How Chatbot Helps Businesses Improve Customer Service? Chatbots are the future of brand engagement. Engaged customers are likely to proceed to the bottom of your sales funnel

The key to increase sales and customer loyalty is by improving your customer's experience.

Customers are smarter today than they were five years ago and they expect you to be adept at your communications with them.

Gartner predicts that by 2020, a customer will manage 85 per cent of the relationship with a business without interacting with humans and hence, the increased demand and adoption of self-help service.

Chatbots are self-help tools for improving communications. Brands can use it to improve their customer's experience, to generate more sales and build a deeper rapport with customers.

They allow your customers to easily interact with your brand through stimulated conversations.

In this article, you'll learn how chatbots can help you improve your customer service:

Chatbots Provide a Quick Response to Users

It's frustrating when businesses tell you that it'd take several business days before a simple issue can be resolved. And most times you don't even get a reply, not even an automated "no-reply" email.

Is there a more proven way to discourage a customer than that?

Customers want immediate response to their query. They want to be able to handle challenges on their own until they're no longer able to do it. Only then will they require assistance from a live chat agent.

At the very least, customers will be happy to receive a welcome message from a chatbot telling them the exact time they will receive solutions to their challenges—especially when the solution has not been programmed to the bot yet.

In most cases, the bot can refer the customer to the FAQ page where they can find tips to help them solve their problem easily.

Chatbots Create Engagement

Chatbots are the future of brand engagement. Engaged customers are more likely to proceed to the bottom of your sales funnel faster.For example, on your messenger app, a chatbot can initiate a conversation to promote an offer or update your customers about your latest product.

In the conversation, you could ask for product information, coupon codes, or just about anything concerning the product. Customers can get interesting offers that will stimulate them to click through to your checkout page.

In the 2016 F8 Conference, where Facebook announced that businesses will start using their Messenger app to buy and sell products and offer customers support, Mark Zuckerberg said,"We think you should message a business just the way you would message a friend."

Chatbots make life a lot easier for brands. Customers are excited to engage with robots especially when they exhibit some sense of humor or a personality that's similar to a real human.

When you program your chatbot well, it can respond to customer's messages instantly using your brand's voice.

Chatbots Can Help You Save Cost on Customer Service

Did you know that a single chatbot can perform the task of several customer service agents? Sure it can.Chatbots are cost-effective customer service solutions for brands in any capacity with a high or low budget.

While chatbots can't completely overhaul customer service agents, it can significantly save you money, since you don't have to employ many customer service representatives to manage your customers' questions.

The new research, "Chatbots: Retail, eCommerce, Banking & Healthcare 2017-2022," found that chatbots will save businesses over $8 billion per year by 2022, which is a huge increase from the $20 million expected in 2017.

Businesses Use Chatbots to Handle Uncomplicated Tasks

Complex questions that need serious analysis are not meant for chatbots. Using chatbots to answer simple questions and engaging customers with offers can be effective.

Chatbots are Good, But They Can't Completely Replace Humans

For example, a customer who wants to change his/her password, logs into your website and next, the chatbot shows up: "Do you need help with anything?" and you reply "Yes, I want to change my password."

Then chatbot will take the same information and gives you the step-by-step process for changing your password successfully. Simple questions like that are pretty much good for chatbots.

Chatbots Allow Brands to Offer 24/7 Customer Service Support

Customers are happy to get the information they need when they need it. But a customer representative will most likely not be present all the time.

That's where chatbots come in handy. A chatbot is always there and very active at every time of the day ready to be engaged.

It's interesting because your customers don't need to wait for "several business days" before their queries can be attended to.

Unsatisfied Customers do not Return to the Brand

Studies have shown that 91 per cent of unhappy customers will not willingly do business with you again (Lee Resources).

Chatbots can afford to keep your customers happy, give them the best services, and most importantly, there's always an option to call a real person in case you aren't getting the answers you're after.

Chatbots Reduce Human Error

One of the reasons we use chatbots is because we want to have time for other things while we allow something else to do our work for us.Can we trust chatbots with this task? Of course, we can. Sometimes we may forget, but chatbots don't forget.

Chatbots are designed to have access to enormous information that can help them answer your customer's questions accurately.

Tips to build a successful chatbot.

• Always give your customers an alternative means of communication: Sometimes chatbots can be annoying when they are unintelligent, everyone hates unintelligent chatbots.So ensure you feed your chatbot with a lot of information then provide an option to call or chat with a human. Customers will be happy to speak with a customer representative when the chatbot is not answering their questions as expected.
• Avatars Add Emotions: Using avatars can add a human touch to your chatbot. Create a fictional character of a real person and use it as the chatbot avatar.
• Provide Options for Efficiency: Chatbots are not fully efficient as they are still in their early development stage. It's wise to create options for efficiency by adding possible answers to a particular question that the bot doesn't fully understand.

Conclusion

Your business doesn't have to be the size of Facebook to start using chatbots.

You'll see a huge engagement if you give it a shot—especially when you use a chatbot software that allows you to add a customized welcome message, on-session personalization, and more.