Chatbots are transforming the way businesses interact with customers, and according to HubSpot, companies that use them report increased sales conversions, lower customer service costs, higher engagement rates, and more opportunities to upsell existing customers. Here are five surprising uses for chatbots that will save you time and money in your own business.
5 Major Uses For Chatbots
1. All-Day, Everyday Customer Support
No matter how big or small your business is, customer support is essential to making sure your customers are happy. Fortunately, chatbots are here to help. With all-day, everyday customer support built in, businesses can give customers a direct line of communication that goes 24/7—no human needed. Some companies are already seeing major benefits from using chatbots for customer service—for example, HubSpot saw a 42% increase in conversions and a 63% decrease in cost per lead after implementing its chatbot.
Customers come to your website expecting to receive answers as soon as possible. If they don't, you'll see them closing the tab on your site in a few seconds. A chatbot gives you the advantage of always having 'someone' in charge of receiving visitors and guiding them as they navigate your site.
Focus on setting yours to pop up after a few seconds with prompts that users often follow. You can find out popular visitor actions through tools like Hotjar or Lucky Orange or engage with 1406 Consulting. We can use our expertise to set up workflows that work and make it an experience for every visitor.
2. Stay Up-To-Date With The Trends
Whether you’re trying to cut costs, save time, or just stay up-to-date with technology trends, chatbots may be able to help. Quick communication and assistance is vital for brands to engage their audience. 69% of customers prefer to use chatbots for prompt communication with brands rather than reaching out to a representative. To stay up with buyer habits, chatbots need to become part of your overall marketing strategy and customer service tool.
Not only can you use chatbots with Hubspot's platform, but you can use them in conjunction with your social media accounts. Adding a messaging feature with Facebook Messenger allows users to communicate directly with companies in real-time instead of going through an intermediary who will eventually lose patience and move on from one task. You can answer FAQs about products quickly when users have questions helps lead them down a path towards making a purchase decision in your social media accounts and driving traffic to your website.
3. Chatbots Are Low Cost Sales Tools
Simply put, chatbots don’t need a monthly salary. It’s an investment with minimal upkeep that can help a sales team maximize their workforce and time. This works well, especially with small businesses or start-ups. If anything, chatbots should eliminate mundane tasks, giving people more time to focus on complex problems requiring human interaction skills like empathy, trustworthiness, confidence, etc. A chatbot is just another tool in our box of business tools designed to help us succeed at selling products and services. Chatbots will save you time and money, gaining qualified leads, book meetings, provide customer support, and scale your one-to-one conversations.
Think about it...where do your clients want to talk? The number of options are increasing every day, including text messaging, video calling, social media platforms, group texting apps, augmented reality experiences—the list goes on! The goal here is to keep things simple because no matter what technology you choose now or in years ahead—customers want what they want now.
4. Tracking Data & Trends
Chatbots record data, trends, and metrics to inform you on your website's interactions with your customers. They can also adjust the way they process tasks (depending on the application they’re built in) and respond according to the data they receive. This makes them dependable in various situations and adaptable to the needs of your customers.
This means they can provide insight into how buyers interact with your site, what information they commonly need, and what areas are most valuable to your visitors (or difficult to navigate). They do all of that without requiring as much time as an actual person would—and usually at a lower cost. Your company saves money on staffing costs and you get more engagement data. Win-win!
5. Full-On Automation
As chatbot technology continues to grow, so will its uses in society. Many experts have forecasted that virtual personal assistants will soon be ubiquitous in every sector of our lives. These experts believe that if you aren’t using a chatbot today, you will be in just a few years. By 2022, market researcher IDC expects it will become common practice for businesses to adopt some type of artificial intelligence (AI) based on natural language processing and machine learning into their operations. Some estimates even place these advancements as far off as 2030 or beyond.
Final Thoughts
Chatbots are a low-risk, high-reward option to integrate into your website and operations. Qualify leads, book meetings, provide customer support, and so much more—all without lifting a finger. Curious about integrating a chatbot and more on your site or need help setting up the right workflows? We'll help you set yours up to help your company grow. Contact us today.
