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Chatbots for Business
Do you run a business? Do you have a website for your business? Then I’m sure you have considered having a Chatbot.
What are Chatbots?
Except you may be wondering what a chatbot is. Well, have you ever been on a website and chatted? A chatbot on your website could work like this. Except your chatbot wouldn’t have to be a real person. A chatbot allows you to use smart, conversational AI to essentially “talk” to your customers. You can set it up so that your customers can have simpler questions answered without having to do it yourself.
And it’s not nearly as hard to do as you might think. Just use a great chatbot company like ActiveChat. They give you ready-made templates so that you can get started right away even without any experience or technical expertise. And if you run an e-commerce website, ActiveChat can easily integrate with popular e-commerce platforms like WooCommerce and Shopify.
Why are Chatbots Essential for Business?
So why are they essential for businesses today? We’ll go over 15 reasons why.
1. It’s Cost-Effective
One thing we do as business owners is we make sure everything we do is cost-effective. We want to lower our expenses so we can make higher profits. And this is what a chatbot can do for you. By using a chatbot rather than actually hiring staff to work as customer service for your company, you’ll be saving a lot of money.
You hire a staff, and you’re going to increase your monthly expenses. But you get ActiveChat, you can start for free and then pay as you grow.
2. 24/7 Support
Even if you plan to chat with your customers and not pay yourself, you’re not going to be able to be online all the time. I mean, we may not sleep much as business owners, but we do sleep a little, right? But if you use a chatbot, it can work at any time of the day.
And this is great, because part of the reason people like shopping online rather than a traditional brick and mortar store is that it’s always open. And having customer support 24/7 is also great if you have a business that sells products internationally or has international customers. You don’t have to worry about having business hours that suit only some of your customers. You can give your customers support all of the time.
3. It Increases Sales
If you run an e-commerce website, then you want to increase your sales, right? Well, according to 3DCart, Nike had 4 times as many sales after they employed chatbots. Wouldn’t you like to see an increase in sales like that?
4. Customers Will Get Answers Faster
Customers who go to your website may be looking for answers. And they might not be willing to take the time to look on your website for the answers they need. But a chatbot can appear and ask the customer what they’re looking for, and then the customer can be guided to the pages and answers they need. So this will help you with customer satisfaction.
5. Reach More Customers
Another reason customers will get answers faster is that a chatbot allows you to reach more customers. And what I mean by this is that if you or even a group of people actually chat with customers, then you can only chat with one or maybe a few at a time. But chatbots could chat literally hundreds of customers at the same time. So when a customer wants to chat with you, they won’t have to wait in a queue. I don’t think I have to tell you how annoying it is to want your question answered and you have to wait in line! So this is yet another advantage of using a chatbot.
6. Quicker Response Time
In addition to customers not having to be put on hold, they’ll also get their questions answered quicker with a chatbot. If you were typing out answers, the customer might have to wait around for a while until you were done writing it. But a chatbot can give customers an answer very quickly. And everyone wants a quick response time!
7. Gets You Great Customer Intel
As business owners, we always want to get inside the mind of our customers. We want to know what customers think so we can improve our product. Chatbots allow you to get more intel on customers.
Let’s say, for example, you have a website that sells shirts. You use a chatbot to start a conversation with customers who may never have contacted you. You read over chat transcripts and notice multiple customers asked if a certain shirt was available in other colors. You may not have realized people wanted that shirt in another color. But the chatbot could tell you this. So the chatbot could really help your business.
8. It’s the Preferred Method of Customers
Per this study, 79% of customers prefer communicating via live chat to other forms of communication and 55% of customers welcome the idea of chatbots. So why wouldn’t you want to use the method that more than half of customers want?
9. Makes Customers Feel Like You Care
No one likes feeling like a business doesn’t care about them. Having a chatbot can make customers feel like you value their business. From the customer’s perspective, it will come across like you care about their business because you are pursuing them. This can even increase brand loyalty. And who wouldn’t want that?
10. Easily Use Multiple Channels
People don’t always want to contact you on your website. You can reach a lot more customers by interacting with customers over multiple channels. And having a Chatbot can allow you to do that easily. Let’s say you decide to use ActiveChat. You’ll be able to use the chatbot not only for your website but for Facebook Messenger, Telegram, and Twilio SMS.
11. Help Fight Shopping Cart Abandonment
If you run an e-commerce business, then I don’t have to tell you how frustrating abandoned shopping carts can be. You are so close to making a sale and yet it won’t be completed. But your chatbot can help solve this problem. ActiveChat comes with proprietary messenger shopping cart technology. This allows you to reach out to customers with discounts and special offers to help incentivize a customer to go through with the sale.
12. Reduces Emails and Messages
Have you ever noticed that there are certain questions customers ask you over and over again? You can put them in a FAQ section of your website but not everyone will look. So you waste a lot of time answering the same question over and over through e-mail or Facebook messenger.
But you put in a chatbot, they will prompt the customer to ask their questions. And then the chatbot can answer these questions. This saves you a lot of time!
13. They’re Always Polite
Have you ever dealt with a rude customer service rep? This can really sour you to a company. If you hire a customer service team, you always run the risk that someone could be rude to a customer. They could then write a bad review of your business, which could do serious damage to your business. A business you’ve put your heart and soul in.
But with a chatbot, you don’t have to worry about that. The chatbot is not going to go rogue and say something rude. So this is yet another advantage of using a chatbot rather than an actual customer service team.
14. Eliminates Human Error
In addition to always being polite, chatbots also aren’t prone to human error. In a live chat, a customer service rep could accidentally give the wrong information. A chatbot won’t do that.
15. Can Help Grow Your E-Mail List
Are you always looking for ways to grow your e-mail list? A chatbot could prompt customers to sign up for your e-mail list. This could get more people on your e-mail list and could help you with future sales. By the way, for other ideas of how to grow your email list, see here.
