In the age of artificial intelligence, considering a chatbot is just a small piece of the pie when it comes to conversion rate optimization (CRO) and that pie just keeps getting bigger.
Today, the number of users for messaging apps like WhatsApp, Slack, Skype and their analogues is growing beyond leaps and bounds. Facebook Messenger alone has more than 1.3 billion monthly users. With messengers taking off, virtual chatbots that imitate conversations between humans for solving various problems are in much higher demand.
According to Sensor Tower, worldwide iOS and Android downloads of Facebook Messenger grew 5.66% from 145.3 million in Q1 2016 to 153.5M in Q1 2017.
The increase in Facebook Messenger use over one year – image source
Chinese WeChat bots can already call a cab, make appointments, send money, check in for a flight, and carry out a myriad of other tasks.
Check out the WeChat interface. – image source
Online chatbots save time and effort by automating customer support. 60% of U.S. online adults already use online messaging, voice, or video chat services.
Google Trends shows the rise in search interest for “chatbot” over the last 5 years.
Gartner forecasts that by 2020, over 85% of customer interactions will be handled without a human. Today, 72% of people use less than 7 apps per day. They’re using less of other apps and using more messenger apps. So with people moving away from apps and toward online messaging, chatbots are an obvious choice for continued personalization:
It looks like non-messaging apps aren’t getting as much use today as they did before. – image source
This could be caused by the opportunities provided by chatbot systems going so far beyond giving responses to customers’ inquiries. They can be used for tasks such as collecting information about users, organizing meetings, and reducing overhead costs. With how much chatbots can do, it’s no wonder interest in them is growing exponentially.
What Are Chatbots?
A chatbot is a service, powered by rules and sometimes artificial intelligence, that you interact with via a chat interface. The service could be any number of things and it could live in any major chat product (Facebook Messenger, Slack, Text Messages, etc.).
For example, you want to buy a gift from American Eagle online, but you’re not sure what you want. You would go to their website, search until you found what you wanted, and then you would purchase it.
If American Eagle makes a bot, instead of all that hassle, you would simply message American Eagle on Facebook. It would ask you what you’re looking for and you would tell it. Simple.
This mirrors the type of experience you would get when you go into the retail store without the pain and hassle of actually going to the store location.
Two different American Eagle chatbot experiences that provide target audiences with information and inspiration. – image source
How Do Chatbots Work?
Infographic of how chatbots relay information – image source
At the core of chatbot technology is something called natural language processing or NLP. This is the same technology that forms the voice recognition systems used by virtual assistants such as Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana, and Google Now.
Chatbots read and process the text given to them by the user (a process known as “parsing”) before crafting a response based on a complex series of algorithms that interpret what the user said, attempt to understand what they mean and/or want, and decides on a selection of appropriate responses to relay to the user.
Some chatbots offer an uncanny conversational experience, in which it’s challenging to figure out whether the “person” you’re speaking to is a bot or a human being. Others are much easier to spot like this little guy trying its best…
Yeah, I’m pretty sure this is a bot. – image source
If you really want to see chatbots in action on your landing pages to get a better idea of how they can help drive conversions…
Why Should You Care?
You are probably wondering “Why does anyone care about chatbots? They look like simple text based services.”
It’s because for the first time ever people are using messenger apps more than they’re using social networks.
Notice that in this BI Intelligence graph, the “Big 4” continue to outgrow the rest. – image source
As Niko Bonatsos, Managing Director at General Catalyst puts it:
“~90% of our time on mobile is spent on email and messaging platforms. I would love to back teams that build stuff for places where the consumers hang out!”
Another quote from Peter Rojas, Entrepreneur in Residence at Betaworks explains it again:
“People are now spending more time in messaging apps than in social media and that is a huge turning point. Messaging apps are the platforms of the future and bots will be how their users access all sorts of services.”
The inevitable app uninstall overtime per Quetra – image source
Jillian D’Onfro from Business Insider says:
“Only 1,000 of the one million apps in the iOS App Store or Android’s Google Play Store have 50,000 or more users. That’s only one-tenth of 1% of all apps. And although many people have lots of apps on their smartphones, Quantcast reports that as many as 50% of people who download an app only use it once!”
From a CRO standpoint, chatbots are great because humans open up more when they know they’re talking to a bot. Alison Darcy, Woebot’s CEO and founder, says the chatbot creates a space for mental health tools to become more accessible and available—plus, humans open up more when they know they’re talking to a bot.
“We know that often, the greatest reason why somebody doesn’t talk to another person is just stigma. When you remove the human, you remove the stigma entirely.”
Consumers also benefit from chatbots and they’re getting increasingly interested in this technology. A study presented at the 4th International Conference on Internet Science in November 2017 pinpoints reasons why people prefer to talk with chatbots. According to this research, the main factors that motivate people to use chatbots are:
Productivity. Chatbots provide assistance or access to information quickly and efficiently.
Mastercard’s chatbot helps you manage your bank account quickly. – image source
Entertainment. Chatbots keep people entertained by giving them funny tips, plus bots help kill time when users have nothing to do.
Social and relational factors. Chatbots fuel conversions and enhance social experiences. Interacting with bots also helps to avoid loneliness, and it gives a chance to talk without being judged.
Curiosity. The novelty of chatbots alone sparks curiosity. People want to explore their abilities and to try something they haven’t tried before.
The Value of Chatbots
Cutsey responses aren’t what makes a chatbot successful. Understanding the visitor’s/customer’s needs is.
People want to get the information they need as soon as possible with as little friction as possible. One of the main selling points of bots, as previously mentioned, is that they offer instant access to value while eliminating friction. There’s no sign in or sign up processes, like an app or a website–and since the bot already has access to your social profile, it can personalize information to you instantly.
Itai Leibowitz, Facebook’s Product Manager for the Messenger platform writes:
“Businesses that take people’s messaging behaviors and preferences into account are the ones that tend to see the most success.”
Additionally, a bots UI is standard, so there will be no new UI to learn. First time users can get immediate value and solve their problems more quickly.
Types of Chatbots
Depending on how the bot in question is created, we can divide chatbotst into two groups: working in accordance with pre-set commands (simple chatbot) and intuitive (smart or advanced chatbot).
Simple chatbots work based on pre-written keywords that they understand. Each of these commands must be written by the developer separately using regular expressions or other forms of string analysis. If the bot can’t understand the user’s input, it responds with messages like “sorry, I didn’t catch that”.
Here are some examples of simple chatbots:
Weather bot — Get the weather whenever you ask. Weather Bot by OpenWhisk is a prime example of this.
News bot — Ask it to tell you whenever something interesting happens. You can see this in the image below of CNN’s chatbot.
Food-bot — Food lover? Figure out what to eat with these chatbots.
CNN’s news chatbot in action – image source
Smart chatbots rely on artificial intelligence when they communicate with users. Instead of pre-prepared answers, the robot responds with adequate suggestions on the topic. In addition, all the words said by the customers are recorded for later processing. However, the Forrester report “The State of Chatbots” points out that artificial intelligence is not magic and is not yet ready to produce marvellous experiences for users on its own. On the contrary, it requires huge work.
To break it down more simply, here are a few examples of smart chatbot
Scheduling bot — Get me a meeting with someone on the Messenger team at Facebook.
With bots, the possibilities are endless. Recast has put together a comprehensive list of thousands of apps sorted by category.
Chatbots for Lead Gen
In the United States, 79 per cent of online adults are on Facebook. According to Mobile Ecosystem Forum, Facebook Messenger is hands down the most popular mobile messenger app. Nearly 11% of the global population relies on the app monthly. So when it comes to lead gen, it’s suggested to use Facebook messenger as your platform.
If you have a product or service with a high level of pre-purchase decision-making such as car sales, real estate, or SaaS, chatbots can be a very valuable solution. Because your potential customer is doing a fair amount of online research into which product to buy, it makes sense to build a chatbot that helps answer the big questions that keep a customer from converting.
For example, somewhere in the conversation, your chatbot can offer a downloadable guide. The customers just need to provide their email address, and possibly their name, and the guide will be sent to them. Assuming your chatbot provides value to the consumer when your salesperson reaches out to discuss the sale, they’ll have already had a favourable interaction with your brand. EveryoneSocial does a good job of offering content after answering questions.
“We’re seeing great success generating and qualifying leads through bots. Turning static web forms into engaging and personalized conversations is delightful for prospects. It’s a great way to let your brand voice shine and interact with your audience in a way that feels natural. With bots, we’re generating 40% better-quality leads for 30% less than through a landing page.”
– Connor Cirillo, Conversational Marketing Manager.
Financial Institution Chatbots
Financial institutions that provide individuals or businesses with loans are a lead-based business. They’re always looking for applications. So how do you get people interested in getting a loan? Offer a loan calculator. After running the calculation in the chatbot, open up a conversation and offer a guide in exchange for their email address. The same could go for the financial planning industry. Advertise a guide on Facebook that would interest potential investors and then take them into the chatbot when they click the ad. From there, capture their email address.
Home Services Chatbots
These bots can help with automating quotes and lead-gen for potential customers. Try giving free home improvement advice through a chatbot to potentially turn those top of funnel leads into bottom of funnel leads. By giving advice freely, you quell the customers fears so that they can decide to choose your service over competitors.
The no-brainer here is appointment-setting bots. If you’re involved in an appointment-heavy industry (hair salons, dental offices, etc.), you can leverage a chatbot as a method for current customers to book spots on your calendar. Simply opening up a dialog with your customers via Facebook Messenger will allow you to proactively reach out to them to see how they’re doing, to solicit reviews/feedback, and to run “refer a friend” promotions.
Results from Chatbots
What’s the point of all this if we can’t back it up with data and results, right?
Cristian Rennella, the VP of Marketing & CoFounder of oMelhorTrato.com personally shared some interesting results from his use of chatbots.
“After 9 years of work and having grown from 0 to 21.5M users, I can assure you that the MOST important Facebook trend that will come to 2018 will be AI that will help with campaign performance.
Every day greater access to different AI tools is generated especially the Google platform called TensorFlow. Our internal team is using it thanks to Deep Learning to generate sales through our own chatbot on Facebook after the client clicks on our advertising. Thanks to this strategy our conversion from Facebook advertising improved by 27.1%.”
Facebook ad for oMelhorTrato.com that customers click
The clicked ad starts a chat with the chatbot.
Todd Kunsman from EveryoneSocial had some data to share with us as well:
“We actually just started playing around with Drift as a chatbot end of March. With April being our first full month, we have seen a few direct demo meetings booked through it and quite a bit of interaction of interest in our blog posts through the bot as well. Those blog posts I chose to include in the bot have lead magnets within them, so we also get attention on the right blog posts quicker and get conversions that way as well. Both March and April were two of our strongest months ever of leads, which along with all our marketing efforts, our chatbot also has helped.
For March, we had a 20% overall lead increase (and our highest converting month), with that being the first month of the chatbot being active. That was the only new strategy added in the month.”
EveryoneSocial guides you through the process based on what you are interested in.
Clearly, bots are worth considering if they are helping these established companies push their reach further than they did without chatbots.
Chatbot Best Practices
Whether you code the bot yourself or use a template, it’s important to understand how your bot interacts with your customers, both current and potential. Here’s some key tips that will help you keep your user’s experience top of mind.
Don’t lie to your users.
People aren’t dumb. If you over promise or tell them your bot is something that it’s not, they’ll figure it out eventually. You want your bot experience to feel like a human conversation, but you can’t dress up a dog as a horse and expect it to function the same way. People will get suspicious and it’s a lot harder to close a deal with someone that doesn’t trust you or the validity of your services.
So be up front and let people know they’re talking to a bot. People are more forgiving when expectations are set out transparently from the get-go. Let your customers know the capabilities and limitations of your bot, so they don’t try to use your bot for anything and everything.
Onboard with conversation.
Since people aren’t quite used to speaking with inanimate objects yet, use buttons to ease your users into the conversation. Let a few button clicks help narrow down objects, but then have the customer type a response to move forward in their experience to get them comfortable with typing. By making sure all buttons and commands actionable, you’ll be able to effectively guide your customers into a more natural, written exchange.
Design for human emotion.
We’re used to robots being bland and boring, but adding in personality really speaks volumes to your user. Use friendly, inclusive language to make them feel like they’re chatting with a colleague. Repeat inputs back to users to check for understanding. This garners trust with your users and could help increase repeat business.
When the bot inevitably breaks.
If you can build it, it can break. Unless your bot is completely templated and operates solely through button clicks, your bot is going to break at some point or another. It’s important to come to terms with this and come up with a plan B.
Show that you understand the customer’s pain and offer solutions on how to handle the situation and reroute users to safe areas within your system. Whatever you do, do not leave a blank empty space on your bot. Some sort of error needs to pop up to alert users that something is not right, so they don’t sit there waiting and hoping for something to load.
Lastly, when the machines stop working, who do we talk to? We want to talk to a person in charge. Offer human intervention when things go awry to instil that trust back in your customers.
Help users help you.
You’ll never be able to predict everything your customers want. Therefore, allow your users to give feedback directly through the bot. Let users submit articles when they ask for something your bot doesn’t have the answer to. Ask users if the results your bot gave them are what they were looking for, and if they’re not, let them tell you what they want.
Wrap-Up
If your bot is created properly and its focus is on what the user wants over cutesy language, it can be a very powerful tool. At this rate, they’re only going to get more and more powerful as time goes on.
Since this technology is still early, many business owners are just beginning to understand what benefits chatbots can bring to them. The best chatbots have not yet been created as the capabilities continue to increase every year.
Take advantage of being ahead of the curve and start building your own today.
This article first appeared on Klientboost.
