Rise of the machine

We are living in a time where computers are becoming more engrained into our lives. Some machines are starting to become aware of their surroundings. For many this can be a scary time while others it is truly an exciting time. Change is already taking place and the question is are you, and your business, ready for this change. We all have seen movies like the Terminator where the machine not only takes over the world but destroys all of humanity. This is far from the truth (today) of what is happening, and we are all a determined group of individuals to prevent it from getting out of hand (so we all hope). Machines are here to help reduce the repetitive nature of our lives. It is up to us to determine how we utilize these machines to better mankind as well as augment we mere humans.

Over the past year we have seen an increase with chatbots to augment our social media management for our clients. This originally started our for a few select businesses but now has fully expanded to restaurants, lawyers, political candidates, service-oriented businesses, and not-for-profits to drive sales, push for donations, answer questions, and more without utilizing humans for these repetitive tasks. With this push humans are still needed as these chatbots are not able to do everything we wish they could do. They can help with a large percentage of the common questions that are asked. They are answered consistently and in the tone the business wants to see happen. These chatbots can even be trained, like us, to better do their jobs over time.

Like a human a chatbot needs training and education. This education is easy as what we are teaching it is to answer questions, handle requests, and be an extension of customer service. Training for chatbots, like all of us, is critical to provide a consistent and accurate message to those asking the question. This training will further improve your overall customer service and help guide those interacting with it through your sales funnel.

With all of that what are some of the benefits of using a chatbot to augment, not replace, your customer service and sales cycle?

• Consistency – Chatbots provide consistent messages across all customers as well as leads.
• Never pissed off – Chatbots treat everyone the same, same tone, and never get angry.
• Sales Funnel Improvements – Like text message or SMS you can send broadcasts to one or more individuals based on their unique needs. Unlike SMS though you can refine the criteria that is broadcasted based on certain interactions they’ve done with your chatbot.
• Abandoned Cart Recovery – Utilizing chatbots you can ping customers that leave items in you’re their shopping cart so that you can work on closing that deal that was started and never completed.
• Higher Interactions – Chatbots with their broadcast capability help drive more traffic to your website and through your sales funnel.
• Faster sales cycle – The sales cycle with chatbots is often higher than that of text messaging.
• Lower cost – Always a favorite for every business owner. Chatbots are almost always cheaper.
• Higher Open Rates – Chatbots consistently have higher open rates than text messaging.
• Lead Qualification – With chatbots you can qualify leads faster and with more accuracy.
• Analytics – Anyone doing marketing knows the more analytics and details you get about delivery, open, and click-through rates is critical. With online chatbots you can garner a lot more information and better target customers, especially ones engaging with your brand.

Technology is rapidly changing daily. If your business is sitting stagnant or not moving forward with the times you will either be going out of business or will be seeing your business market share decline. Are you utilizing tools to provide consistency for your customers or are you just winging it day-by-day? If your answer is to wing it or do nothing at all you are missing out on growth, increased customer service, and you will be left behind. You will never be able to completely remove the human factor but if you can improve your customer service, improve your sales, and grow your company why are you not doing it?

Our team is here to assist your business in growing and using ever improving technologies. As we see the products mature and be accepted, we provide these to our clients who are on plans these tools for little or no additional charge. With the emphasis on no additional charge.