Should Marketers Invest In Chatbots?

Chatbots may not be new, but the underlying technology that powers them has come a long way.

Marketers have begun to realize the many potential benefits offered by such messaging tools, and are using chatbots to improve sales as well as customer service.

A recent poll found that 80% of companies are either already using chatbots or plan to by 2020. In fact, as 1.4 billion peopleOpens a new window  interact with these automated systems each year, such messaging technology is projected to help businesses save more than $8 billion annually by 2022, according to market research specialist Juniper ResearchOpens a new window .

Despite the many ways chatbots can enhance an organization’s marketing operations, adoption of the technologyOpens a new window has been slow.

From various conversations with colleagues, I’ve come to the conclusion that many marketers don’t actually know much about the various applications of chatbots.

Indeed, while there tends to be a general understanding that chatbots can help with some customer service tasks such as responding to repetitive questions from customers – “Where are you located?” or “What are your opening hours?” – the majority of marketers I spoke with had limited and dated information on the technology.

I was surprised that so many were uninformed as to the benefits chatbots offer them. The fact is, their promise is far greater than simply automating customer service functions.

However, don’t discount the value of that straightforward function: According to Facebook, 90% of consumer queries are covered by the answers to the top 10 questions. So simple automated messages can be quite handy.

Meanwhile, though, consider that having a live chat option on your website increases conversions by 20%, makes customers three times more likely to buy and leads to a 305% increase in ROI.

While live chat services aren’t the same as chatbots – that human element is missing – rapid development in recent years of the tech running these bots has made them ever more useful. Although they may not contribute to the bottom line as effectively as a live chat rep, chatbots can still offer similar boosts to sales.

Conversational AI takes chatbots to the next level

Chatbots have become extremely advanced.

In particular, their machine learning capabilities – and to an extent their increasingly complex natural language processing (NLP) capabilities – are transforming the traditionally clunky, rigid and rule-based systems.

And 2019 is gearing up to be a big year in the evolution of this segment.

First of all, companies can now input their brand voice into their chatbot in order to give it a more human feel.

This is especially relevant when that voice is supported by NLP, a special type of programming that a bot can use to form complete, grammatically-correct and naturally-flowing sentences. NLP allows the bot to mimic a human convincingly (they can even be programmed to use emojis), improving customer service for all parties involved.

Pair that function with the machine learning systems running these chatbots and marketers get a tool using the data it gathers to provide a constantly-enhancing, end-to-end conversational experience to site visitors.

Pavel Dmitriev, VP of Data Science at sales engagement platform provider Outreach, predicts that with these improvements in conversational AI, chatbots will be able to construct a significantly better understanding of buyer context.

Improved integration with other marketing tools such as CRMOpens a new window  will help chatbots gather more information on customer interactions with brands, which in turn will allow chatbots to provide customer service optimized for a specific industry, company and types of consumers.

Meanwhile, chatbots can make use of those vast datasets across the business as references for future customer interactions. As such, some experts expect this to be the year that chatbots are finally able to engage at every stage of the customer journey.

This is a significant step, as it means chatbots will be able to use their improved understanding of buyer context and needs to build long-term relationships with customers, and will even be able to incorporate personalizationOpens a new window tools to give consumers uniquely-tailored experiences.

As Christi Olson, head of Bing’s evangelism for search and a leading chatbot expert, puts it, “Gartner predicts that by 2020 people will have more conversations with chatbots than their spouse. The chatbots of the future don’t just respond to questions. They talk. They think. They draw insights from knowledge graphs. They forge emotional relationships with customers.”

Chatbots even have direct sales capacities: They can schedule sales appointments, warm prospects and help customers purchase products or services online.

Chat blasting, for instance, is a tactic that many marketers are using to stimulate sales. A chatbot will send a brand’s marketing content to large groups of people via messaging platforms such as Facebook Messenger – think of it as the next-gen e-mail blast, with engagement rates 60-to-120 times higher and enabling instant interaction with interested parties.

Ultimately, when deciding whether or not chatbots are right for your company, the first step is to identify precise objectives. If the end goal isn’t to add value to the consumer or to make your business operations more efficient, then don’t bother.

Once you’ve decided to invest in a chatbot, the next step is to figure out if its main function is for customer service or sales. Then you can start looking for the tool best suited to help you achieve your ambitions.