Chat Bot Marketing: How Can it Help Your Business?
Chatbot Marketing refers to the innovative approach of selling your goods or services via automated internet communication, with a tailored message based on different needs of the customers to enhance product attraction, increase customer loyalty, or automate lead generation systems. Companies adopting the chatbot approach for online marketing must understand its three important components. It is an online marketing tool that provides an interactive real-time communication between customers and companies, for efficiently providing solutions to customers, within a few minutes of registration. It is a computer program, which is programmed in such a manner to provide instant responses to customer inquiries or requests for information. Customer enquiries can either be submitted through e-mail, phone call, or any other interactive means, which may be faster and more effective than traditional approaches. In this way, the system can be easily managed and tracked, to provide prompt and appropriate response.
A chatbot is a computer program, installed with artificial intelligence, that allows interaction between human users and the support service, either over the internet or through any other channel, through natural language processing, voice and text commands, and visual user interface components. The chatbot is not a one-size-fits-all solution; it is customized to solve various issues and meet specific requirements of a particular organization. In essence, it is an autonomous unit that performs customer service functions in a customer-centric manner, following preset instructions given by the customer service representative. The basic module of a chatbot application includes a virtual personal assistant that interacts with a customer over the web using standard web applications such as a chat application and visual web interface. The personal assistant can be programmed in a variety of ways, depending on the needs of the company and the specific field in which it works.
On the other hand, a customer service agent can be programmed in order to record a conversation (or any type of conversation), transcribe it, edit it for clarity and provide a pre-written message for the bot to deliver. The biggest advantage of using a chatbot for conversational marketing lies in the fact that it operates on the same principles as a human would: what you say is usually as valuable as what you do. When your customer interacts with you in real time via text, voice, video or even webcam, you are much more likely to receive positive feedback than if you simply send a canned message to the end recipient.
Most online entrepreneurs agree that social media is one of the best places to start today in terms of lead generation bots. Social media allows you to directly interact with your targeted clients in real time, providing instant answers to their queries and leading to higher conversion rates. Chat Bots are perfect for this kind of marketing because they are both natural and personal, allowing your prospect to get to know you as they would a friend.
Today, the greatest advantage of using a chatbot for lead generation is its ability to deliver on-demand services. You can set up a schedule and have your chatbot follow up with a customer if ever you are unable to attend a webinar or webinars. Such scheduling flexibility is very helpful if you are running short on time or simply don’t have enough hours to allocate to lead generation campaigns.
Apart from its great customer relationship management capabilities, another feature that makes chatbots an excellent option for your business is the Bot’s ability to interact with other social media profiles. As more companies discover the immense potentials of social media as a source of generating leads, they are automating their social media processes in order to maximize the results of this emerging trend. The interaction between your chatbot and other social media profiles, such as Facebook and Twitter, allows for better customer conversions. Chat Bots are also very interactive, allowing them to adapt to the way their customers talk about them. They can respond to questions, post suggestions and incorporate community discussion into the process of customer service.