Here are 5 ways chatbots can change the way you market and sell your product: 

1. Interactive experience

From the moment a customer enters your website, impressions are being made; ensuring their first impression is a good one is the difficult part. Chatbots create a user-friendly, personable experience with your customer.  Adding creative phrases, twists, images, gifs and personality to your chatbot can prevent immediate clickaways and promote more customer interaction with your company. This creates a unique one-to-one experience for the customer.

Take time to customize your bot by giving it personality or “flair”. This chatbot should reflect your brand and atmosphere accordingly. 

2. Data collection

Chatbots gather data from the conversations about customer and prospect’s needs and preferences and store it for later. Storing data allows the chatbot to recall past conversations and provide additional value. When a customer returns to a company site, he or she is remembered and can be assisted accordingly. Additionally, this stored information can be used to send more specific messaging and content to those returning visitors.

3. Personalized experience

Chatbots can be programmed for each individual customer. Take Dominos Pizza for example. Ordering a pizza via their chatbot in Facebook Messenger has never been easier. Not only can customers customize their pizza order through the chatbot – the chatbot can remember their order for next time! This strategy can be carried over into other industries as well. Being able to customize your product offering to each customer through a series of questions or short responses makes for a better user experience. 

Similarly, a chatbot can act as a personalized expert or sales rep, offering options that take into consideration the customer’s preferences and stated needs. 

For example, Sephora, a makeup company, has a chatbot that acts as a personal concierge for customers by recommending product shades and giving make-up tips. 

4. Sales funnel flow

Use a chatbot to assist customers in their searching process, educate them on products, and drive the sale. Bringing up discounts or promotional codes in the chat can be used to incentivize hesitant customers.

5. Troubleshooting

Chatbots help customers find the products they’re looking for, troubleshoot any product errors, and assist in website and product search. By providing convenient and helpful customer support, you can automatically affect the customer experience and chance of product purchase. If you treat a chatbot with similar priority as you would a customer-support agent or store greeter, your customers will notice and your sales will reflect your efforts. 

Choosing the right chatbot:

Be sure to invest the time and money necessary for an effective chatbot. According to Clear Voice, it is crucial to invest in your chatbot upfront to ensure it operates smoothly and serves the company’s specific needs.

Always have a human agent ready to take over if necessary. Sometimes customers can be skeptical of chatbots or prefer to chat with a live human. Other times, a chatter’s concern, question, or comment is more than a chatbot can handle. This is why it’s always essential to have a human agent ready as well. And while it is not guaranteed 24-hour service, it can alleviate many issues.

Are you ready to build your own chatbot? View our course Interactive Chatbots with TensorFlow!

About the author: Lexi Hunkler, a summer marketing intern at OpenSesame, is a senior at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte studying Creative Marketing and Innovation. When not at work, you can find her on a road trip adventure, painting, or petting the nearest dog.

The post 5 ways chatbots can improve marketing & sales appeared first on OpenSesame.

However, one may say that it was not the presence of robots that was impressive in The Jetsons, but rather the new concept of “push-button living.” The show is riddled with buttons that make life easier for the Jetsons. Cooking, cleaning, house chores. . .you name it and a button did it. We may not each have a personal robot walking around the house, but we certainly are living in an era made easier with buttons. These buttons can clean our dishes, message people across the world, and significantly improve the way we do business. 

Let’s take chatbots as an example. Chatbots are essentially a childhood Jetson dream of robots combined with the ease of button-pushing. According to the Oxford Dictionary, a chatbot is simply “a computer program designed to simulate conversation with human users, especially over the internet.” When used in businesses, it can connect the users and customers to rapid response and support. 

Is it necessary for your company to invest in chatbot technology? It comes down to this: if you’re in an industry that deals with humans in any capacity, it’s a wise investment to have a chatbot. If you want the best chance at thriving in an ever-present button-pushing era, a chatbot is the technology to invest in. Here’s why:

1. Automation:  

Chatbots make it easy and efficient to replace humans across social media, websites, customer service, stores, and some B2B conversations. This not only saves costs on personnel, but it allows employees to focus on their priorities — leaving artificial intelligence (AI) to handle the rest. As a result of automation, chatbots will reduce operational costs, manpower, and time; saving businesses more than $8 billion per year by 2022, according to UK-based Juniper Research. 

2. Ease the load: 

With automation, there is less talk and more work. There is less time having employees deal with repetitive customer service and simple questions and more time devoted to other projects. It can significantly reduce the amount an employee has on their plate knowing customers are being taken care of using AI. An overworked employee leads to stress, diminished performance levels, and health risks; simple automation can alleviate the additional work and threat of overload. 

3. Improve customer service: 

Additionally, chatbots make for happier customers. In a push-button society, we expect immediate answers and solutions. We’ve grown to expect speedy results with Google searches, social media, and instant messaging. It’s no different in the business world. The likelihood of a customer or potential candidate giving up or taking their business elsewhere is heightened with slow response time. Chatbot automation can significantly prevent disgruntled, impatient customers with rapid, 24-hour response time.

So here’s the rundown. Where your business may lack in personnel, you will make up for with AI. Chatbots can be effective and efficient, save you time and headaches, and ultimately create happier customers. 

Interested in learning more about creating an effective chatbot? Check out this OpenSesame course: Building Natural Language Applications with TensorFlow

Learn more about how to use chatbot technology with marketing in 5 ways chatbots can improve marketing & sales.

About the author: Lexi Hunkler, a summer marketing intern at OpenSesame, is a senior at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte studying Creative Marketing and Innovation. When not at work, you can find her on a road trip adventure, painting, or petting the nearest dog.

The post Chatbot technology: Not just for the Jetsons anymore appeared first on OpenSesame.