Businesses like SaaS, financial services, and retail spend thousands of dollars maintaining customer care centers. But “long wait time on hold” remains at the top of client complaints.
Good to know there’s a shift to self-service.
81% of customers prefer caring for themselves rather than contacting a support agent. Solutions like knowledge base articles and FAQ sections reduce the number of customer queries. But this research takes time. What about those who want fast answers?
AI chatbot is the answer. It is a perfect solution for each side: people get desired info instantly, companies save money, and support agents can focus on more complex requests.
What is a conversational AI chatbot, and how to use it? Find out five use cases on how businesses implemented it.
What is a conversational AI chatbot?
You’ve definitely heard about Chat GPT, Siri, and Alexa. Each of these programs is a bright example of an AI chatbot. They mimic human conversation by answering your questions through text or speech.
An AI chatbot is a website or app program that uses machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP) to interpret and answer user requests as a human.
For instance, Replika chatbot:
Its main idea is to create a sense of a real human conversation. Thus, the chatbot UI reminds the Sims game a lot. Image source.
Unlike simple rule-based chatbots, AI chatbot doesn’t limit you to choose one of the predefined buttons to continue a conversation. You are free to type your request using any words. AI understands the intent.
Rule-based chatbot VS AI chatbot. Image source.
Moreover, AI chatbots learn from each interaction with a human and become increasingly intelligent over time. It is an excellent solution for businesses to connect with their customers without involving a human agent.
By saying that, I mean:
✅ Reducing customer service costs. Agents don’t need to spend time on repeated questions.
✅ Happy customers that get instant personalized answers. There are no queues, no waiting on hold.
✅ Increased first and repeated sales. AI chatbots are a proven way to get money for your business. They guide website visitors on a product choice and nurture prospects through your sales funnel.
✅ Better understanding of the target audience by collecting customer feedback and tracking consumer behaviors.
✅ Growing customer engagement via a proactive invitation to a chat with a personalized offer.
✅ Easier onboarding in IT products and services. It takes some time to understand how they work. Unfortunately, the majority of users don’t complete this process. A chatbot’s tour guide is one of the best solutions to prevent client churn.
✅ Improved lead generation by offering valuable content, expert meetings, etc., in a chatbot conversation.
All this is real, but only if you use AI chatbots correctly. Let’s dive into five use cases of businesses communicating with customers via AI chatbots.
Use case 1: Scheduling appointments
People tend to forget things like meeting with a doctor, cosmetologist, etc. businesses lose money and potentially also clients in such moments. In addition to a potential revenue loss, they pay a manager who provides scheduling assistance.
The fix? AI chatbot. It is a brilliant solution for appointment-based services like medical clinics, beauty salons, law firms, real estate businesses, and financial institutions.
It’s a good idea to implement an AI chatbot when building fintech software for your business to make it work properly.
Here is how it works:
- In a short conversation, they collect your visitors’ contact data and share a link to your Calendly, Google calendar, etc.
- There, clients can choose a preferred time.
- Afterwards, they receive a relevant reminder in email or text message, and you can see a scheduled event in your calendar with all the lead data.
Sure thing, you need relevant integrations. But this is a both-benefit solution: saved time for your managers and instant replies for clients. As a result, you get enhanced customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Use case 2: Answering FAQs
Answering repeated simple questions takes a vast part of support agents’ day. One of the solutions to save their time is an FAQ section and knowledge base articles. They cover the majority of frequently asked questions.
But people are lazy. They want fast replies and prefer to get them from chatbots like this client asking to block his business bank account:
And here is an example of how Cars24, a second-hand car dealership, uses an AI chatbot to handle simple customers questions on WhatsApp:
There is a list of repeated questions a typical car buyer asks when considering the purchase of a used vehicle:
- The age of the car;
- Its make and model;
- Condition (such as whether it has been in an accident or undergone any paint work);
- Current market price, etc.
AI chatbot answers them by crawling the Cars24 website content. It handled over 100,000 chats and helped the company to achieve a 75% cost reduction compared to the call center.
Use case 3: Guiding a customer through a product choice
Product recommendations are vital for the retail sector. For instance, the recommendation engine brings Amazon 35% of its revenue. The same case is with sophisticated SaaS services.
Despite excellent website navigation and content, finding the right product takes time. Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to provide human assistance to each visitor when you have thousands or millions of them.
To tackle this issue, now businesses have AI chatbots.
By defining customers’ preferences, interests, and needs with a series of questions, it can suggest the perfect item in seconds. This is precisely how eBay’s ShopBot works:
Just a few questions and customers get a personalized list of suggestions. Such a conversation makes them feel special and increases your revenue.
Use case 4: Collecting customer feedback
No one knows how to improve your business better than your clients. Moreover, 85% of them would like to share those insights. Considering the article topic, you know the easiest way to collect it.
Launch an AI chatbot on your website to know:
- if your offerings align with clients’ expectations;
- if they are satisfied with the quality of your service;
- areas of improvement.
Here is an example of an AI chatbot that’ll engage your buyers to complete surveys after purchasing a product or chatting with support agents.
The conversation of such a chatbot depends on the words you’ll use. To level up its engagement, use GIFs, images, and videos.
Use case 5: Generating leads
This is always a top priority for marketers. No matter how great your offer or content is, banner blindness, never-ending form fields, and annoying pop-ups make it harder to get customers’ attention. People ignore these website elements. They want a personalized experience.
And what can be more personal than a one-to-one conversation?
This is why 55% of businesses use a chatbot to engage website visitors to share their contact data.
AI chatbots only appear at the right moment, for example, when a potential client has scrolled to an Organized Trips part of the webpage.
AI chatbot engages visitors in a conversation with a proactive welcome message, asks several questions to define their preferences, offers relevant answers, and asks for a contact to continue the conversation.
Thus, your sales managers get data to qualify leads in addition to an email.
To summarize
Recent trends show that the number of AI chatbot fans is growing. And their numbers will continue growing in the coming years.
The global chatbot market is expected to reach US$9.4 billion by 2024. While AI gets smarter, customer experience will evolve and business revenue will rise.
But don’t forget that adding a chatbot to a website can do more harm than good. The key to the successful use of chatbots is personalization. Customers expect tailored experiences aligning with their specific needs and preferences.
AI is here to stay. And a well-programmed AI chatbot just might be the perfect way to take your small business to the next level.
