Benefits of chatbots for business and customers
Chatbots are AI tools that provide customer support by mimicking human conversation. You can integrate them into a range of business areas, such as your website and instant messaging tools (like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger), offering practical and efficient support solutions.
There are numerous pros of chatbots for customers too, like instant help when a human isn’t available. In this blog, we highlight the key benefits that chatbots can offer your business, as well as your customers.
Benefits of chatbots for businesses
Boost customer engagement and satisfaction
As an owner of a customer-facing business, you know that customers are your number one priority. Whether it’s an emergency or a general query, when a customer gets in touch, they expect a prompt response and a swift resolution.
While human interaction is highly valued, 100% manual customer support operations can cause delays. Long wait times can leave customers feeling ignored and undervalued.
However, chatbots are a great solution for this. They can help ensure that your customers receive a high-quality level of service every time they contact you, thus boosting engagement and overall satisfaction.
Be available 24/7
Integrating chatbots into your customer care operations means your business is available around the clock. This allows your business to compete with some of the big players providing 24/7 assistance (like Amazon and Apple) and creates a lasting impression on your audience.
Your online visitors are probably not expecting to receive a response from you at 10 p.m. when they browse your website, but they’ll be pleasantly surprised to see that you’re available and happy to help whenever they need it. According to Hubspot , 93% of customers are likely to return and make additional purchases from businesses that provide outstanding customer service. This will make them more likely to return and convert into loyal customers.
In addition, offering 24/7 support via chatbots makes your business accessible to customers around the world, regardless of their time zone.
Resolve FAQs in a matter of seconds
Chatbots allow you to answer common questions in a matter of seconds. Your FAQs could include:
- What are your opening hours?
- How much do you charge for delivery?
- What is your contact number?
- How can I track my order?
These simple FAQs can be time-consuming for a human agent to answer repetitively. Instead, you can use a chatbot to solve them quickly, efficiently, and professionally, leaving you and your team to handle larger queries.
Don’t worry; if a customer wants to speak to an agent after an FAQ, many chatbot solution providers (like Bizik) can set this up for you, and even ensure that the customer is directed to the correct representative or department.
Cut business expenses
We mentioned that chatbots allow your business to perform more efficiently. Not only can they save valuable manpower, but they can also cut your expenses. The budget you’d otherwise spend on an agent’s salary can be used more effectively on the right chatbot system.
Start valuable conversations
A chatbot can help you start valuable conversations with existing and potential customers. For example, if someone visits your site and struggles to find the information they’re looking for, a chatbot can initiate a conversation and point them in the right direction.
Or, if a potential shopper discovers your website and browses your products, but is unsure about committing to an order, a chatbot can reach out automatically and answer any questions they might have about your brand or items.
As soon as someone lands on your website, a chatbot will let them know that support is available. More importantly, it will do so by asking a question, like “Hi there, how can I help you today?” or “Got any questions? I’m happy to help.”
That way, visitors are prompted to interact by answering the question. This conversation-starting function can be crucial for boosting sales and improving customer satisfaction.
Get useful customer data
Chatbots can offer valuable insights into your visitors’ experience, allowing you to adapt and improve your services. For example, Bizik chatbots include a pre-chat form that safely and compliantly collects relevant customer information before the chat starts.
After the interaction, a post-chat survey asks for feedback on areas like helpfulness, reply time, answer rate, and overall chat rating.
This intelligent chatbot technology can make your brand stand out from the crowd, enhance your customer experience, and scale your business.
Create a seamless, on-brand journey
Many chatbots can be personalised to your brand’s tone of voice, meaning that they speak the language of your business and customers.
That way, you can ensure that the chatbot experience remains on-brand and your website visitors have a seamless journey, often not even realising that they’ve just spoken to a computer.
Benefits of chatbots for customers
Instant, multi-channel support
Chatbots mean that your customers can access support instantly, no matter how they interact with your brand.
You can implement a chatbot solution on various platforms, whether it’s via an instant messenger app, social media platform, over the phone, or directly through your website. This gives your audience a point of quick and easy contact, wherever they are.
More importantly, they don’t have to wait for a response. A chatbot addresses customers immediately, answers any questions it is programmed to, and assigns them to a suitable agent if needed.
Self-help options
People tend to jump to contacting businesses directly if they’re unsure where to find what they’re looking for, or if they’re in a rush – not realising that, in many cases, the answer is already there.
In these situations, chatbots can redirect visitors to self-help options that will not only answer their queries instantly, but also save them a great deal of time waiting to be connected to a human agent.
Personalised service
While chatbots are computers, their capabilities are incredibly human-like, so much so that they can even deliver a personalised service. For example, you can integrate your chatbot into your customer relationship management (CRM) platform, allowing it to recognise new and returning customers.
If someone has visited your website before, for instance, a chatbot could greet them with: “Welcome back. Would you like some help with your recent order?”. Meanwhile, if they’re a first-time visitor, it could say: “Hi there, new to [brand name]? Let me show you our popular items.”
A chatbot doesn’t need to be plain and cold; you can program it to interact with your audience in a personalised, unique, and on-brand way.
Records customers’ details
Chatbots are capable of remembering your customers’ details from their first interaction. This means that your customers only need to provide their information once, as opposed to every time they get in touch.
This avoids the need for repetition and the potential frustration that can result. Instead, your customers’ experience with your business is simple, pleasant, and streamlined, making them more likely to return.
Speak your customers’ language (literally)
Do you have international customers who speak different languages? There’s no need to hire a specialist agent – a chatbot can instantly translate conversations to and from English (or your preferred language).
This can make your business more inclusive, remove communication barriers, improve user experience, and save your business money on manual translation tools.
Start enjoying the benefits of chatbots
If you’re looking to implement chatbots into your business operations, we’re here to help. At Bizik, we offer two different chatbot services: Guide and Knowledgebase answer bots.
Guide chatbots
Companies often have separate teams for sales, support and other departments. Guide chatbots provide clever routing to a relevant department’s widget, so that the right team can answer the right chats.
These can also be used to qualify sales, by asking questions to understand their goals and readiness to buy, before sending the chat to the appropriate agent. You can also use a guide chatbot to automate appointment scheduling, pre-chat lead information capture, triaging support requests, and routine information gathering. The possibilities are endless.
- See more: How Bizik’s diary management works
Knowledgebase answer chatbots
These chatbots will pull information from your knowledge base and suggest articles based on specific topics, by using AI to understand the nature of the query. This allows your company to scale your support without hiring new agents. You can also program these bots to transfer to a human, if they are unable to answer the customer’s questions.
Thanks for reading
From instant first-line support to personalised experiences, chatbots can help businesses of all sizes in a multitude of ways. To launch a chatbot service, get in touch with the Bizik team today on 020 3917 7444 or submit your details and we’ll get back to you with a quote.
Thanks for reading. We hope you found this guide helpful in understanding the various benefits of chatbots for both companies and customers.
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Claudia Socratous is the Director of Sales at Bizik, where she leverages her expertise to help businesses scale and thrive. She holds a degree in Accountancy and Finance from the University of Birmingham and brings over four years of experience in the company formation sector. Claudia has a deep understanding of the needs of growing businesses and takes pride in supporting their development and success.
