Chatbots are being hailed as the future of digital and social marketing. Companies all over the world are adopting these virtual assistants into their marketing regimes and for good reason. These little personal assistants can be versatile in nature, starting from managing customer service to analytics. They are efficient, effective and provide round-the-clock support, something which can bring about an instant lift to your business.
Chatbots are nothing but computer programs which mimic human interaction models. They are becoming increasingly sophisticated with the rapid development of AI and Natural Language Processing (NLP). If you have not yet included a chatbot for your business development, have a look at these compelling reasons, on why should do so immediately.
Credits: www.chatbotsmagazine.com
Customer Engagement
Many businesses have already started using chatbots inside other chat applications like Messenger. A chatbot can offer all the functionalities which an app can provide, and may even be cheaper. You can interact with the consumer, send him to push notifications regarding new updates, allow it to make payments etc. The customer is likely to respond better to a chat-based form of marketing than a website or app.
Customer Support
Bots can make the whole process of customer service and support fast and robust. Instead of customers holding on to a recorded message on phones waiting for a customer service personnel to come on the line, for a small doubt, a virtual assistant would be very useful. As a customer, asking these doubts to a bot will be faster and more convenient.
Interaction with suppliers
Along with employing a bot for customer interaction, it can automate other areas of work, such as interacting with your suppliers. Chatbots can be trained to perform tasks like assisting with transaction details, answering queries etc to the suppliers. It will save the need for an entire team to separately handle this area.
Use them as an analysis tool
Chatbots can provide a huge amount of data for analyzing customer behaviour. Keep a close look at these metrics in order to draw some conclusions. You may also train your bot to take feedback from your customer, which would add on to the analysis.
Can be implemented across various platforms
Though the majority of chatbots operate via Facebook messenger, they can be implemented across all major platforms like Twitter, WeChat, Slack etc. They can be used where your customers devote the maximum time. Messenger apps today have surpassed social media apps, and it only makes sense to incorporate a chat-based virtual assistant across various apps to maximise customer interaction.
Building and incorporating a chatbot into your digital marketing strategy might seem like a daunting task. However today, with the availability of various platforms have made it easy. In fact, you do not need to be a developer to build a chatbot. Platforms like ChattyPeople, MEOKAY and Botsify are among the most popular choices. There are other platforms as well which help you integrate your bot with messaging platforms. So coder or no-coder, there are numerous resources (some of them are free as well) which can help you build your chatbot.
A chatbot can simplify your tasks enormously. It’s already a month into 2018, and the Chatbot trend is catching on faster than it was predicted. Up your marketing game by incorporating these smart virtual assistants and take a step ahead of your competitors. Thank us later!