Want to improve your overall customer experience? It’s time to leverage AI chatbots. Shane Baker, digital strategist – Shane Barker Consulting, writes on how AI chatbots can help you serve your customers better.
The chatbot market is seeing a steady increase in growth every year.
Did you know that between 2020-2024, the global chatbot market size is expected to grow by approximately 1.11 billionOpens a new window ?
That’s massive, right?
These statistics show that chatbotsOpens a new window are here to stay. In fact, they are already revolutionizing the way businesses interact with their customers.
If you haven’t adapted to this fast-growing trend, it’s time to join the bandwagon. After all, AI-powered chatbots have a lot to offer to any customer-centric business. Whether you’re in the fashion industry or in the banking sector, AI chatbots can offer benefits to organizations across different verticals.
Not sure how? By enhancing customer experience.
Here’s how you can use chatbots to improve your customer experience.
1. Offer a Touch of Personalization
Intelligent chatbotsOpens a new window are programmed to track how a user interacts with them and analyze their behavior. Based on their analysis, they can learn about the audience’s preferences. This can give you an edge over your competitors.
If you know what your audience wants and likes, you can show them exactly what they are looking for. You can offer personalized content and even provide product suggestions based on their preferences.
In fact, you can be straightforward about getting to know your audience as well. For instance, Sephora asks a set of questions to users on Kik and Facebook to learn what kind of content they want.
What’s more, they also send targeted push notifications using LinkedIn automation toolsOpens a new window and other social tools for the new content that they publish. This way, they can keep their users engaged and provide personalized suggestions as well.
Learn More: AI in Messaging Is Evolving To Assist Conversations, Not Take Their Placeâ€: CEO, Holler
2. Offer Shopping Assistance
AI-chatbots can also double up as virtual shopping assistants to elevate the overall customer experience. Just like we discussed earlier, they can ask a set of questions to learn what the user wants.
For instance, if a customer is looking for purses in a store, a chatbot can show them a variety of purses and even ask questions related to budget and color preferences to narrow down the choices. This way, the customer can have a guide showcasing different products to them based on their tastes.
This strategy can be especially useful for businesses in the fashion, beauty, and fitness verticals. That’s because customers in these industries may need help to figure out what suits their requirements.
Take inspiration from H&M’s intelligent chatbot. It is designed to provide a seamless shopping experience online.
As you can see from the screenshot below, the chatbots interact in a very casual and friendly tone. The questions are framed in such a way that the chatbot can learn more about the user’s fashion choices.
Their chatbot also pairs up multiple products and puts together an entire outfit, including shoes and bags for the customer.
Doesn’t that sound great?
Because the chatbot shows only relevant products and information, shoppers can save a lot of time. Normally, they would have to go through the entire website to cherry-pick products that they like.
However, chatbots showcase it all directly to them.
3. Provide Better Customer Support
The biggest advantage of leveraging chatbot technology is that you can be available for your customers 24/7. Your customer service representatives work at specific times, likely only on weekdays.
But what happens if your customers need assistance beyond office hours?
Till recently, the only option for businesses was to employ representatives in double shifts. That’s not an affordable solution for small businesses.
In a nutshell, providing effective customer serviceOpens a new window and being readily available wasn’t feasible for a lot of SMBs.
But now there’s a better solution:
Chatbots are changing the rules of the game.
With chatbots, they can be available for customers round-the-clock. There is no constraint related to time zones either.
Wait, there are more benefits as well.
Chatbots can also handle queries from multiple customers at once on any day, at any time. So, queries can be solved quickly and almost instantly-all of this while saving on total operational costs. Chatbots can also integrate with voice search-based tools. For example, Google Voice and its alternatives can provide a better searching experience to the customers.
Looking for inspiration?
Take a look at how Mastercard leverages a chatbot to serve their customers. Using their chatbot, customers can check their balance, the total amount spent, and get details about other services.
Since they can get their questions answered instantaneously through chatbots, they may not need to talk to a human agent.
4. Run Loyalty Programs
It’s no secret that customers love discounts!
If you want to retain your old customers and keep them satisfied and loyal to your brand, you need to give them good deals. With chatbots, you can also run loyalty programs to give your existing customers exclusive benefits and deals.
Through chatbot-based programs, you can also ensure that you engage a tight-knit community of loyal customers.
Take inspiration from Marriott International’s strategy.
It is one of the biggest brands in the hospitality sector to leverage chatbotsOpens a new window for their loyalty programs. Users can check out this bot-based loyalty program on Facebook Messenger and Slack.
Through this chatbot, users can get details about hotels, book their stays, and plan their upcoming holidays. They also get access to travel-based content related to their interests.
If users have any specific questions related to hotel stays, they can also chat directly with their customer service representatives.
The best part is that users can collect points for their hotel stays and redeem loyalty points for future stays as well.
Learn More: How AI Can Help You Map the Buyer Journey in the COVID-19 EconomyOpens a new window
Ready To Improve Customer Experience?
AI-powered chatbots have the potential to transform the entire customer service landscape. In fact, they are giving it a complete upgrade! From round-the-clock availability to offering personalized suggestions to customers, chatbots can offer many benefits to businessesOpens a new window .
If you’re looking to upgrade your overall customer experience, chatbots are definitely worth your investment.
What are you waiting for? Do you have any questions about leveraging chatbots to boost customer experience? Please mention them in the comments section.