How Brands Are Using Chatbots Creatively to Connect With Audiences and Engage Them Effectively
Reposted from Information Today. Authored by Linda Pophal | Journalist
Chatbots hold a lot of potential for connecting with customers in cost-effective ways, triaging customer requests or inquiries, addressing customer service issues, and more. Jamie Kennedy, director of digital strategy and customer experience solutions at HGS (a global leader in digital user experience solutions), says, “Chatbot marketing can be used to automate customer communication for basic or complex digital marketing strategies. Using bots to help market a business is efficient and offers excellent opportunities to optimize and streamline the first point of connection with a customer.” There are some very practical applications for chatbots across all industries. “Simple chatbot marketing strategies may focus on customer service requests and FAQs, and then develop into lead generation and sales moments,” Kennedy says. “There are also in-app shopping experiences, which are a great way to leverage a seamless chatbot integration. Overall, chatbot integration can add value to digital marketing strategies by increasing website engagement and strengthening a brand’s relationship with its target audiences.” Chatbots also save staff time, which can result in increased productivity and reduced operations costs.
CHATBOTS PAY OFF
Mike Clifton, EVP and chief information and digital officer at Alorica (a digital customer experience solution), shares an example from one of Alorica’s clients that leveraged Alorica’s Virtual Assistant (AVA), a cognitive chatbot that can handle multiple inquiry types to help customers get answers to even very complex questions. One consumer electronics manufacturer, Clifton says, “was able to achieve real-world results, as the chatbots were able to reduce customer service costs by 83%, thanks in large part to chatbot conversations resolving over two-thirds—67%—of customer inquiries.” Forward-thinking businesses, says Clifton, are successfully employing chatbots to automate high-frequency, low-complexity to mid-complexity interactions at scale with their respective audiences. To do this effectively, he says, “companies need to first develop a solid knowledge management foundation to derive the highest probability of responses.” From there, “they can either deliver those responses to aid in shorter call or chat times or leverage natural language processing to allow virtual assistants to further refine interactions.” Doing this, Clifton says, can help companies improve service while lowering costs and “enjoying increased customer retention, loyalty, and spend.” Because chatbots can add measurable value, it’s important to quantify, track, and manage that value. “Chatbots offer unique and novel ways to connect with customers and when done well, [they] can greatly increase customer data performance indicators— an important, if not the most important, way to measure chatbot success,” says Kennedy.
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