What are chatbots and why do I need them?

Chatbots represent an incredible marketing opportunity for your business. Not sure why? Don't worry, read on...

A chatbot is a piece of software which complements your website and social media presence. It is designed to have scripted conversations with people to solve common problems and build stronger relationships. As a result, it can help businesses generate and nurture more relevant leads, collect better data and improve sales potential. All sounds pretty good, right?

What are chatbots? The future of social media marketing

According to analytics firm Flurry, US consumers now spent up to 5 hours per day on their mobile devices, with nearly two hours of that time spent on social media platforms.

Though businesses are tapping into the conversational aspects offered by social media channels, and building solid social presences, customer service teams can often be overrun by a large number of queries. Meanwhile, consumers can now feel frustrated when their concerns aren't addressed almost instantly.

However, chatbots can engage with consumers old and new as soon as they have a problem that needs resolving. With the proper market research, carefully observing the conversations that people are having with the software and evolving your strategy accordingly, chatbots can go a long way to solving consumers' common pain points. For instance, they can direct individuals to online returns policies or present them with accurate pricing information. Not only can this help build better consumer relations, it can also provide your social team with time to focus on more complex issues.

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Chatbots can generate and nurture more leads

Chatbots aren't only a way to build better relationships with customers. They also provide a more streamlined and effective way to capture lead data, generate more leads and nurture them along your sales pipeline. Information from Marketing Profs suggests that businesses who implement artificial intelligence such as chatbots see close rates increase by 59%, a 58% increase in revenue, 54% more traffic and engagement, and a rise in conversions of 52%.

Gartner also predicts that chatbots will power 85% of customer service interactions by 2020. They can help from a sales and revenue perspective, streamline internal processes within your company, save on customer service costs, target customers who align better with your values and more. Chatbots are set to become big business; those who implement a chatbot strategy now can begin to reap the rewards and pull ahead of their competitors.

Check out these chatbot statistics from HubSpot

• 47% of consumers would buy items from a chatbot
• 37% of consumers would rather buy items via a company's Facebook page than their website
• $4.5 Billion is expected to be invested in enterprise intelligent assistants by 2021
• By 2022, banks could automate up to 90% of their interactions with chatbots
• 48% of consumers would rather connect with a company via live chat than any other mean of contact
• 35% of consumers want to see more companies using chatbots
• 40% of consumers do not care whether the help they need comes from a chatbot or a real human

Do you want a chatbot of your own?

Six & Flow can help to introduce chatbots to your wider inbound marketing strategy and boost business growth. We will help you find the software best suited to your needs, script conversations, streamline your sales pipeline and much more besides. Get in touch if you're interested in finding out more.