6 tips for optimizing your chatbot
Innovation has become everyone's business... according to new data from Juniper Research, the number of exchanges by chatbot users will reach 22 billion by 2023, up from around 2.6 billion in 2019. More and more companies will therefore be effectively automating their interactions , whether to attract new customers (leadbot), quickly process their customers' requests (customer service) or answer their employees' recurring questions (internal chatbot), whether on Facebook Messenger, which already boasts over 1.3 billion active users, or their websites. This craze for chatbots is akin to a revolution: soon, almost everyone will be using them.
Contact points are multiplying, but consumers are still looking for simplicity. It's now up to companies and brands to adapt to this need by deploying a strategy of ubiquity.
A chatbot is a highly innovative tool that brilliantly eliminates the problem of response latency. It enables questions to be answered at any time. Interactions are greatly optimized, and a company's customer service department is freed up from a heavy workload. Sales and recruitment staff can devote their time to more advanced tasks. As a result, the company is able to deliver high value-added answers . A chatbot thus establishes a new channel for conversational commerce and information dissemination. It complements first-level user services.
The chatbot needs to be sufficiently responsive and dynamic to adapt harmoniously to each user's environment. Mastering the integration of a chatbot makes a company's customer experience even more user-friendly. These tips will help you develop and maintain your chatbot. Welcome to the age of conversational marketing!
Tip 1: Clarify the chatbot's area of expertise from the outset
It's vital that the user is informed of your chatbot's area of expertise right from the start of the conversation, so that he/she has an idea of what can be expected. With this in mind, users who venture outside the conversational agent's preferred topic shouldn't be surprised if the chatbot isn't able to answer them!
💡 O ur tip: The name of a chatbot can provide a good indication of the service it serves.
Tip 2: Deal with user errors in an educational way.
Explain to users what they can do to avoid repeating the same mistakes. Gentle guidance will support your users throughout their journey. Plan responses suitable for these situations.
💡 O ur tip: Format responses by inserting explanations. Avoid crude messages such as "Re-enter the date (dd/mm/yyyy)", preferring instead more comprehensible formulas, such as "I can only manage to understand a date in the following format: dd/mm/yyyy".
Tip 3: Bring your chatbot to life
Your chatbot needs to be alive too, so it can dynamically transmit or feed itself data from a Google Sheets document, data from your CRM (Salesforce, Hubspot, Zoho, Piedrive etc...) , a FAQ or any other external API via Webhooks calls or connector services (Zapier, Integromat...).
💡 O ur advice: As with any other service, remember to regularly check data freshness. The best way is not to connect the chatbot to frozen data. Don't hesitate to link it, for example, to RSS feeds broadcasting your latest news.
Tip 4: Use emojis
Most users are familiar with emojis and use them frequently. Your chatbot should incorporate this practice. Emojis should be an integral part of the language level used by the chatbot.
💡 O ur tip: Make use of natural language analysis algorithms that include emojis, as we've implemented at BOTNATION. These can even be used as keywords to trigger a response.
Tip 5: Make sure you have good-quality media (photos, videos, etc.).
Your chatbot should feature an array of attractive images, quality videos and buttons that are pleasing to the eye. It's important to work on the aesthetic side of your chatbot, since it represents the image of your company or organization. Make sure the appropriate media is of sufficient size to ensure a quality user experience.
💡 O ur tip: All this data travels over the mobile network. Therefore, optimize the weight of each file by striking the right balance between weight, size and quality.
Tip 6: Optimize the use of notifications
Facebook Messenger notifications are a fantastic marketing tool that you can use to target your users in an almost surgical way. From the wide range of notifications available, you can activate the ones that best suit your situation:
- one-time notification (on such-and-such a day or at such-and-such a time),
- periodic notification (at such and such a time on certain days),
- reminder notification (activated after a given period of inactivity).
Boost your chances of being read by making smart use of the data you collect about your users. This will provide you with the elements you need to formulate the most personalized messages.
💡 O ur tip: Here's a concrete application of data optimization in the context of notifications: an e-commerce chatbot issues a dunning notification, such as "cart abandoned", after a user has added a product to his or her basket, but this has not resulted in the conversation being completed to its climax (no purchase has been made).
Conclusion
If you still have questions about integrating a chatbot, now is the time for development and innovation! At a time when the conversational customer experience is a real pillar, it's important to open up new enrichment opportunities that will refine your chatbot and transform it into the most modern form of user assistance.
Don't hesitate to call on the services of a professional platform like BOTNATION to help you develop and manage your chatbot. In addition to making consumers happy, chatbots also have strong cost-cutting potential, with deployments enabling companies to achieve annual savings of $439 million worldwide by 2023.
So chatbots are no longer a luxury, they're essential.
Sources:
https://thefintechtimes.com/chatbot-interactions-retail/
https://www.juniperresearch.com/press/press-releases/ai-spending-by-retailers-reach-12-billion-2023
Sponsored article. Expert contributors are authors independent of the appvizer editorial team. Their comments and positions are their own.
Article translated from French