Chatbots are the latest fad in the Social Media sphere these days! There’s a strong reason why they are becoming a fad and brands are adopting to building their chatbots. Have you ever had a problem with a service or a product and ended up contacting the company? Many of us have and chances are that the experience wasn’t pleasant. The process can be very frustrating and in most cases, those customer support agents aren’t trained very well and have limited knowledge and resources to actually help solve your issue.
It’s time to move on from those pesky agents! It’s 2017 and technology is advancing. In this case, chatbots have started to take on real human support agents. It is way more convenient and way less time consuming to chat with a chatbot. You can have a smooth conversation with it and not have any interruptions because it uses A.I (Artificial Intelligence) to find the appropriate response for you. Various apps like Facebook Messenger or Direct Messages on Twitter greatly help since they have the ability to implement chatbots for businesses and brands. Some chatbots are even able to learn from the information that is sent. For example, if a customer wants to order a particular food item, the bot will remember what that person ordered and will ask if he’d like to order it again the next time he returns. Chatbots have the ability to quickly search through large amounts of information to correctly choose the best answers for the customer.
Take for example the Chatbot Mercedes Benz Middle East uses on their Facebook page – it’s an interactive bot that not only interacts with the users but is also capable to doing some strong lead capture by guiding the user and helping them choose the right car for them.
Instant replies from the brand and a great hand held realistic approach towards some great lead capture. Take the bot for a spin here and click on ‘Send Message’
Here are snapshots of what the Chatbot does.
If you view the chart below, you’ll notice the three top reasons why consumers want to be contacted by chat. It helps them resolve problems more quickly, it’s more convenient, and it allows the consumer to have a record of the communication with the bot.
If customers have a positive interaction with a company or brand, they are more likely to return. Just think about it. Have you ever Tweeted something you liked about a product and tagged or mentioned the company that makes it? You didn’t expect a reply, but you got one. What would you do? You would likely be a returning customer of their’s right?
3 Brands in UAE that are nailing it on Twitter (and what you can learn from them)
Chatbots are also very easy to use. With Twitter DMs and Facebook Messenger, you can create bots with Quick Replies. Quick Replies are pre-filled options that a user can choose if one matches their need. For example, a customer is greeted with an automatic welcome message asking them to choose the appropriate option. If they need to find the closest store location, they would select the appropriate Quick Reply. The bot would respond asking them to send their current location and then it would provide them with the store closest to the sent location.
Business or not, anyone can create a chatbot. They’re not only for customer service, but also for fun. Visit this Botlist Collection to view bots made for your entertainment. If you or your business or brand would like to implement a chatbot, there are many platforms that allow you to construct an intricate bot with. You can also hire a company to build a bot for you. Messenger bots are fairly easy to build because so many platforms have already been created to make it easy for you to build one. Twitter is a different story. The feature is relatively new. They had released their DM API to the public not too long ago. Only a few platforms let you build a DM bot.
That’s it! My two cents on why it’s important for a business or brand to have a chatbot.
Article contributed by Sam Schmir – a writer for a Medium Publication called Chatbots Magazine (@ChatbotsMag) which is followed by over 27,000 people, and a writer of Blog posts for Botlist, an official Venture Beat (@VentureBeat) Media Partner.
Want to contribute to Social Kandura? Get in touch with us here
Leave a comment