We live in an era where smart companies make use of AI bots to enhance their customer service experience. An AI chatbot is nothing but a software that engages the customer in conversations and provides rather specific answers to their immediate queries. The companies mainly make use of chat bots so they can increase their online sales but the question is, do AI chatbots really help in boosting sales?
Artificial intelligence chatbots mainly distinguish themselves from other chatbots by their ability to understand the intentions behind the customer’s questions. In this way, chatbots provide the precise information customers are looking for at that moment, whenever they need it, not only this but also providing solid opportunities for initial sales, cross-selling and up-selling.
Talking about my own start-up venture, SleepyCat that has come a long way since 2017, we started making the use of an AI chatbot in the early 2020 and have witnessed constant growth since then.
Kabir Siddiq, CEO and Founder SleepyCat
Our system is built to have a more contextual conversation with users meaning it will show results on context to the previous chain of questions answered.
Here are some ways an AI chatbot can be used to your advantage and increase sales –
1. Conversion from visitors into leads
All the people who visit your website are potential customers and chatbots should be able to store any kind of data that the users provide. Generation, qualification and conversion of leads are one of the features that distinguish all smart chatbots. This will also result in increase of your lead database and will create greater possibilities to generate sales.
2. Customer interaction
Your customers expect to not only have their queries resolved but also be treated in an empathetic, humane manner. Oh and not to forget; 24×7 availability of someone behind the screen, only if these conditions are fulfilled they will stay with you and keep engaging.
Smart chatbots have already stored answers and they respond to the customers based on the keywords mentioned in their question. Moreover, AI chatbots are aligned with web services or APIs to offer quick and personalized solutions.
3. Increase in Sales
The best part about AI chatbots is that it can not only be used to entertain new customers but also drive more sales from the existing customers. Once a chatbot has interacted with a particular customer and has the history stored, it can cross-sell or up-sell products to the existing customer. This is one very efficient way to boost sales. Also, this helps in gaining loyalty of the customers and improves customer relationships.
Chatbots can offer solutions to a multitude of information based on the requirements of the business. Talking about us at SleepyCat, we use our chatbot to answer questions mainly about order tracking i.e. customers asking for tracking details of their orders, all answers regarding the delivery of orders and off-course queries pertaining to product specifications.
We have had more than 5000 successful interaction sessions with the AI chatbot. The average duration lasts for a good 3.5 minutes which adds to the retention quality of users that managed to land on the website and use the chatbot. This brings us a steady conversion rate of 2% and we’ve had over 200+ conversions using this feature within 7 months.
Making use of the AI chatbot for a business is not an option anymore; rather it has become more about staying competitive in the market since more than 20% of the enterprises globally make use of this technology to scale up their businesses. The greatest and most important benefit of the AI chatbot is that it helps in revolutionising the customer experience, let’s dive a little deeper into this –
With time companies have realised the importance of personalisation and that the most important tools in a business is one that can effectively collect user data along with offering a personal touch that the modern-day consumers are looking for.
Chatbots powered by Artificial Intelligence are great for attracting customers and also holding their attention. There are several advancements happening in big data analytics and tracking users past purchasing behaviour, chatbots can simplify the customers experience with an unmatched level of personalisation. This makes the customers feel important and they also start trusting the chatbots recommendations based on the quality of their interactions.
That time is not too far when chatbots will take over social media; answering comments and replying to the inbox messages will become absolutely normal by a chatbot. We are able to accomplish this because the tremendous potential that chatbots bring to the business helping businesses to boost their sales and providing an enriching experience to the consumers. This bot phase has just started gaining traction; it will be one hell of a ride till we reach its highest potential.
This article is contributed by Kabir Siddiq CEO & Founder of SleepyCat.
Do you know where your customers are these days? The majority of customers are spending a large part of their connected time in chat apps and if we say the modern form of communication is through texts only. How do I know? Since more than a billion users are on social media using chat apps, so it’s likely that many of these are your potential customers. If you start a chatbot agency then that idea can bring your marketing business to the frontline.
Chatbots are essentially a set of automated rules that interacts with people’s queries on chat. They not only leverage the power of software or AI but also reduce the human workload in business areas such as customer service and technical support. They can be very powerful for communicating with your customers over messaging apps such as Facebook, WhatsApp, and website chat. As more and more people get accustomed to interacting with an intelligent bot, bot-less businesses will look outdated and out of touch.
What is a Chatbot Agency?
What is a chatbot agency?
A chatbot agency is a platform that performs a number of functions for you as a business and customers. It is one of the easiest ways for any business to start with a chatbot agency because it takes the pain out of learning a new platform. We can apply our experience and skills to create chatbots that not only follow best practices but also perform better than those created by amateur bot builders.
Chatbots work on an ever-increasing number of platforms following the biggest market trend. The most important thing to know here is: where your customers spend their most of the time. If this is something, you’re not sure about, we can help you discover how to create a chatbot agency. If by any chance, you’re a part of a marketing agency, then it’s important to take advantage of this massive opportunity and take advantage of the most in the landscape of chatbot agencies.
How to capitalize on the chatbot marketing trend before it becomes saturated
How to sell chatbot services without losing your marketing edge
How your agency can scale in spite of the massive new demand for your services
Why use Chatbot Agency?
Do you know what kind of features and benefits you could implement with chatbot technology?
Here’s a quick list:
Chatbots can generate massive results for your clients
Generate faster leads
Offer 24-hour customer support
Chatbot marketing perfectly complements other digital marketing services like Facebook ads and social media management
Chatbots can provide a recurring revenue stream with valuable retainer contracts
Guide customers to products that they are more likely to buy
Chatbots are an easy sell
Chatbots set your agency apart as innovative and unstoppable
Improve conversions by helping customers when they most need it
Chatbots are a perfect way to defy seasonal slumps or becoming outmoded
Chatbots are scalable
Chatbots are easy to learn
Chatbot builders are inexpensive
Take payments directly with your bot
How To start a chatbot agency?
If you want to start a chatbot marketing agency, this is a no-brainer. You already know you want to sell chatbots. Let’s pitch in with the step-wise guide to start a chatbot agency.
How to Start a Chatbot Agency?
Step 1: Decide How Chatbots will fit with your Current Marketing Services.
If you want to start a chatbot marketing agency, this is a no-brainer. You already know you want to sell chatbots. Let’s pitch in with the step-wise guide to start a chatbot agency?
For this, there are two basic approaches here:
Start a chatbot agency from total scratch
Add chatbot services to your existing marketing services.
All you have to do in this step is to make the decision that you’re going to sell your chatbots services, and visualize what it’s going to look like or create a wireframe. Creating a simple chatbot for client services can result in success.
Selecting a chatbot building platform can be a bit hasty with so much going in mind. You can’t easily total a chatbot as best, but we will advise you to choose a chatbot tool which is:
easy to use
offers plenty of services
has endorsements from notable marketers
a chatbot company that won’t go out of business anytime soon
Basic chatbot building platform
MobileMonkey
IBM Watson
TARS
HubSpot’s Chatbot Builder
Microsoft Bot
Botsify
Chatfuel
Flow XO
Wit.ai
Rebot.me
BotKit
If you want to start a chatbot agency, you’re going to need an agency plan. Buy it. Get it. Do it. While you’re just learning the platform, however, you can get started with a free plan.
Step 3: Learn how to use Chatbot Building Platform
Making your chatbot is fun, easy, and code-free! Especially for people like me who just directly run away from whenever there is a programming language. Although if you want to skip the creation process or you feel being niched-down into a particular level, then you can simply add a few elements to offer your new chatbot client a chatbot service.
The best way to learn them is to use it in your marketing funnel. The more you use it yourself, the better you’ll be able to create and provide them for your clients.
Step 4: Start a Chatbot Agency with a planned Pricing Structure
Now your chatbot agency can become a valuable marketing service, so it’s most important to determine a well-planned pricing structure that asserts the value of your product without making it costly for tentative clients. For a simple chatbot service then you can just take a minimal amount of chatbot creation fee plus a retainer fee for the ongoing service. There is an unlimited variety of chatbot services that you can offer to your clients.
Chatbot Agency Pricing 2020
First, decide a conversational designer market value.
Chatbot Agency pricing strategy and packages
Chatbot Expectations
How to create a pricing packages for your chatbot agnecy
Here are some examples:
Adding a WordPress plugin to the client’s website
Creating Messenger ads on Facebook
Developing QR Messenger codes
Sending chat blasts
Launching drip campaigns
Providing integrations
Posting comment guards
Creating custom landing pages
Live chat takeover
Adding RSS blaster
Providing bot analytics
Step 5: Launch your Chatbot agency
It’s the final call to shoot it right and provide/sell your chatbot services to existing clients. By this, you can not only pull out your own hurdles but you can also blow up your client’s business.
Before pitching onto the process and finding your niche, here are some common unavoidable mistakes that can be avoided, if someone would have mentioned before.
Most Common Chatbot Mistakes
Failing to plan properly
Making the user work too hard
Monologuing
Not offering an easy unsubscribe option
Treating your bot like a set-and-forget tool without timely reviews
How to start a Chatbot building company | Entrepreneur
The marketing agencies with the biggest successes and the highest client retention right now are the marketing agencies that are using chatbots to their maximum potential. This is a very big deal. You might know it by now that setting up your own chatbot agency is easier and more profitable than ever.
Setting up an agency that specializes in creating custom-made chatbots seems like a winning business venture.
For online businesses, it has become necessary to solve the queries of their customers to ensure consumer loyalty along with their brand establishment. Nearly 80% of businesses use a chatbot in one form or the other. But earlier what used to happen was that a man always sat on the answering machines waiting for the call and solve the queries of their customers. So, it was a cumbersome process. What chatbot has replaced now is a man looking for help from machines to remove the constraints of human limitations.
Since the time is the customer service industry which has been revolutionized, and the innovation responsible for this is the chatbot. Chatbots are considered the future of customer service and management.
Emirates increased their engagement rates by 87% after deploying chatbots.
What Are Chatbots?
Chatbots are those computer programs that can have real conversations with you with the help of chat interface, which allows real-time conversations with users. Chatbots are generally used with all of the popular messaging apps. The fun part is when you have conversations with them, they all seem real. For instance, Mark from XYZ company will help you out with FAQs and will direct you to the real seller and then he’ll call you back. Also, there’s no timing issue; if you open a website at 12 midnight, the bot is still ready to have a chat with you.
What is a Chatbot?
Chatbots can understand written and spoken text, and interpret its meaning. The bot can then look up relevant information and deliver it to the user. Most modern smartphone apps rely on chatbots to function. Chatbots have become an important part of business growth and the need for these AI-powered bots is only going to increase in the future.
Technologies Used In Chatbots
The cost and power of a chatbot depend on the technology it uses. There are two categories of chatbots –
1. Command Based Chatbots
As the name says, these types of chatbots rely on a databank of replies and heuristics. The bots reply by selecting an answer that matches the context of a query. Command based chatbots cannot create new texts. These chatbots can answer a set of limited questions so there is a need for manual help at the back-end for atypical questions asked. To answer a question, the chatbot has to understand it first. Command based chatbots use template search or dynamic search for understanding and answering questions.
One main limitation is that the command-based chatbot cannot perform functions outside its code, so what it lacks is the second technology.
Command-based and AI/ML-based chatbots
2. AI Based/ Machine Learning Chatbots
What the command-based chatbot can’t do, the AI/ ML-based chatbot can do it. It can answer all of the ambiguous questions of the user, meaning; you do not have to be specific when asking questions to these chatbots and no databank of replies. The chatbots create replies from scratch using natural language processing. These chatbots become smarter with time, learning from past questions and answers.
The star point, here could be: Both categories have their advantages and disadvantages. Command based chatbots can give more reliable and grammatically correct answers but fail to respond to questions outside their knowledge base. On the other hand, artificial/ machine learning chatbots need a vast amount of learning data and can struggle to form longer sentences.
If you are still wondering why you should get a chatbot for your business then we are going to give you seven different reasons why your business needs a chatbotright now.
Top 7 Reasons ‘Why Your Business Needs A Chatbot?’
1. You Want Your Business To Be Open
Keeping the business around the clock is difficult, especially for small and medium-sized businesses. This means when a customer reaches out to your business, they won’t get a response from you till business hours resume. What chatbot gives you is its incredible feature of time-boundness. There’s no timing issue; if you open a website at 12 of midnight, the bot is still ready to have a chat with you.
A chatbot can ensure that your business remains open all the time in one form or another. In fact, it can do more than just answer your customer’s questions. It can make reservations, ask about the menu, and give a plethora of different details about your business.
no timing issue; if you open a website at 12 of midnight, the bot is still ready to have a chat with you.
2. You Can Build Trust By Answering Questions
You know the drill when a small business gets on start then there’s not only one single established business. This means that the competition is always fierce and you need all the help you can get to stand out in the crowd.
When a customer has a query regarding your bran then it reaches out to you and then what they expect is an instant reply. This gives them the sense of, that the brand can be trusted and is always going to be with you in hard times. However, providing instant replies to all the questions can be outright impossible, especially for human agents. Chatbots, on the other hand, provide you with the ability to answer queries round the clock.
By adding frequently asked questions to the chatbot, your customers can search for the right answers anytime. This will build trust among your current and potential customers.
Chatbots are an automated solution that lets you handle your business handle easily with customer’s queries. Earlier what happened was, when the queries needed the real guidance then you have to book a meeting, so handling only a number of customers because a human agent can only attend two or three customers at the same time. This was the biggest limitation which businesses need not brag it until now when chatbots came into power.
However, if you use chatbots in addition to your human agents then your business can easily scale its operations without having to worry about the increasing number of customer chats and calls. Simply put, if you are looking forward to scaling your business then look into chatbots because chatbots helped scale India’s largest sports game by 30 times.
4. Right Products and Services to Customers
There will be times when your customers will need help figuring out the right product or service that fits their budget and requirements. This mostly happens when your customers are looking for something expensive to purchase or when they don’t have enough exposure to a particular product or domain.
Chatbots come in real handy when the customers aren’t sure what they are getting and whether it’s worth spending a big amount. Your Chatbot knows when your customers need help with their purchase decisions. The bots not only give an explanation regarding a particular product but also give recommendations based on prior queries from the user. Thinking practically, one could say that your chatbot loves your customers more than you.
5. Target Millennials
Millennials are not impulsive buyers. They like to inquire and compare products before they buy. They love chat channels more than any other form of customer contact services. So, if your product lines are aimed at Millennials, introducing chatbots in your customer service will be a prudent investment.
According to a survey, millennials prefer solving their issues on their own rather than reaching out to someone or a customer service agent. This exact point is why chatbots are needed and give this service to them can help your brand gain reviews.
6. Better User Interaction
Chatbots are capable of having conversations with customers like a human agent would. A funny instance that happened with me was, that I was reviewing some online coaching class, then a chat box popped up and from there Aksh helped me throughout the process. Here’s the fun part when I said it was nice talking to you and a sweet welcome came from there; then I had to ask if he was real. Oh No! He was a chatbot and I got fooled.
Coming back, they can keep your customers engaged in a specific platform by maintaining a conversation. When a web application is opened, the user is greeted by the chatbot in a non-intrusive manner. The user can then ask the chatbot specific questions regarding a product or a service. Most of the time, the user is provided with answers from the database, but in a structured manner that mimics human interaction. With each question, the bot also provides a list of options making it easy for the user to input the necessary query.
Most businesses come up with an app for their products, which customers have to download from play stores. Imagining the whole of this gives me like a lazy look, because whatever it is; it’s a cumbersome process. Looking from business point-of-view, apps are expensive and require a lot of time for development. And also, building an app and expecting them to download an extra app on their device for the query is going to get you only a handful of customers which is bad notice.
Here’s where you can implement chatbots on messengers, which is where most people spend their time. They are a better alternative to having an app. The chatbots are designed in a way that engages the customers who come in and makes them try the company’s products and services.
Things To Keep In Mind While Developing A Chatbot For Your Business
Keep personalization in mind. Your welcome screen should tell the user about the features of your bot. A user will feel more at home with your service if the bot is using his name for greeting and interaction.
Take care of the design of your chatbot because the user is going to trust a well-designed chatbot.
Use proper text-formatting, high-quality links, and high-resolution pictures in your bot replies.
Ask users for all the information you require, upfront, and take care of the conversation as well. Keep them connected to their mails.
Linking your chatbot with an NLP library can help in minimizing grammatical errors.
Readymade Chatbot Platforms You Can Use
Top 10 mot innovative chatbots in the world | Global Tech Council
In today’s competitive industry, customers are always looking for customized solutions. You need to satisfy your customer’s requirements and do it in a way that makes you stand out from the crowd. Chatbot scale up your operations. It does not suffer from the limitations of a human agent. Where live agents can handle only 2 to 3 conversations at a time, chatbots can operate without an upper limit. By employing chatbot solutions to complement your human task force, your business can get the boost it requires entering new markets.
The future will be heavily directed by Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies which prominently include chatbots. There’s a positive response to many chatbot benefits such as an increase in process efficiencies, decreased workload, and improved customer service, but it’s important that a measured approach is taken to implement these technologies.
Software as a Service (SaaS) is a high engagement affair with its users. Modern businesses face crucial challenges related to customer retention and business development. Due to a shift in focus from primarily sales-driven organizations to more service-driven systems, businesses are trying to improve revenues by engaging customers in better ways. With the rise in popularity of communication services such as Facebook Messenger, LiveChat, Whatsapp, and others, it has changed the way consumers interact, both in their personal and professional lives.
Chatbot
Research shows that customers become angry when businesses do not satisfy or provide proper customer support. By improving customer support functions, businesses can build brand loyalty and boost revenue in a short time.
In short, a chatbot is a computer program which mimics conversation between users, usually powered by artificial intelligence. A user could ask the chatbot a question or provide it with an instruction and the chatbot will respond. Chatbots are the new-age tool for helping businesses improve customer satisfaction, thereby, improving sales. They’re typically considered either an informational bot or a utility bot; a utility bot is generally one that takes instructions such as scheduling an appointment, and an informational bot is one which is pretty self-explanatory – it provides the user with information, usually about the website they’re on.
How Chatbot Works?
Why use chatbots?
Chatbots are becoming an effective tool for lead capturing and are being integrated into websites to help businesses get prospects in efficient and cost-effective ways. They are more than simply a traditional live chat. They have assisted the startup world with scaling operations, building customer bases and boosting revenues. Users tend to favour an interactive medium for making their online purchases, and ultimately users want their information as quickly as possible. Chatbots allow your user to get their answer straight away, and if the bot is integrated with an app such as Facebook Messenger, there’s no need for them to download an additional app or keep changing between screens.
Use cases for chatbot
A chatbots’ ability to understand and respond to customers’ questions make them a popular and powerful application. Chatbots help companies by offering better customer engagement. In turn, this drives companies to grow stronger globally through their outreach. Benefits also include saving time and money as well as optimally use human resources. SaaS businesses would not exist without the invention of the internet. Over the last 30 years, though, the playing field has been levelled. It is time for SaaS platforms to find a new differentiator, not only against other businesses but also against other SaaS. Chatbots are the perfect tool to bring that differentiation.
Here are six ways chatbots can positively impact your SaaS business.
They’re fast
One of the biggest things that chatbots bring to the table is their ability to take a huge burden off customer support. Unlike executives who cannot handle more than 3 or 4 customers at a time in real-time conversations, chatbots can tackle many customers at once. Conventional CRM forces customers to wait to have their grievances addressed. In addition to the problems they’re facing, the long wait adds to a customer’s anxiety. By dropping a (knowledgeable) chatbot on your website or within your platform, you instantly give your audience what they want: help, now.
Lead Filtering and Identification
If you run an ecommerce business or a sales website, you may be receiving significant traffic due to promotional expenditure, but does it convert into tangible sales? The answer is, highly unlikely. Even a sales funnel will only work if the user follows through with the content. However, when you position a Chatbot, it prompts the user when looking for something specific. You feed the Chatbot with keywords and once the user responds, the Chatbot connects them with an actual salesperson. You may be unsure about retaining a 24/7 sales representative because you don’t want to waste resources on casual ‘digital dwellers’ who have no intention to purchase. This is where the Chatbot can help you identify the lead at the right time, putting your sales team into action just when you need them.
Benefits of Chatbot
They’re Smart and Quick
Customers prefer quick and immediate responses as opposed to slow and tedious email threads. The fact that customers can get quick responses gives credence to chatbots. Chatbots are a better alternative to both Interactive Voice Response mechanism and email resolution methods. Chatbots are trained to respond with relevant and precise answers in an instant.
Information Gathering and Recording
Data shows that people talk more freely when they know who they are interacting with, whether it be with Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana, Google’s Home or Amazon’s Echo. This same principle applies to Chatbots. When posting casual comments, most users can provide vital information showing their importance to your business. The data voluntarily provided by consumers regarding recent purchases, hobbies, likenesses and residential areas can be leveraged by the sales team to reach out to specific buyers. While human sales personnel may miss these red flags, a pre-programmed Chatbot will not.
Finally, being a first mover. The first mover advantage, which gives the upper hand to the first company to adopt a new piece of technology, doesn’t last. Chatbots are super early. There aren’t that many SaaS companies leveraging them just yet. You can still be a first mover. You probably have a couple of years tops, though, so you might have to act fast. Being a first mover has several advantages beyond just ‘being first’ and grabbing all the money. Namely, being a first mover offers a branding advantage. Position your company as an innovator in your field and reap the beautiful branding rewards.
A Happy Customer Stays
Customers whose problems are solved are more likely to stay loyal to the company, instead of migrating to the competitor. In fact, customers will be receptive to receive information about new offers and products. Developers are training chatbots to interact with customers like a friend. This informality is likely to create a shift from conventional marketing techniques towards revolutionary methods. These are times where going ‘mobile and digital first’ is the order of the day. Companies use chatbots during aggressive marketing campaigns to out maneuver their competition.
AI and chatbots
Chatbots can do much more than just customer service, the list of use cases grows every day. Besides basic script-based customer support, chatbots using NLP and machine learning are being used across industries to enable support in different functions. For example –
Chatbots can provide virtual assistance – One can reserve events, doctor appointments, restaurant reservations, movie tickets and more. E-commerce chatbots help in ordering food and just about anything from websites. Chatbots can help manage a person’s health, grocery etc.
Chatbots can help in content delivery for news updates and sports content. Some chatbots exist to give basic diagnosis advice based on symptoms. The bot can then refer users to a live doctor for further consulting.
Additionally, Chatbots are used in real estate to identify and convert leads. The chatbot field is diverse and rapidly growing and has since surpassed the realm of customer service.
Conclusion
Organizations all over the globe are trying to come up with new initiatives to make their workplaces more productive. Chatbots can help here too. Automation can create a lot of free time to enhance efficiency or allow people to devote that time for creative work. Chatbots are here to stay and are growing in intelligence to support different functions in multiple industries. It is essential that organizations understand chatbots and their usage at the primary level. There is little doubt that the number of complex tasks that will be handled by chatbots will also grow exponentially in the future. What do you think about the use of Chatbot in SaaS industry? Please let us know in the comments section.
Niku Mandal
