6 Ways how Chatbots are Revolutionizing Customer Experience

If you do business, you know that your prime commodity is not your product or service but attention–specifically that of your customers and prospects. Typically, attention is hard-earned. But technologies like chatbots present us with a notably different approach to engage, entice, and capture customers actively.

A chatbot is essentially a virtual assistant that simulates human conversations with customers. This is the same as, and in many ways – much better than speaking to a human agent. Customers today want quick, seamless solutions, and chatbots on messaging platforms and e-commerce websites are designed to achieve that with artificial intelligence, natural language processing (NLP), and machine learning capabilities. They also can dig into the knowledge base to provide quick answers to simple questions. 

How are Chatbots are Revolutionizing Customer Experience

The best way to forge a relationship with a customer is through conversation. Striking a conversation with every customer or lead at the drop of a hat is certainly not possible for a human agent. That is where chatbots with automation capabilities come in. Chatbots play an instrumental role in optimizing customer engagement and lead generation through real-time service and more.

The following are a few benefits of chatbots that can help us improve customer interaction and convert potential customers. 

1. Chatbots Offer 24×7 Assistance

73% of customers say that the most important thing a company can do to provide them with good service is to value their time. It is not feasible to expect customer support staff to be available 24×7. Human agents need time off — but chatbots don’t. Customers can get swift replies, any time of the day via the 24×7 response system possible with chatbots. These instantaneous transactions significantly improve customer experience. When chatbots can’t answer complex queries, they deflect it onto an agent, which is much better than leaving the customer unanswered.

2. Chatbots Ensure Personalized Experience

Traditionally, customer support agents don’t have time to prepare for customer questions and gather context during the call or live chat. Chatbots can make this much simpler for any use case. We can now access the history of interactions and pool data about customer preferences to build a customized experience. Giving personalized product recommendations, responses, and solutions based on user behavior patterns drawn from customer data is a sure-shot way to give customers a better experience. 

3. Chatbots Provide Consistent Service

It is highly likely that your business functions in an omnichannel ecosystem. If a customer talks to different agents on different occasions, and on varying platforms, there is no assurance that the tone of voice and context is maintained. We can design chatbots to maintain a consistent voice, tone, and language. The accuracy of the bots is an additional level up. When AI is in control, conversations always sound like they’re coming from a unified source without leaving much scope for errors. Bots don’t accidentally miss conversations or share mistyped information, thus contributing to a better and unified customer experience.

While chatbots are artificial solutions, their impact on customer satisfaction is very much real.

4. Chatbots Help Lower Stress & Anxiety

While AI-driven support needs to simulate human tone, its first and foremost goal should be to satisfy customer needs. It is possible for your support team to sometimes lose their cool on being asked to perform repetitive tasks, but a bot will not do that. Your chatbot lets you automate these tedious tasks by answering such FAQs. A customer can ask for the procedure to change their password a dozen times, and the chatbot will cordially respond each time. The human-prone failure of not having endless patience can be easily eliminated from a customer’s experience through bot usage.

Additionally, instant responses and faster resolution by chatbots alleviate the uncomfortable experience some customers may have while approaching the support staff. The often anxiety-driven process of having to approach someone for help can be removed with the addition of chatbots to your customer service platform. 

Moreover, using chatbots gives the customer support staff more time to spend on pressing matters. This not only reduces the workload and contributes towards a better user experience, but also increases the agents’ efficiency and productivity levels as well. 

5. Chatbots Solve the IVR Problem

A long-standing complaint of customers with customer service is the use of the Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system. A chatbot on a messaging app or an e-commerce service can facilitate a much more stress-free environment than the overly structured layout of IVR systems that have a higher resolution time. Here, the customer will feel like they are heard and understood because of the conversation format that is aided by the chatbot’s ability to answer based on previous situations. 

6. Chatbots Can Interpret the Digital Body Language

When operating virtually, a customer support representative cannot observe the customer’s body language and reactions. However, if you use chatbots, you can. If a customer has been bouncing from page to page and clicking frantically on the screen and hasn’t reached out for help yet, an AI chatbot can jump right in. This way, chatbots can act on customer feedback and proactively solve customer queries.

Conclusion

While chatbots are artificial solutions, their impact on customer satisfaction is very much real. In addition to all the above-mentioned benefits of using chatbots, they can lead to cost savings for both the business and the user. Bot usage can significantly reduce operational costs, manpower, and time. This way, your business can gain new customers while also focusing on the retention of existing customers. Book a demo with our chatbot specialists to know more about how chatbots can streamline and elevate your product or service’s customer experience.