Technology has always pushed our imagination. An AI injected chatbot is one such example which has turned sci-fi idea of virtual customer service into reality within no time. At present, it has consumed most of the B2C space, and soon it is expected to take up the B2B industry as well. Although it seems bit farfetched, we are sure these bots will shake up this segment shortly. There are already some brands that are using this solution and working on creating an excellent experience for the patrons.
Do you belong to this troop of tech giants? If not, you still got time to install them in your B2B site. But how to do so? A well-drafted plan with the thoughtful approach is always a key to win in this digitalized marketing world. Therefore, instead of directly leaping into the execution phase, one needs to take some recommendations into account before implementing a chatbot. Take a look at some of the crucial things we mentioned in this article to reap significant returns from this intelligent system.
Table of Contents
1. Learn Your Objectives
There are various types of chatbot in the market. So, knowing the objective or a reason to implement a bot on the website is essential for any business. For instance,
- Connecting with the new generations
- Improving the user experience
- Opening of new service or platform
- Reducing the operating costs
You can discuss with your team to identify the real goal. These objectives will not only help the team to develop a right chatbot but also to trace the conversation flow and create the metrics based on the real input. So, once you define the objectives, start with the general roadmap and highlight the priorities of the task. Based on this detailed report, you can build an ideal chatbot for your firm.
2. Know Your Audience Well
It is essential to know a person to serve them well. Likewise, before designing any chatbot for your business, you must have a clear idea about your potential clients, customers, distributors, or others who may be interested in your brand. It helps to personalize the user experience which may otherwise turn out to be worse or annoy the person communicating with the bot. Also, it’s a best practice to centralize the customer service information so that the users don’t have to repeat the conversation with a human representative after typing it all into a chatbot interface.
3. Understand the Latest Trends
The businesses should focus more on data and its analysis to understand the current trends in the market. It helps them to create some space in the competitive market environment. And, also aids them in knowing the customers and their fluctuating interest in the various products. Using this data, businesses can provide an exceptional experience to the users. Moreover, learning the trends utilized by competitors can quickly guide them in identifying what’s going on in the niche market.
4. Define the Chatbot Type
Once you know your business objective, user type, and the latest trend in the market, you are all set to define the right chatbot for your organization. But surprisingly, most of the chatbots support more than one activity. So, it is essential to understand the dominant part of the chatbot before using them on your website. In some cases, you may choose the bot that provides the hybrid function. For instance, your objective is to have a new sales channel and also to improvise the customer service experience; you can opt for the bot that is capable of doing both.
You can begin with developing the core functions that satisfy the basic needs of your objective and then slowly integrate more elements to it. So, it is always vital for the team who develops the chatbot to have the complete road map beforehand. It helps them to design the right bot and avoids the wastage of money as well as effort doing the further modification to it.
5. Set a Right Expectation
We agree that chatbots have become saviors for customer service agents in today’s highly competitive business world. But that doesn’t mean it does everything you expect in a right manner. It may go wrong and disappoint you. So, don’t ever trick people into thinking that they are conversing with the human and not any machine. Set the right expectation and make it clear to the people that they are speaking to a chatbot at present. Also, inform them when they have switched from a bot to a real person.
6. Prioritize User Experience
Implementation of the bot will become the worst decision if you do not follow this tip. So, you must always define the personality of the bot as well as users in the initial stage itself. You must identify how the user comes to your website, and what information they expect from your brand. Program your bot based on these kind of questions and revolutionize the customer experience. Provide 24/7 attention, answer the queries quickly, and interact with them friendly. If the conversation is good and provides an excellent experience for the user, their chance of doing the business with you increases significantly.
7. Design it well
A plain textbox asking the users to type in the question is the most prevailing chatbot in the market. Though it responds to the user query with the relevant information, a perfectly designed chatbot with a pleasing color or image will surely gain the highest attention than others. So, why wait? Give a unique touch to your chatbot. But not to forget, keep the interface easy-to-use as the experience of the user with your chatbot will dramatically influence their buying decision.
Besides, businesses should be aware of cultural differences in language and design the bot that meets this basic yet most often forgotten requirement. Moreover, the chatbot must also be capable of handling the off-topic chats as the users may say the most unexpected things in the middle of the conversation.
A chatbot can seriously change the B2B marketing game!!
Wanting to implement a chatbot is a good start for your business. Gartner report shows that by 2021, 50% of enterprise companies are expected to spend more on bots as well as chatbot creation than other technologies such as a mobile app. Also, according to Juniper Research, chatbots will cut the business costs by $8 billion by 2022. Now, it makes sense why B2B brands are slowing embracing this technology in their websites.
Besides, as a marketer, you don’t want to miss any single client. The recent advancement in AI technology shows that chatbots are happy to help you in the same. The opportunities that are created by these bots are astonishing that it may replace all the customer service agents in the coming days. The system which was designed initially to keep the users engaged when the customer representatives are away, soon may develop the skill to predict a person’s next move, and act on it as well. With the bundle of features to raise the business value, this tool has a very promising future in the B2B segment.