Chatbots have become a familiar and effective solution for all types of businesses. Yet, at the same time, people stopped paying attention to the conversation's formal, "dry" tone. The reason is simple: it does not affect the quality of work tasks. After all, the main purpose of a chatbot is to collect primary information and transfer it to the technical support team or sales managers.
However, if you want to offer quality service and overtake your competitors, you should make your virtual assistant even more effective. For example, you can improve user experience through friendly communication. Look at our tips!
How To Understand That You Need a Chatbot on the Website
There are a massive number of chatbot builders available on the market. They allow you to create an online solution as quickly as possible and immediately launch it. But first, you need to understand what benefit it will bring to you. Indeed, sometimes, online assistants cannot answer simple questions or understand them, negatively impacting your business performance. According to research by Webim, 73% of Americans have given up using chatbots after a bad user experience. The reasons were different: dry tone of correspondence, long replies, long waiting time, etc.
The online assistant is helpful in the following cases:
- you get a vast number of the same questions in the chat on the website or in social networks;
- you try to automate the collection of inquiries, requests, or customer data;
- you need to set up custom notifications.
At the same time, there are tasks when you do not need a chatbot:
- most user questions are complex and cover a wide range of topics;
- you get a few requests;
- you want to replace technical support operators with a virtual assistant completely. However, even the most advanced chatbot cannot replace a live consultation.
Decide on a Goal
There are many uses for chatbots. However, for greater efficiency, it is necessary to identify the goal. After all, it will be much easier to achieve the desired result if you know what you want.
One of the primary uses of virtual assistants is front-line customer service, and this approach will help reduce the volume of requests that need to be processed by the support staff. According to an IBM study, chatbots can answer 80% of the most common support questions.
In addition, bots can help you generate leads, market new products, or increase your brand awareness. At the same time, it is essential first to make sure that the goals are clear and only then begin to develop them.
Create a Content Library
If you want your chatbot to work effectively, you need to create a base - a list of frequently asked questions. Next, determine what dialogues the online assistant will conduct what questions he will solve. It will also not be superfluous to talk with colleagues in the field who are already using chatbots in business. For example, if you need a chatbot to analyze the target audience and find new customers, discuss this issue with the sales department. Its employees will tell you what questions users ask and what answers they get.
Due to the wrong approach to collecting requests, sales departments lose a lot of money. And all because employees do not know how to evaluate a potential client. So why not assign this task to a chatbot? The virtual assistant can ask a few simple questions and consider users before the sales representative interacts with them.
Provide a Semblance of Live Dialogue
Has it ever happened to you that you communicate with a bot, and it starts to pile you with endless sheets of text? In addition, when you go to the FAQ section on the website, you find that the answers are the same as from the dialogue in the virtual assistant.
After this, you probably won't want to communicate with the chatbot because you are wasting your precious time. And a constructive conversation depends on a dialogue with support, even if it is online. Of course, it is not easy to build a full-fledged dialogue with a bot, but it is quite possible to provide its resemblance.
However, often marketing managers forget about the user who gets tired of long answers. Therefore, they do not bring the desired effect because the client can go to the frequently asked questions section and get the same answer. Consequently, you can forget about such a communication scenario.
You may object that specific answers require further disclosure. Therefore, if you want to prevent the virtual assistant from getting a long monologue, take a pause and ask a clarifying question (for example, "Ready to move on?", "Is everything clear?", "There is one more thing you need to know," etc.).
Train the Bot
The chatbot can learn from each dialogue with the client, and it does it quite successfully. For example, one user wants to check the status of an order. Therefore, he asks the chatbot: "Where is my order?" Then, the bot shows the necessary information - the order has been paid/completed, the courier has left, and so on.
At the same time, another client can write to the bot, "Track my package using the number XXXX." The bot will learn to decipher this wording and understand that it is asked the same question.
The learning process can be automatic (using machine learning technology) or done manually. If everything is evident in the first case, how to train a virtual assistant yourself?
When training a bot manually, you specify what a specific question presentation means. This approach is beneficial if the chatbot sees a misspelled question and doesn't understand it. You can also train the bot on different wordings of the same request.
Manual training does not require technical training. A few button presses - and the virtual assistant is trained. The more time you spend training the bot, the better it understands customer questions. Over time, the bot will learn to recognize dozens of ways to ask the same question.
Now let's look at what small businesses need to do when implementing chatbots into their customer service activities to achieve positive results.
Use a Real-life Language
Avoid using formal and "dry" sentences. For example, not every user will understand the phrase "Invalid email address format." Yes, the phrase makes sense, but a real person does not answer that way.
Therefore, use a more real-life language. For example, the sentence mentioned above can be expressed in a slightly different way:
"Oops ?, there is a mistake in the email address. Check it and send the address again."
The same approach applies to the buttons in the chatbot. You can use the standard wording "Submit," "Cancel," "Start," and others. But it is much better to use the text that applies to your target audience:
- "Go!"
- "It fits me."
- "I do not like it."
Offer Quick Answers to User Questions
Despite the ability of a virtual assistant to understand human speech, it is essential to offer quick answers that can help during a dialogue. If a chatbot is like a long and empty road that goes far ahead, then quick answer options are signs that lead your client in the right direction.
Imagine a grocery delivery bot asking what a customer wants. If your audience is used to answering differently, you need an online assistant to recognize hundreds of query options and give the correct answer.
The next step is to create a list of quick responses. For example, instead of asking which product category the user wants, offer him answer buttons - "Dairy," "Bakery," "Vegetables," "Fruits," etc. In this case, you will not worry that the bot does not understand the customer, and the customer will be able to get an accurate answer without having to write loads of text.
Test, Monitor, and Test Again
One of the first and most popular bots globally is Alexa from Amazon. Now companies from different fields of business are trying to equal it, from e-commerce and the financial sector to educational projects.
The virtual assistant communicates using a generated voice, but it can also listen and interpret requests in the same way a chatbot responds to typed text. At the same time, some questions can confuse the bot, and it will give an error, or the answer to the question will be wrong.
The same applies to other solutions for creating chatbots. Your main task is to test the bot before launching it and monitor its performance in the future.
Here are our two tips on how to organize testing of an online assistant for any business:
- Monitor the bot after launch. The best solution is to ask the client to rate the bot from 1 to 5. Any score below 5 is an option to make the technology better. Therefore, check the maximum number of bot responses and notice when the virtual assistant did not work as expected. It is also important to constantly train the chatbot on interactions with customers. After all, quick responses to requests and clear answers guarantee customer satisfaction.
- Don't be afraid to take the lead. Are new trends and terms appearing in your area? Did competitors present new products? Make sure the bot knows about it. If the virtual assistant cannot answer questions related to new products, your customers will get frustrated and move to your competitors. You, in turn, will lose a client and money.
These tips will help you test your bot and find its weaknesses. After all, your business's income depends on the effectiveness of the virtual assistant.
Conclusion
Let's sum it up. Chatbots can save time and money, especially for small businesses with limited customer support resources. After the initial setup and training of the virtual assistant, you will see that the number of requests to technical support will decrease significantly.
In addition, bots provide access to an extensive customer database. Usually, small companies cannot collect information independently so that virtual assistance will be helpful. As a result, you will improve your business strategy and increase its efficiency.
Therefore, chatbots are another channel for effective communication with the target audience. Satisfied customers will bring even more profit, and it will allow your company to strengthen its position in the market and increase earnings. All you need to do is follow our advice!
We hope that you found our article helpful. If you have any questions about setting up a chatbot, leave them in the comments below. We will answer them and analyze the most interesting ones in the following articles.