Many websites have chat bots that fill in for human assistants and keep companies open for business 24/7 online. You may have been greeted by a bot upon landing on a website. Say Nick from Erudite Legal Consultancy, a friendly-looking assistant in a suit who asked if you had a question.

Nick isn’t a person but a bot persona. The perception that a human assistant is engaging them encourages website visitors to begin conversations. However, even if you’re aware that a chatbot software is trying to interact with you, you’d go ahead anyway.

That’s because you want a quick answer to your query. Or need to solve a problem. Perhaps you want to talk to the company’s relationship manager.

A chatbot can serve all three purposes. In fact, businesses are already using chatbots in different ways to improve the customer experience.

Sales & customer support: Help with basic questions

Chatbots use Natural Language Processing (NLP) to decode written requests. NLP provides context and meaning to

text-based inputs, ensuring that chatbots can come up with the best response.

Although chatbots aren’t yet ready to decipher sophisticated questions, they do a good job of answering basic inquiries. A chatbot can decipher a common technical issue you may be facing or suggest popular products or services. Recommendation chatbots are an evolving area, suggesting related or better versions of products you add to the shopping cart.

Lead generation: Connecting to appropriate point persons

Conversational artificial intelligent (AI) agents can act as intermediaries, putting you in touch with a manager or even a dealer at a showroom. The agent will provide a phone number you can call via the website or schedule an appointment with the point person if he/she isn’t available.

You’re able to connect immediately to someone from the company who can help you – placing a call from your desktop or smartphone. If you’re in a different time zone, you can still have the company representative get back to you at a convenient time.

Personalization: Knowing customers better + getting more leads

Chatbots can be programmed to learn more about website visitors and the data used for customer research. Virtual agents can engage visitors with quizzes and opinion polls ‘will you/won’t you?’ They can also ask for visitors’ names and email addresses, inquiring if they would like to receive the company’s newsletter. The possibilities are many!

These are some of the many use cases of chatbots for your business. Have a chat with us to understand how you can implement chatbots to improve your digital marketing results.