As consumers, we’ve become lazy. Because we have a mound of technology at our fingertips, we automatically opt for the easiest and quickest way to find answers to our queries, products we like, or services that we need to hire. Due to this trend, businesses need to keep that mindset at the forefront of their business processes.
As a result of this new consumer mindset, companies have started launching what are now called chatbots. These artificial intelligence (AI)- powered robots live within all our applications, the websites we visit, and can even creep into our social media interactions.
Because chatbots are everywhere, they’re perfect for collecting all the customer information that we, as businesses, need to thrive. Before we go into how these chatbots help us with customer acquisition, let’s take a look at some of the benefits of implementing a chatbot.
The Benefits of Implementing a Chatbot
Chatbots offer a huge variety of benefits to customers. They offer the aforementioned ease of use and access, and make your brand readily available to help with any customer queries. Because consumers prefer messaging a company to sending an email or picking up the phone, it seems obvious why the chatbot is becoming so popular. Here are some other benefits of implementing a chatbot:
Around-the-Clock Availability
A chatbot makes your brand available whenever a customer needs something. Whether or not they’re in the same time zone or just want to get in touch before your opening hours, your chatbot is always online to help. If a person is doing some late-night browsing on social media and comes across your product, they may find the urge to get in touch. A chatbot makes that possible.
Instantaneous Responses
Aside from making you available 24/7, your chatbot will cut out the usual waiting times customers face when emailing or phoning companies. Better yet, these instantaneous responses take place whether they’re messaging you from a computer or a mobile device…which leads me to my next point.
Greater Mobile Presence
With the average person spending more and more time on their smartphones, it makes sense to add chatbots into the mix. While mobile applications have decreased, on the whole, messaging applications continue to grow in popularity. In fact, an increasing number of people have admitted that messaging applications are their favorite forms of communication over email and texting.
With the above in mind, it makes sense to launch new conversational tools where customers are most likely to be: mobile phones and messaging applications.
How Chatbots Can Help With Customer Acquisition
Every customer would love to have a personalized interaction with the brand they are speaking with. Fortunately for us, we’re now able to start meeting that demand, with the help of chatbots. Some companies across the world use chatbots in a variety of their company processes. From sales to customer support, marketing, and even for internal processes, such as HR and IT, the opportunities are truly endless.
However, while we can interact with customers more easily, we first need to get their attention, and chatbots seem to have made that possible by acting as powerful acquisition tools for businesses of all sizes. Here’s how you could use your chatbot as an acquisition tool:
Increased Brand Recognition
You can’t get customers if they don’t know you exist, right? Well, chatbots can help you become recognized among consumers. Because chatbots make you available 24/7, customers can always get in touch to learn more about your company, products, and services.
Aside from that, if created properly, your chatbot can offer your customers an engaging experience that leaves them wanting more. From there, your chatbot can redirect your customers to some of your content and products, and they can even take orders directly.
Removing Barriers
Sometimes it can be difficult for customers to see the advantage of working with you rather than your competition. A proactive chatbot makes you readily available; it makes you stand out from the competition because your brand instantly appears personable.
By simply talking with your chatbot, the customer experience is streamlined. Whether they want answers to their questions, to change their account, make a complaint, exchange a product, or place an order, your chatbot can undertake all these actions without your customer having to leave the chatbox.
Personalizing the Customer Service Experience
Customers respond well to conversations that are aimed directly at them. The fact that chatbots are powered by AI and natural language processing (NLP) means they’re able to use specific context to make each and every interaction unique to the customer involved. And, let me ask you this: When someone makes you feel unique, don’t you instantly like them and take more interest in them?
That’s the point of the chatbot. The unrivaled customer service that chatbots provide means they can solve individual problems without jeopardizing the quality of the service they’re offering. In fact, in some cases, they’re able to offer better service than humans because they’re not distracted by anything else.
Creating an AI-Powered Chatbot For Customer Acquisition
If you think you could benefit from a chatbot that can help you with customer acquisition then using a chatbot- building platform is your best bet. Platforms allow you to create a bot in a matter of minutes with absolutely no coding knowledge whatsoever.
Plus, many are completely free to start, you can test various bots and get to grips with what works best before launching your final version. Chatbots can be designed through an extremely simple and powerful visual dashboard, and enable you to:
Reach customers more easily and quickly
Offer 24/7 support
Monetize your social media pages
Upsell and cross-sell to customers already making purchases
Finally…
As you can see, setting up a chatbot has a huge variety of benefits, but if you want to get noticed in the first place, I couldn’t recommend this method enough. By using a chatbot as a customer acquisition tool, you’ll be able to build your client base while increasing sales and reducing costs.