Guest Blogger, Francis Milligan: “Freelance digital marketer based in Glasgow. Small business owner with a specialism in Social Media. Amateur photographer with a love for attractive social content, with well written copy.”
When looking at smart chatbots, we see a strong similarity to human traits, some even have the ability to complete, and pass, the Turing Test; a test generated to test human intelligence in computers. Below we’ll look into the revolution of the chatbot how they could be of value to your business.
The increase within AI for technology, coupled with the rapid increase of message based apps, such as WhatsApp and Messenger, has made chatbots a desirable marketing tool for many businesses. Looking at marketing statistics we can see that Facebook Messenger is growing by 142% year on year, with the last tracked number being 1.2billion monthly users.
The AI and machine learning tech that we see in various industries today give advanced abilities to let businesses connect with their audience in an instant. Chatbots give the ability to drive great conversions due to their instant engagement with a conversational manner. Chatbots, on-site, then also have the channel to showcase other products or direct the user to the most suitable page and increase the conversion rate; potentially helping to hit more campaign goals.
Noticing the response rates of chatbots, many businesses have already started utilising chatbots via messaging apps. Some businesses are now using automated chatbots as their entire business model, such as Plum or Cleo – automated banking apps that allow for saving money each time you spend. Facebook Messenger chatbots has been referred to as the most important addition to the world of technology since the launch of the Apple App Store.
Some of the largest companies in the world, such as Microsoft and Amazon are using large portions of their marketing budget to invest in messaging and chatbot platforms.
Below are the top reasons to follow the trend and join the chatbot revolution:
- Chatbots can instantly respond and engage with numerous visitors simultaneously. Plus, chatbots allow for continual, consistent, and cohesive interaction ; as opposed to numerous live respondents at various times.
- Data collection via chatbot interaction, from the visitor, is free customer response on your services, and how to improve them, based on their needs/requirements. The recorded data will allow for changes and streamlining to your site.
- The personal approach that breaks down certain visitors first interaction with your site/business gives the ability to bypass the unknown brand they have came across and complete their purchase. A chatbot has the ability to filter leads for future targeting and drive the ready-to-buy qualified leads to your conversion metrics or marketing/sales teams.
- There are 6 billion devices that will ask for some form of support throughout 2018, a chatbot allows for intelligent and instant interaction with those potential customers.
- 10,000 Facebook developers are building chatbots in Facebook messenger, which is 15% more than last year.
Chatbots will take away the need for the human interaction and reduce the need for extra workforce planning with most online businesses in 2020 and with their relatively low expense, they are something all businesses should consider in 2018.
Joining with the revolution now will help combat the learning curve in 2020.
