Chatbots have a very real application in almost every business
Up until very recently, Chatbots have been little more than light entertainment. Businesses would have had a hard time building a business case to use a chatbot in a business context.
Things have changed.
With the integration of mediums like Skype, Facebook Messenger, Snapchat, Kik, it give us the ability to chat with customers on their choice of channel without having to train staff members to operate the software and will full integration with CRM and web services, therefore being able to provide a much more Human connection with our prospects, and vastly improving leads, sales, customer service efficiency and response times without adding any employee costs.
Natural Language Programming
With Natural Language Programming or NLP, Businesses can train their chatbots to understand more and more over time and respond to very complex requests by understanding customer intent. Combine this with the ability to connect many different data sources to the chatbot system, it gives the system the ability to source the most relevant meaningful response for the customer and take actions such as sending a user to a specific page, sourcing a product out of stock in one store in another location close to the customer, or adding a prospect to a lead list for a salesperson to follow up with.
Adding CRM integration
Add to this integration with CRM, and you have a way to not only engage with the prospective customer but to continually follow up until that customer is in the buying stage. Every good Business Development Manager knows that it takes anywhere between 7 and 13+ touches to generate a VIABLE sales lead, and let’s face it, many salespeople give up after 5 or 6 touches.
Customer follow-ups
A chatbot doesn’t give up, it follows it’s programming and it can make follow up a breeze. Just think of the chatbot which does a search on the prospect company industry, and finds an interesting article which relates to the prospects business, and instead of a BDM asking “Have you managed to look at the proposal as yet”, the Chatbot can ask “What are your thoughts on __________” and sends the article to the prospect.
A chatbot can take instruction, like come back to me in 2 weeks, and will never miss a date. The technology also allows conversations to be ongoing with multiple parties at once increasing efficiency.
Watch this space
We believe that there is a very useful and business-ready tool in chatbots. While it’s not a mature industry just yet, it’s our prediction that chatbot will be very prevalent in our society in a Business Development context in the very near future.
Find out more
If you want to find out how chatbots may work in your business, click here to get the conversation started
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