Updated on February 22, 2024
We have not, thankfully, seen any of the nightmare scenarios envisaged by science fiction. But the reality is that we now rely on many AI-powered (artificial intelligence) systems. In fact, some estimates state that 76% of companies are now using some form of automation to make their business operate more efficiently.
For any business with a busy website, there is one great strategy for automating some processes and increasing customer engagement – chatbots. But what benefits can they offer your business, and how does a chatbot strategy help increase your customer engagement levels?
Why chatbots can help increase engagement rates
Engagement rates, both on your website and across any social media platforms you utilize, really do matter. Good engagement rates can lead to better sales and conversion rates, but also help your sales and marketing teams to plan future campaigns. They’re key to understanding what sort of content best works with your target audience. So, how can you use chatbots to help boost engagement?
1. Availability
Unlike human agents, chatbots work for you 24/7/365. They don’t need holidays or breaks and are available to answer customer queries (or to guide them through your site) at any time of day. Customers expect fairly quick responses; 12% expect a response to an email within 15 minutes or less. When you also offer channels such as live chat, it’s worth using chatbots as well as active human agents.
2. Multiple customers
While your human staff are limited in how many customers they can deal with at any one time, there is no such restriction on chatbots. This means your bots can cope with multiple queries and provide simple automated answers or, where needed, elevate the query to a human agent where the query is a more complex one.
3. Conversations
As we mentioned, people want quick responses, especially when it comes to basic info. Chatbots, depending on their complexity, can handle both simple and complicated conversations. That means your customers don’t have to wait on hold for hours just for a quick password reset, and they can even ask questions about their order status, tracking details, or your latest promotions.
Linked to your CRM, those answers can not only be quick but also more personal. The chatbot can ‘see’ all the previous interactions a customer may have had with your organization. This ensures that queries are dealt with faster and that customers can have a higher satisfaction level.
4. Data collectors
You already know how important data can be and, with a chatbot system, collecting a wide range of data becomes easier. It can be especially useful in improving your chatbot service as you can analyze data to see what aspects work well and which need adjustment. Plus, data is automatically stored rather than requiring a write-up, unlike calls with agents.
5. Personalization
71% of customers expect a degree of personalization to their interactions with you. With your chatbots linked to your CRM (customer relationship management) system, you can give your customers the personalization they want. They can use a customer’s name, link to previous interactions, and generally provide a more intensive experience overall.
Imagine a customer comes to you for tracking information on their order. As they’ve inputted their email when joining the live chat, the chatbot can pull order details from your CRM – saving the customer from typing up all the information that you already have.
6. Language barriers
If you are operating in the global marketplace, language barriers are an inevitability. To cover the languages you may encounter with human agents can be a costly exercise, and business expenses are something you want to minimize where possible. However, with chatbots, they can be programmed with the relevant languages so that they can deal efficiently with customer queries.
Your chatbot can identify a language or even provide the customer with a range of options. Of course, this will incur initial costs when setting your chatbot system up, but ongoing costs are negligible, thus making it an extremely cost-effective solution.
7. Anywhere, anytime
You well know the challenges of moving to an omnichannel approach. Your business may well have implemented tools such as VoIP meaning you have more flexibility. You want to provide a painless customer experience and that means using channels that your customers are comfortable with.
Being able to deploy chatbots across all your channels, from Facebook and Messenger to your website or WhatsApp means you will boost engagement rates because people are able to connect with you on their chosen channel and get answers to questions (or pertinent info) faster than they did before.
8. They’re not human
This may sound a little strange but think about how many times you have spoken to a human agent and left the call feeling a little aggrieved at their attitude. Even the best of us have days where we feel ill, or under a lot of stress! Chatbots are not subject to stress or ailments so you know they will always deliver as good an experience as possible.
The takeaway
You are probably always looking for ways to cut your costs, and that can cover anything from free contract management software to implementing automating where possible. Of course, you don’t want any cost saving to have a negative impact on things such as engagement or conversion rates and chatbots offer you a cheap but effective solution.
There are different levels of chatbots that can meet almost any business needs. You can use the simpler ones (rules-based chatbots) for simpler tasks on your website such as suggesting products based on a customer’s search history. More complicated ones (AI chatbots) can carry out more complex tasks thanks to their use of ML (machine learning) and NLP (natural language processing).
Chatbots are a great way to improve the customer journey and to boost engagement rate. It also means that your human agents can focus on more complex issues and queries, and that they are available if your chatbot can’t deal with a particular question. With the use of automation increasing every year, it’s time to get on the chatbot train.
At Kommunicate, we are envisioning a world-beating customer support solution to empower the new era of customer support. We would love to have you on board to have a first-hand experience of Kommunicate. You can signup here and start delighting your customers right away.
