analytics team for analysis. You can monitor conversations and use data to improve the chatbot itself or send valuable insights to your sales and marketing teams.
In other words, chatbots can be an excellent source of information, and they are compliant with numerous policies imposed on businesses today, such as GDPR, for instance.
You can seamlessly collect customer data without relying on third-party sources or shady practices.
⭐ Feedback collection
Although chatbots collect information about customer preferences and such through conversations, they can be programmed to be more straightforward than that.In fact, chatbots can ask customers for feedback related to any aspect of your eCommerce business. This information is vital for improving your store and customer experience.
Customers can complain about something or make their own recommendations on potential improvements in the future. They can also be programmed to conduct polls and surveys and provide customers with questionnaires and other question forms.
Customers who are willing to provide feedback will happily do so. The chatbot will analyse this data on its own to improve itself and forward the data to your analytics team for further analysis.
In today's highly competitive market, it's very important that you're able to meet customer needs, wants, and expectations. There's no better way to find out what customers demand than to ask them.
Keep in mind for eCommerce stores acquiring new customers is often more expensive than retaining an existing customer. That's why it is crucial to leverage customer feedback that will help you create ideal customer retention strategies.
Closing Words
Chatbots have numerous advantages and benefits that eCommerce stores can quickly capitalise on. They have the full potential to reshape the entire eCommerce industry as we know it.It's important to mention that chatbots may vary in capability, and not all of them can do what you need them to do for your own online store.
That's why it's better to consider creating your own chatbot that will suit your business the most. This may be a more expensive option, but the benefits can easily outweigh the costs of in-house chatbot development.