Chatbots are used by companies for the communication and interaction with customers, through this they will transform the customer experience in the coming years. Chatbots work efficiently, user-friendly and fast, creating a pleasant experience as well for the company as for the customers. Chatbots are increasingly used by companies: almost 80% of companies think about integrating Chatbots into their customer service strategy by 2020, while 62% are likely to reach this goal by 2018. But what is the benefit of using Chatbots?

The benefits

1. A personal customer experience

A big advantage of Chatbots is that they add a personal touch to the customer experience. Chatbots give customers the feeling that they have their own account manager, because the Chatbot has access to all their background information and can provide the customer with customized advice. They give customers the feeling that they really pay attention to them, which gives them confidence in the company. This may sound crazy and illogical, because the customers are chatting with machines, but this is really the feeling that the interaction with Chatbots evokes in many people. Many people do not even realize that they are chatting with a machine. And even though they realize this, many people appreciate the charismatic, attentive and funny character that many Chatbots have.

2. 24/7 available

In today’s globalized world, it is a big advantage for a company to be reachable 24/7. Companies often have customers all over the world and their customer service can not only take into account one specific time zone. Furthermore, customers also find it convenient when they can reach customer service outside regular working hours. Let’s face it, problems can also occur in the evening or in the weekend. A Chatbot is always available and is therefore the perfect solution for a quick and efficient answer.

3. Excellent language skills

Thanks to current Artificial Intelligence (AI) possibilities, Chatbots can now understand language almost as well as a real customer service employee and can even formulate answers that show their personality. Furthermore, Chatbots can also detect the mood of the customer and respond to this. Over time, the AI of Chatbots will only improve further and the conversation will become more and more human.

4. Efficiency and low costs

Customer service employees need training and will make mistakes from time to time. However, a Chatbot is much more efficient and ready for its new function within a few hours. This saves a lot of costs for a company. But rest assured, it is not the case that Chatbots will take over all jobs. The Chatbot can focus mainly on the repetitive, simple tasks, while the customer service staff can focus on more complex questions and customer needs.

The disadvantages of Chatbots

Nothing is perfect and neither is the Chatbot. There are of course also people who do not like it at all that their problems are handled by machines. This is often the case with the older generations. For example, 1 out of 5 customers gets frustrated by the idea that they are helped by an AI driven customer service rather than by a fellow human being. This frustration is caused by the mistrust people have in technology, or simply because people like to have a chat with someone.

Even though Chatbots now have very good language skills and can observe moods, we are certainly not ready for all customer contact via Chatbots. However, Chatbots can be an excellent addition to a business strategy, create a healthy relationship between customers and the company, increase efficiency and keep costs under control.

Communication automation via Facebook Messenger – the new tool for marketing automation

Communication and marketing automation is booming business, because this greatly facilitates communication with customers. Furthermore, it also ensures that many more customers can be reached in an efficient manner. But how does this work exactly? First it is important to understand what marketing automation exactly entail

What is marketing automation?

As the name implies, marketing automation has everything to do with the automation of marketing activities. Think of maintaining contacts, communicating with customers, campaign management, giving the right information at the right time and gathering data. Marketing automation thus makes it possible to automate certain phases of the marketing process, or in some cases even the entire process. This makes the marketing of a company more efficient and effective. In short, the scalability of marketing is growing through automation, because you can reach a much larger number of customers.

A marketing department carries out certain, repeated marketing activities that can be automated very well, for example, sending emails and managing the social media channels. Many marketing automation systems use email as the main communication channel. However, email is often not the most user-friendly method.

The shortcomings of email

People receive a lot of email, so they lose their overview and there is a big chance that they will miss your message. Furthermore, reading email is very time-consuming and does not provide customers with a fully integrated user experience. You can provide your customer with certain information by email, but what do you do if they want more information? Then you can refer them in your email to a certain link, but to get here they have to change the browser again and wait for a certain page to be loaded.

What if you can make sure that this is not necessary at all and your customer can receive all the information without having to change the communication channel? This is much more user-friendly. Would you like that? Then Facebook Messenger is perfect for you.

Facebook Messenger as a marketing automation channel

Facebook Messenger, who doesn’t use it? The use of this tool is widespread and is growing strongly. Many of your customers will use this for personal use and have the App on their phone. What if you can also use this for your communication automation? This way you can send people targeted, timely messages in which they are actually interested.

It may sound too good to be true, but that is certainly not the case since Facebook launched the Messenger Platform. Since then, people have developed Chatbots on this platform that can be used for communication with customers. With this new marketing automation channel you can reach even more people in a fast and efficient way. And that is not all, the use of the Chatbots is also much more user-friendly and easier for your target group. This way, the customer can control what information they want to receive or not. The communication then runs on their terms and that is experienced by many customers as very pleasant. This sounds good, but what exactly is a Chatbot?

The Chatbot

Chatbots are computer programs that, based on rules and artificial intelligence, can converse with people. It is a chat interface in which the Chatbots ask questions and give information on the basis of the given answers or the questions asked. This ensures smooth, efficient communication with the target group that has access to all the necessary information without much effort.

In short, communication automation via a Chatbot on Facebook Messenger is a win-win situation for both you and your customers. It is therefore not without reason that this is the new tool for marketing automation.

Chatbots are functioning well nowadays and are therefore increasingly used by companies. There are even people who believe that Chatbots will put an end to the use of websites and mobile Apps. And although this may sound a bit exaggerated, there are actually very logical reasons why it might eventually come this far. Are you curious why? Read this blog post and let yourself be convinced why Chatbots will mean the end of websites and mobile Apps.

What is a Chatbot?

Okay, let’s start at the beginning, because what is a Chatbot? Chatbots, or Chat Robots or Chatterbots, are computer programs that imitate conversations with people on the basis of rules and artificial intelligence. In short, it is a service that allows you to communicate with a chat interface. Chatbots therefore also transform interaction with the internet: on the internet, more and more semi-conversations will be conducted instead of a series of tasks that the user has started. You can’t really imagine it yet? A funny example of a Chatbot is Ux Bear, a polar bear who likes to share his insights and the latest news with you.

Okay, Chatbots will thus change our communication with the internet. But will this really be an improvement?

1. Every company will need a Chatbot.

Messaging apps are booming, since we all like to communicate via Apps such as Facebook Messenger or Whatsapp. Messaging Apps are growing tremendously and are gradually becoming the most popular way in which people communicate with each other. And of course, companies want to respond to this. People like to communicate with companies via the Messaging apps they already have on their phones as they know how to use them. In short, it is an even easier and more user-friendly way of communicating for (potential) customers.

But how can companies best communicate with their customers through these Messaging apps? You guessed it: with a Chatbot. It is also possible for a company to set up a kind of call center for contact with customers through these Messaging Apps, where real people chat online all day. But this is very labor-intensive and requires high costs. A Chatbot is a much more cost-effective alternative. Chatbots respond immediately and can chat with several people at the same time.

Messaging Apps are fastly becoming the most common method with which people communicate. As a result, companies must also design a strategy for interacting with people through these Apps. Chatbots are simply the most scalable and effective way to do so. In sum, in the future every company will need a Chatbot. But, if Messaging Apps are going to be so popular, why would the Chatbots also replace websites or mobile Apps?

2. Chatbots work faster than websites and mobile Apps.

In recent years, Chatbots have improved a lot and this can be noticed very well. The Chatbots work efficiently and understand more and more. In short, many advances have been made and the Chatbots will only improve further in the coming years. So talking to a company via a Chatbot now works almost as well as using the website or the mobile App of a company.

A big advantage of Chatbots is that they start directly, while websites often need a few seconds or even a minute to load. And people just prefer whatever channels that is the fastest. And in this case this is really the Chatbot.

As far as mobile apps are concerned, they have to be downloaded and take up space on the smartphone. Chatbots do not have to be downloaded, you can simply send them a message.

This all sounds very nice, but will this really make people use Chatbots? It still feels unnatural and the Chatbot often does not understand you completely. Nowadays it is sometimes still the case that people do not feel like chatting with a Chatbot. But will this also be the case when the Chatbot is the most user-friendly medium?

3. Chatbots will be easier to use than any other technology.

Every website or mobile app is designed with a certain visual interface: buttons, text, image, etc. But not every website is of course designed in the same way. Because of this, as users, we constantly have to master new visual interfaces if we want to be able to use our favorite products and services. And although these are becoming more user-friendly, this is obviously not an ideal situation.

Chatbots, on the other hand, are much more uniform, because they use language. And language is the most natural possible interface that exists for humans. From the moment we are born, we are already in contact with it. Parents are constantly learning language to their little ones. Language is of course the way we communicate with the rest of the world. The nice thing about the Chatbots is that you do not have to learn anything, you can just use your natural language skills. To use the Chatbot, you simply have to ask the questions that you have in mind.

So imagine, instead of browsing on a website and having multiple tabs open, you can simply have a conversation with a Chatbot who quickly has a clear answer to all your questions. In the future, talking to a Chatbot will be just like chatting with a real person who has direct access to all information databases and can immediately help you with all your questions and wishes.

In short, when you combine the increasingly user-friendly and more efficient Chatbots with the growth in popularity of Messaging Apps, you can actually get a deadly mix for websites and mobile Apps. After all, what is their use when you can receive all information quickly and effortlessly via a Chatbot?

So, did we convince you or does it still seem unlikely to you? Let us know, we would like to know your opinion!