What are the benefits of using a chatbot for business and how it can help engage your target customers and persuade them with offers and convert them into buyers? In this article, we explain everything about Chatbots.
In today’s fast paced world everyone is being bombarded with Internet marketing at every turn and it is increasingly difficult to maintain an ongoing positive relationship with your customers. Regardless of how well your business has been doing there will always be an online dimension that you’ll need to consider if you want to continue to grow and prosper. Needless to say, if you want to have a company that will flourish you will need to work on its online presence sooner rather than later.
So, how can you actually do this? Well, before we actually delve deeper into the many how’s regarding this topic, how about we instead cover the why’s first? After all, if you don’t know the importance behind using bots then you will never be prepared to put all the extra work into using them to your advantage right?
Chatbot For Business: Everything You Need To Know About Chatbots
Alright, so, to start this off we should mention exactly what bots are. Basically, bots are special automated messages used to maintain a normal and ordinary looking conversation with other people through Facebook. Now, sure, there are some bots that can be used with other platforms but throughout this article we will mainly focus on the Facebook marketing chatbots since they are the ones that have showed to offer the most profit.
So, to capitalize on this topic once and for all, bots are extremely helpful because they can actually help you establish a personal relationship with your customers without you actually doing much on your part. If done correctly, your customers can easily have a proper conversation with the bot in which they can get the answers to their questions while also seeing just how capable of a company you are.
Surveys point in this direction also, showcasing the fact that the more successful the bots are in answering the customer’s questions the more likely they are to actually convince the customer to do business. It’s quite simple really, most of the time the clients can even be tricked into believing they are actually talking with a real person on the other side.
This is where our following point of discussion comes in. You can choose between two types of bots. These don’t actually have a name per se, but they are quite self-explanatory and easy to understand regardless. The first type of a bot is the human impersonator.
This bot never specifically says it’s a bot and instead tries to sound as human as possible. You never specifically program the bot to say that it is a human either, since that would be a direct lie, but there is no law out there forcing you to state that they’re talking to a bot either.
So, for this one you need to program a more lenient and professional sounding plethora of answers and questions. Most important of all you need it to sound legit and normal, and you need to make sure that you program it to its fullest. This type of a Bot is extremely hard to procure but it also has the best results. For this one you’ll need to program hundreds of paths and you’ll need to again, make them sound as perfect as humanly possible.
By stating the obvious right in the beginning and then giving the person options to choose from they have a way better understanding of your situation. They know they cannot just talk freely with your bot, they are given clear instructions as to how to word their complaints or questions in order to get the perfect answers.
The second type of bot you can go for is the obvious bot one. This is a more minimalistic version of the bot than the other but it is also very useful in certain cases. You need to start off by programing an announcement in which you state the obvious, aka the fact that the person is not speaking to a human at the time, and instead to a bot. You might think this is a bit counter-intuitive but trust us, it’s way more efficient than you’d give it credit for.
You are controlling the conversation, you’re not adapting to sound as human as possible as you were in the previous bot’s case. This means you need to program a lot less paths which means it’s way easier and at the same time it can be more successful than an unsuccessful human impersonating bot.
So, make your choice before you continue with your project. Choose between the human sounding bot that takes a lot of work to complete but if done properly can be way more successful and the minimalistic and efficient bot that anyone can program and anyone can use to get right answers out of. Regardless of what you choose, if you choose to work with us you’re going to get your money’s worth, we can promise you that.
So, with that part out of the way how about we concentrate on the most important part behind this article, aka how to monetize them. As you may well know by now, you cannot just put a tax on Facebook and force people to waste money in order to talk with your bot for a good hour or so.
Simply put nobody would do that. Instead you can either use it for advertising or you can use them for more complicated things like creating fun mini-games that the client can get through in order to spark their interest in your services.
The first one that we mentioned above is pretty self-explanatory but it can actually prove to be way more complex than you’d think. Right after you read “advertising” you probably just thought about contacting people as soon as they enter your page or as soon as they message you first. Well yes, those are both quite extraordinary ways to use a bot, but they are not the only ones you can choose from.
You can also choose to program them to work as a sort of a newsletter for your clients. Now, you can ask them specifically if they wish to receive the newsletter as soon as they contact you but they will most likely refuse to do so unless you offer some products that they are really interested into. That’s where an incentive comes in to play. This incentive can be anything, really, ranging from a randomly generated discount code for a certain selection of services or products to a chance to win a giveaway of a very popular product of yours.
The possibilities are endless really, all you need to do is make sure that you get their attention and voila, you’ve gotten your client hooked almost instantly. The mini-games on the other hand can work similarly, but they are made to cater to a different type of an audience. So, you’ll need to actually do a lot more work than you would do for a typical bot although the results speak for themselves, really.
So, what can these mini-games consist of, really? Well, again, the sky’s the limit as long as you know what you’re doing. You can offer quizzes for example with different prizes. The prizes can range from discount codes yet again to quirky results. If your company sells gaming items for example you can ask them “what gaming character do you resemble the most?”. You then give the client a bunch of answers to choose from and before you know it they’re right there, ready to play into your mind games.
This might sound a bit silly but trust us, the results speak for themselves. At the end of the day all you’re trying to do is sell yourself as a trustworthy company and the more professional you make your bot sound, the better. The purpose behind this bot is literally to advertise yourself, to create an image of yourself online that people can interact with in order to feel more at ease when talking to you or about you.
So, a mini-game of this sort is definitely a great tool because the next time they need to purchase a product they will obviously think of you as their first option even if they don’t want to. The more ingrained your image is in their head the better because you are literally building yourself up to be seen as a trustworthy company that wants to bond with them as opposed to just being a faceless corporation that only cares about profit.
But alas, the mini-game tactic doesn’t work for every company. Sure, it may work for some gaming companies and even for some kids entertainment companies but you cannot expect something like a lawyer firm to have “fun facts about prison” or anything like that.
So, if your small business doesn’t really fit the mold in this case then you will need to take a different approach, aka the minimalistic one. You will need to program plenty of paths regardless because your main purpose is to seem as professional as possible. For this to work in your favor you will need to be as concise as possible and to offer as many options as you can to make sure that you can successfully troubleshoot any problems the customers may have.
It won’t be easy, trust us, and there will always be one customer asking for an impossible answer, but you must not let that hurt your ego. You need to work more and more and improve upon the bot until you eventually get the results you want.
Creating the bot is not easy, but if you have a general understanding on how to program such a thing then you shouldn’t have a single problem with the process. Depending on which type you choose to work for the process can take as little time and effort as a week and at most it can last for years until you perfect it. Luckily, the rates of failing to create a steady relationship with the customer due to a grammar mistake or a wrong answer from the bot are pretty low.
Generally people don’t actually react that much when they get a wrong answer and instead they work around it to get their good answers. Now, that’s not to say that it can’t get annoying to constantly get wrong answers, but you should definitely understand that a single wrong answer is not the end of the road for you.
So, if you’re new to the programming industry then you will definitely want to go for a simpler and more minimalist variant. Simple and concise answers where you guide the customer to find the right answers themselves. You will find everything you need to know in our other services, we can promise you that.
If you’re already pretty knowledgeable regarding programming though then you’ll need a lot less help regarding the technical side and more regarding the mental side of the bot. We also offer plenty of counseling regarding this aspect. You need the expertise so you don’t choose the wrong method and end up pushing away the customers.
Remember, it’s all pretty basic stuff but if you’re messing up you can do more damage than you can handle. There have been plenty of out of control bots that have ended up harassing people by accident and destroying what little trust they had in the company to begin with. You need to avoid this at all costs.
So, in conclusion, what are bots and how can you use them to make money? It’s quite simple, really. bots are automated messages that have been specifically programmed in order to interact with customers over social platforms like Facebook. Their purpose is to create a relaxing and professional environment in which they can answer any questions that the customer may have regarding the products or the services they provide.
Making money through bots is not actually feasible, but what you can do with them is make sure that you’re using them to help create a more personal relationship with the customer and so convince them to choose you over your competition. If you can answer every question the customers have regarding your products and more then you have successfully programmed the bot.
There are plenty of ways to program the bot, but you need to always look into your own company’s social image before you program anything. You cannot go for a goofy look if everybody sees you as a very professional and serious company that offers high quality services/products.
Work upon your image, don’t reestablish it. Use the bots wisely to create that special bond and make sure that the people understand what you’re there for. It’s all about creating that online presence. If you do not have an influential online presence nowadays then you’re missing out on a whole new internet marketing tactic, trust us.
But alas, the mini-game tactic doesn’t work for every company. Sure, it may work for some gaming companies and even for some kids entertainment companies but you cannot expect something like a lawyer firm to have “fun facts about prison” or anything like that.
