One of the latest trends in the advertising world is conversational marketing, a powerful way to move your buyers through the sales funnel. By establishing authentic experiences with consumers, you build strong relationships with them.
Under this type of marketing comes chatbots, a piece of immense coding, which interacts with users when they visit a particular website. While they are useful in this area, businesses also use them as part of their customer service.
The advantage is that it relieves the workload from agents, which boosts their productivity. As chatbots are available 24/7, your customers can reach out to them, even if it is beyond your business hours. Another advantage is that consumers don’t have to wait for hours for your response, as these bots provide immediate answers.
It helps save money in the long run, as you don’t have to hire additional employees to keep up with the demands of your business. As customers will be happy with your service, they are bound to return and invest in what you have to offer. Also, you can use the chatbot to complete specific business tasks, such as making appointments and give you your schedule for the day.
Due to all the advantages which come with them, it is natural for businesses to try and implement them in their operations. However, several companies face challenges in integrating them properly, due to these five common mistakes:
Once customers start to interact with the chatbot, it makes sense that you want to ensure the conversation continues to flow. What will you do once the user stops interacting with the bot, once the individual completes the necessary tasks? The most common tactic is to send periodic messages to the customers, to remind them about the chatbot.
However, if you try to send unsolicited messages, not every user will take it well. They might avoid using the chatbot, which is a waste of resources. Make sure that you only communicate with the user when the individual sends a message.
The most common practice while developing chatbots is to go the safe option. While this may seem like a good practice, in theory, it doesn’t work in reality, especially when it comes to conversational marketing.
As people want to feel like they are not chatting with a bot, you need to develop a personality, to make it attractive to them. A chatbot which can gel well with the users is great because everyone can relate to it. When establishing strong connections with your target audience, it is essential to ensure your bot has a vibrant personality. Try combining different characteristics to see which ones work well with the users.
As the chatbot tends to use the latest technology in the market, several people assume that they don’t have to test it. As it uses natural language processing (NLP) and artificial intelligence (AI), it is common to think the bot can handle any situation.
However, the problem is that there are a lot of variables when it comes to interacting with real-world users. As a result, your bot may face bugs, which make it unresponsive. If your users have a bad experience, they won’t think about using its services again. Always make sure you test the bot several times to see how it performs. You can even give it to a beta group who will interact with the chatbot and give you valuable feedback. With the help of this information, you can improve its services, and minimize the number of errors after you make it available to your customers.
It becomes imperative under such regulations to search out another platform that facilitates communication and collaboration between departments at work.
Another common mistake is to release a chatbot without considering the flow of conversation. As chatbots use intelligent technologies, they should be able to navigate their way out of any situation. However, if your bot faces a query which it doesn’t have the answer to, it is going to reach an impasse. As a result, your chatbot will start to loop and ask the user to rephrase the question or be more specific.
When your customers face this situation, they want a way out as soon as possible. Technical glitches like this will result in a negative experience, which isn’t good for your product. Always make sure that the user can restart the conversation, or the bot suggests the user go back to the main menu if it is unable to understand. You can also ask the customer if he/she wants to talk to a live agent.
The way your chatbot interacts with its users will determine its success. For example, if you have a bot which helps people find discounts for Amazon products, the audience will be different.
At the same time, if the chatbot is to help employees set reminders, it is for professionals. In this situation, if your bot has a casual conversation with the users, it may not work well with the audience. You should keep in mind that the purpose of the chatbot is to disperse small but useful amounts of information to solve customer queries. If you have long conversations, the user might lose interest and avoid interaction completely.
To ensure your chatbot is successful, you should address the people correctly. Due to this reason, it is vital you study about the target group and understand their expectations.
The key takeaway is that you should pay close attention when developing a chatbot for your customers. Due to the type of technology it uses, you must make it a point put the bot through rigorous testing at all stages. Every new feature you add must work as expected when it reaches the hands of your customers. Also, make sure your bot functionality is in line with the needs of your end users so that it serves its purpose.
If you want to take a look at a fully functional chatbot, which handles real-world situations without any problems, check out Stitch.