Why Should I Use a Chatbot?
Actually, it’s very simple. Chatbots help you increase conversions from existing traffic, and reduce incoming support calls and emails from your customers.
So why are chatbots so good at what they do? Well for one, they can work without a break. They’re available to answer questions from your website’s visitors round the clock, all while focusing on your business goal – conversions or online support.
But the biggest reason is that your website is bad at it!
It’s a fact that many businesses fail to recognize. Most website are packed with products, deals, categories, information and guides. But is this content easy to find? Not necessarily.
Visitors that come to your website are interested in your product or service. Once they are on your website, they look for useful information that will help them make a decision on becoming a customer. The doubt or query they have could be about your offering, or about an obstacle that’s preventing them from making a purchase. In any case, they’re likely to have questions.
The same goes for customers who are looking for support. Your website probably includes a lot of information, guides and forms that can help them solve their problems online. But customers struggle with filtering out the information they need from all the promotional material, product info and other content on your website.
This is why a chatbot becomes so important. It’s a great way to engage your website's visitors from the get-go, and help them focus on what they’re looking for. The chatbot allows them to ask their question in their own words and find the information they need in a moment.
The chatbot completes what your website is missing in 3 major aspects: Attention Ratio, Message Match, and Online Service. Let’s understand these in a little more detail.
Attention Ratio
For any modern business with an online presence, the attention of your website’s visitors is a powerful commodity. A chatbot gets your visitors to notice and engage with your website content by helping them navigate to the pages or information they’re looking for.
‘Attention ratio’ is a term used to quantify this. Basically, it refers to the number of things you have on your website versus the one thing that a visitor who comes to your website is looking for.
The fact that the chatbot is a floating element on top of your website makes it noticeable to your visitors right from the get-go. Once you have a visitor’s attention, they can ask for anything they want and the chatbot will help them find it!
Message Match
It’s a known fact that 90% of website visitors leave the average website in less than a minute! They leave without making a purchase, without leaving their contact info, and without getting answers to their questions. In other words, they disappear as fast as they came and without leaving a trace. Why do they do this? Simply because they couldn’t find what they were looking for within a few seconds.
‘Message match’ means the accuracy with which you can reflect your visitors’ needs and reasons for coming to your website.
A chatbot engages visitors with a simple welcome message that starts a conversation. This one-line message reflects the visitor’s needs.
For example, let’s say a person who is looking to buy a vacuum cleaner does a Google search and lands up on your website. Your chatbot engages the visitor with a simple message like: "I can see that you’re interested in a Vacuum Cleaner. How may I help you?"
Once it has captured a visitor's attention by reflecting their reason for coming to your website, the chatbot is in a great position to start a conversation and convert the visitor into a lead or customer by answering his questions and driving him forward to meet your goals.
Online Service
In a brick-and-mortar store, customers have access to sales staff who can help them find what they need. On a website, however, they have no one to reach out to and no one that can help them navigate the website, get answers to their questions and direct them through the sales process.
‘Online service’ refers to the options you have in place for guiding visitors within your website and making sure that they convert or get support to solve their problems online.
After getting your visitors’ attention and showing them the right message match, a chatbot offers them your online service options. This is very much like a front desk representative who offers help and directions to people visiting your store.
In our recent example, once the chatbot has engaged the visitor with the welcome message "I can see that you are interested in a Vacuum Cleaner", it can display options to move the conversation forward. These could be choices like ‘Buy Now’, ‘Get a Quote’, ‘Ask a Question’, ‘Product Details’, and so on.
Basically, the chatbot is indirectly asking the visitor, "Now that you’re here, what would you really like to do? Do you want to buy the product, do you have questions about the product, or do you need our recommendation?"
Providing the customer with options is the basis of any sales method. The chatbot does it online while focusing on offering efficient and user-friendly service.