The digital transformation wave has significantly changed our life. It has made us smarter and now we have started focusing on productivity over profit. We no longer want to waste our time on trivial yet time-consuming things. Instead, we have started automating them and shifting our focus towards things that matter.
As a part of this initiative, chatbots have become an incredible part of the corporate culture. You will be surprised to know that over 87% of corporate communications are handled by chatbots alone. Even outside the corporate world, chatbots are helping us become more productive. In fact, It will not be wrong to say that chatbots are the drivers of digital transformation.
In this blog, we will talk about 10 ways chatbots are helping in the digital transformation initiative. Let us begin:
1. Better Lead Generation and Nurturing
We know how difficult it is to generate and nurture new leads. Not only do we have to actively respond to potential customers and remain in touch with them throughout the lead nurturing journey, but also ensure we are providing them the right information at the right time. All of this can be overwhelming.
Chatbots are making the whole process easy by providing a seamless way for customers to interact with our business.
Now, we no longer have to remain available all the time to actively respond to customers. A chatbot can take care of that instead. We can even personalize messages in chatbots to guide customers throughout their journey and help them make quick decisions.
Here are some other ways chatbots are helping in better lead generation and nurturing:
- Whenever potential customers get in touch with your business, chatbots qualify them by asking the right questions and directing them to the sales department for a sales conversation. They even schedule appointments if the team is busy or unavailable at the moment.
- Chatbots nurture qualified leads and keep prospects engaged throughout the customer journey by providing personalized recommendations, combo offers, or discount coupons.
That is why reputed brands like H&M and eBay are using Chatbots to sell their products online. Even quick service restaurants have been able to significantly reduce the queue time and increase their sales (by almost 30%) with the help of Chatbots.
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2. Deliver 24×7 Automated Customer Support
Last thing a customer would want after approaching a business is to wait. If there is even the slightest delay in responding to them, chances are they will move on to a rival business. That is why over 62% of companies view customer experience as a key competitive differentiator.
Chatbots are helping us engage with customers 24×7 by quickly responding to their queries and directing them to answers that genuinely help them. We can even train chatbots to better respond to customers by adding general FAQs and answers.
As a result, we can ensure better customer satisfaction and reduce customer churn.
3. Save Customer Service Costs
According to reports, there are over 265 billion customer requests every year and businesses spend over 1.3 trillion US dollars to service them.
Chatbots are helping us in reducing customer service costs by 30% by eliminating the need of hiring customer support agents. This is helpful especially when we are running a small business with not so much revenue.
However, we would also not want to compromise customer experience just to save a couple of bucks. Well, chatbots are taking care of that as well. Here are some ways Chatbots are optimizing customer service costs while ensuring the best quality:
- Scaling customer support even during busy hours and ensuring the customer experience is not hampered.
- Automating routine business processes so that the customer support team can focus on complex tasks.
- Allow businesses to bring new customer service models onboard that can enhance brand value and credibility.
The best thing about Chatbots is that we can easily scale them during busy hours without extra costs. On the contrary, hiring new staff demands spending a lot of time and money. Hence, they can significantly cut unnecessary costs and increase revenue.
4. Helping People Smartly Prepare for Competitive Exams
Preparing for competitive exams is challenging. Seats are limited, while the number of people applying for them is significantly increasing each day. Unless you have a strategy in place, qualifying for these exams can be difficult.
Chatbots are helping us smartly prepare for these exams by guiding us through the right plan. With the use of AI, these chatbots study the exam patterns and suggest the questions that are most likely to repeat.
Once we have figured out what kind of questions are most likely to come in the exam with the help of these chatbots, we can now prepare the exam study plan and more confidently attempt our exam papers. This has maximized our chances of success in exams.
Probably this is the main reason why the number of educational chatbots is on a significant rise. They are changing education and making us more equipped for competitive success. It will not be wrong to say Chatbots will be the future of learning.
5. Engaging More Customers
Customer engagement is crucial. According to research by Bai & Company, businesses that can engage with clients can increase the customer spend from 20% to 40%. Hence, it is important to ensure we leave no stone unturned in engaging our potential customers.
Chatbots are helping in creating effective customer engagement by:
- Instantly providing personalized responses to customer queries.
- Improving the customer experience with real-time interactions.
- Enhancing customer satisfaction by instantly providing what the clients demand.
6. Saving an Ample Amount of Time
For businesses, time is money. Chatbots are helping us make the most out of our time. Here is how:
- Chatbots automate simple information-based queries and instantly provide customers the answers to them. This way customer support agents can focus on high-priority requests that need immediate attention.
- Since chatbots are available all the time, they can provide much-needed customer support even when the human support staff is not around.
- Chatbots save the much-needed time of customers by guiding them in the right direction with suggestions.
The COIN chatbot by JPMorgan Chase & Co is the best example of how chatbots can save time. It can analyze legal contracts much faster than human lawyers. You will be surprised to know that it completed a task that usually took 36 million hours per year in just a few seconds. So, you can imagine how efficient chatbots are.
7. Helping People Prepare Better for Interviews
The fear of getting interviewed is universal among us. We fear interviews so much that just mentioning their name is enough to make us stammer, sweat, fumble, and sometimes pass out. Millions among us excel in everything but still cannot get the job because they fail to ace interviews.
To overcome this fear, we often anticipate questions and rehearse answers. Normally, we do it with a friend and the approach is great. However, the problem occurs when these candidates do not have any volunteers. In that case, we have to rehearse answers in our head and we often end up getting confused at the time of the interview.
Chatbots are resolving this issue by helping in face-to-face interview preparation. Some of them (Alexa Chatbot) come up with interview prep that gives access to hundreds of questions and provides constructive feedback in the end. As a result, we gradually become better.
Here are some other benefits of using chatbots for interview preparation:
- Access to a broad range of questions.
- Random selection helps in thinking faster.
Some chatbots are also helping in building impressive resumes by asking the questions relevant to the prospective job and even suggesting resume templates that may highlight our abilities the best way possible. This way we can face interviews with the utmost confidence.
8. Boosting Team Productivity
Chatbots are also helping us in boosting team productivity by engaging with customers in real-time, instantly responding to their FAQs, easily scaling customer support during rush hours without any effect on cost, and reducing the number of support tickets.
The best thing about chatbots is it automates most routine and mundane tasks so that we can set our focus on where it matters. This takes team productivity to a whole new level.
9. Cutting on Human Errors
Nothing affects business productivity more than human errors. Not only do they consume a lot of time and energy but also create big problems later.
The worst thing about human errors is that they are inevitable. Especially if a work process involves a lot of manual work, chances are that manual errors will happen.
Chatbots are bringing this possibility of errors to a bare minimum. Since they are programmed with all the accurate information, chances any mistakes are very less and complete accuracy is granted.
As a result, we can channel our entire focus on important things without having to worry about petty mistakes that may otherwise hamper productivity.
10. Improving the Website Experience
The website experience plays a crucial role in meaningful conversions. Even if visitors are landing on a website, they will not convert unless we are offering them an incredible experience that they will not find anywhere else.
Chatbots are helping in ensuring website visitors have the best experience once they land on a website. They instantly get in touch with website visitors, provide quick answers to their queries, and even point them in the right direction for guidance. As a result, visitors feel nurtured and they are more inclined towards availing products and services.
By improving the website experience, chatbots are also enhancing essential website metrics that play a crucial role in improving the search rankings. Many digital marketing services providers found that their search rankings significantly improved after the use of chatbots. Their bounce rate dropped, page views increased, and they saw more unique visitors on their website.
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10 Ways Chatbots are Driving Digital Transformation was originally published in Chatbots Life on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.