Photo by Miguel Á. Padriñán

Originally Posted On: https://clevermessenger.com/customer-support-with-chatbots/

 

Long gone are the days of waiting for a response from customer support. Remember when you had to wait for the help? Just waiting to come back to you for days, even for the simplest of questions? Well, luckily, that problem is eradicated in customer support with chatbots. This Gartner prediction estimates more than 85% of businesses will use AI to communicate with customers. According to research, 53% of customers prefer to talk to customer support online… rather than call them. And with growth every year of online presence and users, these numbers are only going to increase.

Of course, the quality of the chatbots is on the up with the ever-increasing presence of AI. Data and statistics for improving AI are collected daily by some of the biggest companies in the world. And one of the best ways to use the AI is for customer support. Customer support with chatbots is totally automated, and it works for you 24/7 if you’re a business owner. No longer will you need to worry about all the unanswered questions from customers that you have to deal with every morning.

How Does Customer Support With Chatbots Work?

Bots have long gone from responding to yes/no questions, and are becoming more human-like. A scary thought for some, we know, but for companies and those who use them, it’s an exciting prospect.

A chatbot uses AI and machine learning to answer questions. As these questions are sometimes complex… the importance of the quality of the AI is ever-growing. A few years back, a chatbot was only able to answer questions like “Are you open”, or “Do you sell X product?”. The examples are trivial, but you get the point – it’s becoming advanced.

With today’s technology, chatbots can answer questions like “What is the price of X product?” and the like. Then, the chatbots scour the database and search for answers on the given question. Usually, the answers are almost instant.

The AI allows the chatbot to recognize what the question is about. It’s essential a bot can understand the question. Because it will be able to search the relevant databases. For customer support with chatbots, the practical aspect is important. That’s where the information retrieval comes into play. The better it is, the more accurate the response from the chatbot will be.

Why Customer Support With Chatbots Makes Sense

It’s clear: chatbots are transforming the way customer support is done. It gets you clients and increases conversions. And as a result, it saves you money while improving your support.

Chatbots are still not at the same conversational level as human beings (yet). But that’s not the primary role of a chatbot, and shouldn’t be. Instead, it’s used to spread your online presence without you (or your team) ever being present. It’s incredibly helpful to know that when you are safely tucked in, there’s a bot answering customers’ questions for you.

Although the ability to sound as human as possible is improving by the day. Only a few years back, the conversational ability of bots was still crude. Nut today, it’s becoming harder and harder to tell the difference.

Chatbots Make Customer Support Available 24/7

If you wanted to answer every question from your customers promptly, you would become a vampire. Not all your customers might be from the same time zone as you; some might be posing questions when you are asleep. And you don’t want your staff to become vampires, either.

We know that it’s frustrating when you don’t receive a quick response. Unless you use international staff from different time zones, it’s virtually impossible to be available 24/7

A customer from the other side of the country/world will feel neglected and will likely turn to your competitors. If you want to keep an international presence, you’ll want to make your customer support readily available.

It’s hard to place all your trust in a chatbot to handle the questions when you’re not there. But the technology is capable of doing that. Most of these will recognize the questions and look for answers in the database. If they deem that the issue is only suitable for live support, they will filter it out.

They Speak Many Languages

Yes, the bots speak many languages. That’s crucial for keeping an international database of customers. It helps massively for a customer to know that you care about them. You can accommodate customers from all over the world with customer support with chatbots.

Besides the 24/7 support, this is one of the most critical features for increasing your presence globally. As most businesses operate online, there is an increasing need to keep your business multilingual to stay competitive. Plus, you won’t have to use international staff, which will save you the hassle and the money.

Sure, the chatbot knowledge of the language might not be up to par with a native speaker. But at least there’s a way to reach more customers with this easy implementation.

Make Your Brand Stand Out From The Crowd

Having a chatbot that only answers simple questions effectively just won’t do the trick. Today, chatbots are a sign of your stature, credibility, and security. Visitors will feel safer, they will feel like they are dealing with a reputable business that cares about its customers.

Chatbot personalization is making waves. It’s no longer enough to “just have the chatbot”. Instead, you can use them to extend your brand image and personalize them. You can use them with various conversational styles, and most of them allow the use of emojis. Using these can make the chatbots feel more human and warm.

You can even design your chatbot to be chatty and conversational or to be uniform-like and official. In most cases, some humor is encouraged and preferred, also. Customer support with chatbots doesn’t have to be this boring, colorless experience.

But how would a bot with no emotions show some personality, you might ask? They’re designed to handle the chit-chat, and the possible banter coming from the customer. This will help you create a satisfactory user experience while engaging your customers in the conversation.

Chatbots Save Money And Time

One single chatbot can cover the work of several customer service agents. Should you get rid of your staff for chatbots? No. Should you consider using chatbots for international customer support? Most definitely!

Chatbots might never be completely capable of replacing a human service agent. Instead, they can fulfill the role of this utility customer support agent. It will help cover you at night, and for global interactions in the languages, you or your staff don’t know. You’ll save some money for the wages you would have to pay for an international service agent.

Indeed, chatbots are not capable of human interaction, but that’s not what they are built for. The primary purpose is to inform and give adequate support when you’re not able to. It’s an excellent option for both big companies and for smaller businesses working on a tight budget.

It’s expected that in the next years, bots will save several billion dollars in agent wages. Plus, other costs connected to customer support. That’s impressive, right?

Quick Responses Are Key

One of the quickest ways to lose a customer is to not answer their questions at all. Or to answer them when they’ve already found the answer. In some cases, a “no-reply” answer is also not enough. Chatbots are better than that.

The attention span of the customer is short, and nobody wants to wait for days to get an answer for a question, especially if it’s a simple one. If they can find the answer themselves, they would instead not engage. But if they do, they must be very curious about something that they were unable to find the solution for.

Bots will provide (at least) the smallest amount of engagement needed to keep a customer interested. They will give a welcome message for the customer, and show them that they are ready for questions. If the chatbot doesn’t know the answer yet, they can point the visitor to the FAQ page. Or a similar type of page where they could find the answer. It’s still better than waiting a week for an answer, and it shows that you care.

Use The Chatbots To Reduce The Load On Your Agents

You can improve customer support with chatbots by decreasing the load your agents endure daily. Your staff will feel relieved! Because many businesses struggle to handle each question due to the number of items your agents have to handle.

And since your agents can’t answer all the questions, customers might start to lose interest and leave your site. Customer support with chatbots helps you remedy that problem in some ways. If the query is too complicated for the bot, they’ll redirect the question to your agents.

Chatbots Can’t Replace A Human Being (Yet)

Sure, chatbots will reduce the chance of human error, but they can’t replace a human. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Using a chatbot doesn’t necessarily mean getting rid of your employees right away. It shouldn’t, in any case. As useful and as practical as they are, they can’t replace the proper human interaction that many of your visitors crave. They’re handy for providing information or pointing the visitor to the relevant place on your page.

They’re great for simple tasks but are sometimes incapable of running a conversation. While that may not be the primary role of customer support. It helps if you can have a decent conversation with one of the employees. It builds trust and gives you the chance of proper human interaction.

This is why chatbots are still not ready to completely replace the staff you use. But the technology is getting there. And it’s preparing towards a future of AI. And of course, customer support with chatbots is just one way where it’s starting to show.

Gathering Data With Chatbots

One of the advantages of having customer support with chatbots is they offer you the chance to collect data. It also allows you to optimize the experience. As the conversations are usually saved, businesses will have an opportunity to review conversations. This way, they can find the most common questions. Like; What makes people frustrated? Where can my site be improved?

There’s a lot to learn from these questions. Chatbots are a good way of optimizing a site that has gone slightly below the radar. Few business owners realize the possibilities that an excellent chatbot tool can offer. It’s not only a constant stream of support. But a great opportunity to optimize the site and increase conversions.

Sadly, that opportunity is often passed up. Knowing what the visitors don’t like about your site or what confuses them is one of the best things about chatbot conversations.

Another possibility for considerable improvements in the A/B testing that many of these tools offer. You can track and test responses to improve the flow of conversations, or you can follow the success of a single line response.

In this way, chatbots are primarily controlled by us, the business owners. We can choose the responses, but we can also learn which ones work best by testing.

Other Benefits Of Customer Support With Chatbots

We already know that customer support with chatbots is a great way to interact with customers, but what are some other benefits of using a chatbot?

• They increase your presence on social platforms and other mediums.
• You can track customer data and improve user experience.
• Better lead generation.
• Increases conversion rates.
• It brings your brand closer to the public.

Wrapping Up

Customer support with chatbots is slowly but surely becoming the primary way of connecting to customers. The interaction with human support agents can still not be adequately replaced. But, they can help you solve various issues that will improve your business. You can quickly increase your worldwide presence and answer to customers 24/7.

Best of all, chatbots can be set up in just a few clicks, and you can get started in no time. Clever Messenger is the most intuitive chatbot creator for Facebook Messenger platform that will massively improve your customer support.