Virtual assistants extend desired value to consumers with a human touch. Maaz Ansari explains how chatbot helps in instant, personal and contextual conversations
Welcome! I am a chat helper. You can start a new chat or scroll up to see previous chats.” You must have noticed these words often popping up in the bottom right section of your screen. A thought might’ve surfaced in your head, “Ah, so I have a companion for my queries.” Of course, you do! But, it isn’t a human being. It is a cognitive bot that utilises natural language to simulate conversations. It is one of the wonders of modern technology.
Leveraging state-of-the-art technology, these virtual assistants extend desired value to consumers with a human touch. They can also gauge diverse human emotions and intentions, thereby communicating while building on them accurately.
Consumers today are not merely looking for a product or a service, rather user experience. People look for easier ways to communicate with brands and services. It is because we are living in a world where everything is fast-paced. There’s no time to fill out a form and wait till someone calls us back. We need answers to our queries immediately.
Chatbots turn out to be the much-needed alternative that consumers can engage with. And that’s making more businesses realise that they should buckle up soon. They must deploy chatbots if they haven’t already. Keeping this in mind, let’s look at why there is a need to integrate a cognitive virtual assistant or chatbot into a business.
Automate customer support
In this era of digitisation, more people now dwell online. There is a high possibility that most of your potential customers going forward will discover your business online rather than physically. They might simply search ‘nearby services’ on Google rather than asking a bystander. So, it may lead people to interact with businesses solely through digital platform or via digital platforms first.
In fact, customers are getting smarter and tend to stick with solutions that are qualitative and, at the same time, simple to use. Naturally, chatbots have become necessary and emerged as an easy solution to respond to similar and repetitive queries at no incremental costs. With deep learning, this can further be scaled to understand complex queries and initiate interactions. It will also help you achieve a stronger customer base and offer customised solutions and support.
Ensure 24/7 availability
Customers shopping online don’t have a specific time to shop. It is more likely that they’ll visit your website at a time convenient to them, which may possibly be at odd-hours of the day or night. At this moment, chatbots have become more relevant. They respond to customers in real-time while providing them valuable insights about the product and your brand at your customers’ convenience. If you are a digital business and cater to a wide audience base, having a cognitive bot is of paramount importance for you. It will help you considerably scale your customer interactions across different geographies and time-zones. .
Boost conversions and sales
Once you start getting traffic on your platform, why not use friendly chatbots to engage these visitors? Easy and quick interaction that clear multiple doubts will help you to turn potential traffic into loyal customers. Additionally, helping users find what they are looking for faster, easier, and with minimal effort is a win-win not only for your customers but also for your business.
Chatbot-powered conversational ads
Conversational advertising allows instant, personal, and real-time engagement with customers at the very beginning of the sales funnel. It allows businesses to capture focussed leads, thereby increasing the probability of conversions. By using an AI-powered chatbot, the whole process of marketing and sales can now be automated. Smart conversational marketing technologies can equip your advertisement with a chatbot, wherein a consumer interacts with your ad and your chatbot answers their queries.
Personalised and contextual conversations
For every business, ‘Customer is the King’ and improving customer experience is an integral part of any business strategy. In today’s world, personalisation is increasingly becoming the norm and customers expect a certain level of personalisation. That’s why investing in personalisation is the key to building business relationships, building a resonance with your audience and creating a better brand impression & brand experience. Well, this is where cognitive bots fit in and play a vital role in customer acquisition and retention. They can predict precisely what the customer is seeking and proactively suggest options based on the customers’ likes, dislikes, hobbies, interests, and other parameters. These factors can also be translated into actionable insights that help brands enhance their Customer Relationship Management (CRM) for better re-targeting and conversions.
Real-time customer feedback
It is no surprise that an e-commerce assistant knows your right apparel size and even your most preferred hue of blue. But how? A chatbot-supported cognitive conversation helps businesses collect feedback and maintain a database of everything you adore or may need in the future. It is done simply by using your previous purchases and wishlists. So, you no longer need to get feedback forms filled by your trusted customers.
Cross-platform support in preferred languages
Chatbots are bringing a new way for businesses to communicate with the world and most importantly with their customers. With a multi-channel approach, customers can message you directly from Google Search results. Today, businesses are enabling their online customers to converse with them anytime from anywhere and pick up the same conversation from their app, WhatsApp, or other social channels. It turns out to be a highly effective approach.
As we can see, bots are becoming an integral part of almost every business. In addition to increasing business opportunities with humanised, intent-based conversational experiences, they also let you provide anytime, anywhere support to their customers. Thus, cognitive chatbots must be a part of your businesses’ operations across the value chain — from advertisement to sales to post sales support.
(The writer is co-founder and CEO of an end-to-end provider of conversational AI-powered chatbots, Ori.)