How to Boost Conversions Using ChatBot

Even though the internet has enabled businesses to reach people regardless of the location and the time of the day, still, a significant effort and investment is needed to be of service to the customers at any given moment. This is how chatbot became a great asset for companies dealing with customer support and inquiries. In fact, businesses are starting to rely on this service so much that 85% of customer interaction will be handled without human agents by 2021. (Source) Keep on reading this article to find out how you can use chatbots to boost conversions on your site.

Provide credibility

Becoming an established name on the market doesn’t come easy. It’s a process where you need to prove your credibility among your competitors, and potential customers. One of the things that is going to help you is an easy way for customers to get in touch with you. And there is nothing easier than clicking that chat bubble in the corner of the page. This allows potential customers to ask quick questions, while they are still on your sales page, checking out the product. Potential customers, especially those who have just discovered you, will probably have more questions. They are usually interested in how the service works, how to make a payment, what kind of shipping you use, etc. The answers to those questions can be provided through a chatbot, and this is what helps you increase credibility among the potential customers. You can respond to questions in real time with ready-made answers. Also, you enable customers to leave a message, which you can handle later on when one of the team members is available. Have in mind that customers will think hard before making a buying decision. They will often Google your business as there are often fears present when buying online and exposing credit card details. One of the biggest fears is “Is this a real business?” To address this fear and make sure the potential customers trust you, create a site that is clear and easy to navigate, link to social profiles, add testimonials, etc.

Customize chatbot profiles

When it comes to chatbot customisation, make sure you add the name and photos of the members of your team to the profiles. Use the same photos you have on your About us page. This is going to build trust, which is especially important for those interested in buying from you for the first time. The entire approach on your site is a part of this experience for the customers, and make sure that chatbot service is a part of that experience.

Enable easy access to information

A lot of questions and problems may occur during the process of purchasing online. Some online users don’t have much experience in online purchases, they might not be good with computers, and those are the obstacles they might encounter even though they are genuinely interested in buying from you. Having questions means that customers are interested in finding more about your product or services and one of the tasks you will have is to provide access to relevant information. That is another opportunity for you to increase conversions. Use chatbots to provide quick and easy access to information about any relevant questions you constantly get from your potential customers. Predict customer behaviour and prepare all the resources and additional information they might need during this process. Have in mind that 37% of people use a customer service bot to get a quick answer in an emergency (Source). The reason is the fact that chatbot service is available 24/7 and customers know they can get their questions answered instantly through such a service. To use this as a strategy to increase conversions, make sure you:

• Create a list of common questions and issues your customers have
• Prepare relevant resources to answer those questions and solve the issues. Those resources could be template answers, links to relevant pages, how-to videos, etc.
• Implement those resources into chatbot service. Depending on the chatbot, you can automate these resources as responses for common questions.

Obviously, you will need some historical data about your customers to get that information and prepare relevant resources. It helps you if you know your audience and understand their buying process. 64% of internet users say 24-hour service is the best feature of chatbots (Source) so make sure you enable this feature and use it to answer any questions customers might have.

Engage with hot leads

A significant number of purchases happens while the leads are still hot. In online marketing, it’s important to differentiate between hot and cold leads, as well as to define different strategies for each. Hot lead is someone who is highly interested in your product. You can decide if the lead is hot based on the user behavior. If they clicked on certain pages (for example a pricing page), they might be hot leads. If they have filled in a form with a specific inquiry, it’s likely that they’re interested. When you have leads like that, it is essential that you engage with them as soon as possible. Also, have in mind that someone is interested in a specific product or service, they are likely to research several companies that provide that service. In that case, 78% of customers buy from the first responder. (Source) That is why you need to nurture hot leads. Here is how to do so:

• Respond to the inquiry quickly – You can use chatbots to increase response time or to even buy some time until one of the team members gets to handle the inquiry personally.
• Offer additional perks you usually offer – While the customer is in the stage of making a decision of whether or not to buy from you, offer something that will help them make a decision in your favour. For example, free samples, demo, consultation call, or any extras you can offer to provide additional value for the customer.
• Create a sense of urgency – If you share an extra offer for the hot lead, make sure you provide a sense or urgency with a short-term offer or specific deadline to claim the offer. This will help them make their decision faster.

The most important thing is to reach out and engage with the leads. As you develop your customer approach, you will test different offers and ways to turn those hot leads into customers.

Analyze user behaviour

The next strategy that you can develop using chatbot service is analyzing user behaviour. Here is why this is so important. Data about the users help you understand how chatbot helps with conversions. For starters, it is important to differentiate between users who eventually become your customers and those who don’t. Use the data from the report that tracks conversion. Chatbots usually offer insights into user-behaviour, the number of clicks, when they visit your site, how they click through pages, etc. That’s the first step to help you analyse conversions.

Image source: https://www.chatbot.com/

To understand the data a bit deeper, focus on the customers group. Primarily, focus on the customers who have bought from you after their interaction with a chatbot. Try to determine their user path, the questions they asked, how long they spend talking to a chatbot, etc. The idea here is to understand the helpfulness of a chatbot and the influence this service has on your business. It will also help you with defining your target group even better. Additionally, chatbot service will provide overall data in the report, which is the second element of analyzing user behavior. Now when you have the complete data, analyse and compare the following elements of the chatbot:

• Number of chats
• Number of messages per chat
• Number of chats that resulted in conversions
• The busiest period of the day/week/month
• Total number of users
• Interactions within the chat

Like any other analysis, this part requires looking back into your reports and relying on the data. Still, this is a necessary part of understanding how users communicate with chatbots. Also, it’s an opportunity to get to know your customers. You’ll determine:

• The questions they might be asking
• The doubts that might be holding them back
• Feedback in terms of your brand, product or service

And these answers are exactly what you need to make your landing page better, to redefine your customer approach or maybe even change the way you present your products or services. Nothing can help you more in this process than understanding your customers. This also allows you to customize your chatbot for better (and more useful) responses.

Image source: https://www.chatbot.com/

Automate your business

Indirectly, chatbot can help your business grow as you can automate a big part of your customer service. In fact, chatbots can answer 80% of standard questions. (Source) For a business, this means less time waiting for user queries and more time invested in creative work, promotional campaigns, and development strategies. Chatbots rely on AI to use the algorithm to learn and adapt the conversation with the online users. Using a chatbot service, you can create the conversation with different elements being ready to respond to the user query. A chatbot focuses on specific keywords and provides answers based on that. You can use ready made templates to provide customer service or generate leads, but you can also create your conversation experience with different messages, visual elements, relevant links, and other features all based on the actions provided by chatbots. When you reflect back on the previous benefits and how they impact your business, you can understand now how as a whole, these are all powerful tools in the process of automating your business but still being available to your customers.

Leverage the social networks

You’re likely using social networks for promoting your business already. You might be posting content regularly, you might be using social media ads, or interacting with your followers. Regardless of these strategies, social networks also represent an opportunity to integrate chatbots and leverage all of the benefits this feature comes with. First and foremost, social network chatbot is rather easy to set up. Usually, it’s easier than creating this integration on your own site. The purpose of this feature is to help you engage with social network users and answer their queries in real time. The features you get to integrate include:

• Messaging – Use the service to send and receive messages and templates.
• Personalization – Personalize your chats by linking to an author
• Customization – Provide web-based experience through available features
• Encourage actions – Encourage clicks, bookings, purchases and more through relevant conversation

Image source: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/messenger-platform/

Having in mind the number of social network users and how convenient these users feel about using social networks, providing customer assistance through these channels is an amazing opportunity for growing your business and increasing conversions.

Conclusion

Chatbot usage has been increasing in popularity in the past few years. 50% of businesses plan to spend more on chatbots than on mobile apps. (Source) Companies are starting to prioritize this service as a way to improve their business and increase conversions. Not only are they able to do this, but this service also enables companies to reduce costs and automate a large part of user queries. At the same time, users get the benefit through this way of communication. Their queries are answered in real time which eliminates that gap between sending an email and waiting for a follow up. Therefore, both businesses and customers have a lot of benefits from this form of communication. As a business, your next step is to integrate chatbot service (if you haven’t already), to customize the service in order to provide the best user experience with helpful and well-targeted answers, and to monitor and analyze the data to detect potential opportunities for improvements. Chatbots will eventually become a part of your strategy to improve the relationship with your customers, and the ideas you’ve learnt from this article will help you to make this relationship even better.