In the ever-increasing competition for customers, customer service will always be one of the top aspects that defines the buying experience. For physical stores, it takes the form of having a cashier welcome and greet customers entering the store and asking if they can help point them in the right direction or ask about products or services. Without that interaction, customers may be left to their own devices to navigate the store, taking longer causing elevated frustration and potentially losing the customer’s business.
Implementing a Chatbot is a great way to effectively provide the same type of real-time customer experience for giving answers and information, which ultimately increase value & completes sales. Most Chatbot platforms can be personalized and can offer automated responses and live support. Starting out with a few frequently asked questions, with immediate answers for each with the option to connect with a live agent, when available. This approach also allows round the clock interaction without having to staff with a physical customer service staffer.
As more and more companies adopt using online chat support as a regular customer service connection, most customers are not only experienced with it but expecting to have this option. In an industry poll on why customer’s love chatbots, 48% would rather connect with the company chatbot than any other contact method. 21% see chatbots as the easiest way to connect to a business with 57% interested because of the instantaneity. And 48% of millennials being open to recommendations and advice from chatbots. All good indications that your customers are probably already doing business with companies that have chatbots.
For Publishers, Chatbots are highly effective on subscription pages, event registration pages, virtual events, and product stores. These are the areas where questions arise that can stop a customer from completing the transactional process. For paid virtual events, it also bridges some of the lost human interaction that would naturally occur at an in-person event. As my favorite Maya Angelou quote reminds me: “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” So, by creating human touches in this virtual world, we reduce their feeling of frustration and increase their feeling of satisfaction and creating “happy customers”. Happy customers that are more likely to upgrade or add services and less likely to cancel. (McKinsey)
So, with a little planning of how the chat dialog would flow, you could easily add a Chatbot to your existing website and begin to see how it could work for you. Here are my top 5 benefits that a Chatbot can provide.
