Chatbots for Business: The Why’s and How’s

The world of technology is growing exponentially, and it is predicted that 85% of customer interactions would happen without human intervention. This is being made possible with intelligent AI-powered chatbots that are available in the market right now. These chatbots can initiate conversations with customers and are also capable of resolving common queries.

Chatbots are the next big thing. But are they taking over the world? Rest assured, it is not true. Chatbots are here to make life easier and streamline your support process. Take a deep dive into this blog to know more about chatbots for business.

Why do you need chatbots for business

1.   Cost and time-efficient

Your support team receives a lot of common and repeated queries from your customers. Automating your incoming customer service queries with chatbots frees up your agent’s time and helps them focus on the complex issues at hand. Also, investing in a chatbot helps bring down your customer service costs. They come in very handy during ticket surge times, where a single chatbot can handle multiple queries without hiring extra agents to get the job done.

Dunzo, a 24/7 delivery platform, deployed chatbots and reduced their support costs by 30%. They also automated 48% of the incoming support queries, thus freeing up the agent’s time and boosting agent happiness as well.

2.   Boost your customer engagement

AI chatbots are now capable of engaging customers with small talks instead of scripted robotic conversations. They leverage available customer data to offer personalized support. Also, chatbots are the best way to provide proactive support to your customers. They have access to customer data which lets them send personalized triggered messages.

Chatbots can also be integrated with messaging channels, including WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Apple Business Chat, and more. This lets you offer support on the customer's preferred channel of choice. You can send order updates, delivery and shipment confirmations, proactive cart abandonment triggered messages, and keep your engagement an ongoing process.

2.   Support your customers round the clock

Chatbots are available 24/7 to engage with your prospects and customers. They can respond to customer queries instantly without making your customers wait. Also, if it’s a crucial issue, chatbots can collect information and pass it on to the agent to look into it in their next business hour. This saves you from losing out on potential leads and customers who reach out to you post business hours.

4.   Be a tool for lead generation.

Chatbots are capable of guiding visitors through their customer journey. They have access to customer information which lets them send personalized messages to the customers. Chatbots can ask relevant questions and pass on potential leads down the funnel and hand them over to the agents or sales reps to take the conversation forwards.

5.   Stay on top of your metrics

Deploying a chatbot helps you in boosting your customer service metrics. A single chatbot integration can respond and resolve all your incoming queries instantly. First response rate, average resolution time, and customer satisfaction are a few metrics chatbots help you keep track of.

Fantastic Services, a property maintenance service, deployed chatbots and saw the following results.

1. The conversion rate increased by 10%.
2. Chat ROI increased by 2x.
3. CSAT score reached an all-time high of 4.8 out of 5.

Top 5 industries that benefit the most from chatbots

1.   Chatbots for ecommerce

E-commerce is an industry that is growing at an exponential rate. By 2023, it is expected that ecommerce sales will account for 22% of retail sales across the world. Customer support channels have increased, making it easier for customers to reach out to business easier than ever. Chatbots are the best solution for companies who are looking to scale up. Using chatbots for E-commerce helps overcome language barriers, shortens the sales cycle, boosts conversions, and saves you time and money.

2.   Chatbots for travel industry

The travel and tourism industry took a big hit due to the pandemic. But as the world opens up, there’s likely to be a wave of travel bookings arriving the industry’s way. If you are a travel business, there are high possibilities that you have customers from across the globe looking out for travel solutions. If you don’t have someone to assist them round the clock, you could lose out on prospective customers.

Having a chatbot on your website will let your customers from around the world plan their travel at their convenience. You can also automate your post-booking support by offering information on booking confirmations, itinerary, logistics, accommodation, and more. This will let your agents focus more on the leads at hand and offer support for more crucial customer issues. Also, If your chatbots face any issue, they can feed it to your CRM and let your sales team handle it in their next business hours.

3.   Chatbots for medicine industry

The medical industry involves a lot of manual appointment scheduling, which takes up a lot of time and effort from the nurses and physicians. What if you could automate all these with the help of smart chatbots? Chatbots applications are now extended to the medical industry. They can streamline hospital procedures, including admissions, patient consultations, appointments, discharge, and much more. They can feed this information directly into your digital records for future references.

With the Freshdesk Messaging chatbots, you can find patient information and reduce customer queries effectively. These bots are HIPAA compliant and are capable of self-assessing the patients. It guides the patients to the right healthcare centers and ensures that they have the right information.

4.   Chatbots for real estate

The real estate industry is growing up to be a boom rather than just a bubble. Real estate support receives a lot of common and repeated queries. When people lookout for a house, questions arise on the location, neighborhood, community, schools, and more. Though chatbots cannot replace the relationship between agents and clients, they can handle common queries about the location, neighborhood, and nearby amenities. Though these are repetitive, each visitor requires answers to these questions to make a purchase decision. If you leave them unattended, they are more likely to move to your competitors.

Deploying a chatbot to your real-estate website or mobile app helps you automate your queries, schedule visits, and remind them of their upcoming EMIs. This saves your time from answering common questions and also from losing out on your prospects.

5.   Chatbots for banking

Banking being a complex and confidential sector, was against using chatbots for years. But these intelligent chatbots have overthrown these assumptions and are now increasingly deployed in various banking operations. Chatbots are capable of providing account information, fund transfers, performing transactions, and whatnot. They are like a personal banker and can provide users with all their account information and other everyday banking-related queries. This saves customers from stepping into a bank and talking to a bank teller to access this information and perform simple transactions.

Source: Chatbots