A lot of businesses have started popping up from everywhere simply because starting a business in 2024 is easier than ever. Thanks to the easy access to the Internet, almost anyone can start their own company with just a press of a button. But, just by creating your own company does not necessarily mean that you will see profits. If you truly want to reach success and make money out of your business idea, you will have to invest the proper marketing strategies. Today, chatbots are a great addition to marketing.
However, properly deploying a chatbot is not as easy as you think. The first problem you will have to overcome is making sure that you pick the right one. Yes, there are hundreds of chatbots available online. You have to consider pricing, features, performance, specifications, and many other factors before you invest in it.
Nevertheless, I assume you are here because you want to know more about this technology and not about the factors that you have to consider. If you still do not believe in this kind of marketing strategy, here are some of the best marketing benefits you can get out of using such technology in 2024.
1. 24/7 uptime
I think that one of the most obvious benefits of implementing this kind of technology to your website is the fact that it is “a robot”. In other words, you set up your bot on your website which can chat with your customers and clients and it will be up every hour, every day, all the time. There is no downtime when using such a bot.
Whenever a customer needs support, your bot will be there for them. Whenever a new client comes around and wants several questions answered, the bot will answer those questions without you having to move a single muscle.
This kind of customer support availability is very important. It makes clients feel important and your number one priority. This is probably true for your company, but it is impossible for smaller businesses to have 24/7 customer support. It is very expensive and time-consuming.
Thankfully, these bots are inexpensive and easy to maintain.
2. Fully customizable
Have you ever reached out to customer support on some website? If you have, you have probably been introduced to some sort of a chat system. During the chat, you can basically ask anything you want and it will be answered. Most of the time, the person on the other side has an answer to all your questions.
However, you probably did not know this, but it might not have been a person on the other side. In fact, it could have been a chatbot. Yes, these “robots” today are that smart. They can be quite convincing. Of course, only if they are programmed correctly. Although, the bot cannot always answer every question. It might not be programmed to answer certain questions. At that moment the customer will be transferred to communicate with a real person. This transition is usually unnoticeable and instantaneous.
But, as you invest more time onto your chatbot, it will be a lot more capable. It will manage to speak with a lot more clients at the same time and will have the ability to answer a lot more questions. As time goes on, you can always update and customize your bot to ensure that customers are always satisfied with your support.
This level of customizability is what makes this a great investment for a marketing strategy. Just make sure you purchase or hire a bot with the right features. If you are not familiar with all the different types of chatbots, you should check this and compare them. You can then decide whether a welcome, survey, lead generation or a competition bot is for you.
3. Instant response
No matter how much you train your employees for online support, they are still humans. In other words, whenever a customer asked for help, they need time to think of a proper response and to write that response. You also have to account for the response time. Like I already said, they are just humans.
Well, bots are not humans which is why they can provide the instant response that you want on your website. The moment a customer presses enter, the bot will immediately respond. In fact, it might even have a response before the customer asks of their question.
4. Faster transactions
Purchasing online has never been perfect. Even purchasing at a regular brick-and-mortar store with a credit card is not always a smooth experience. Sometimes the bank canceled the order by mistake or the card gets declined for no apparent reason.
The same thing can happen when a client tries to purchase something from your online store. Once they see an error, they will immediately try to contact your support. Fortunately, for these situations, a human does not have to respond. The entire process is very familiar to most chatbots. This means that the bot can fix all the issues related to the transaction in a short amount of time which will make the customer happy.
Naturally, if there are still problems that the bot cannot resolve, a real person can always take over the task.
5. It is cheaper
As I mentioned previously, hosting a chatbot is much cheaper than paying several different people to keep a 24/7 uptime of your customer support. Most budgets of smaller businesses are not big enough to pay for such labor. So, if you want to save money and if you want to keep your budget tight, you should definitely consider hiring a chatbot as a marketing strategy.
Obviously, there are different types of bots that you can choose from. Some will be more expensive and others will be cheaper. The cheaper ones will usually have fewer features. The expensive ones will be full of all kinds of features.
As you can see, it is very beneficial for marketing strategies to use a chatbot for your business in 2024. I hope that this guide has helped you realize that.