How can Chatbots help in Customer Acquisition?

How can Chatbots help in Customer Acquisition?

Marketing has evolved leaps and bounds over the past few decades. There were those times when people used to hand out pamphlets to introduce their business and acquire customers. But the marketing team could not even guess the number of people that actually glanced at the pamphlets before tossing them in the trash can. This traditional marketing method was expensive and time-consuming. It was also difficult to track the progress as it was not easy to figure out the leads that actually materialized from the campaigns. That was when the magic happened in the marketing sector in the form of internet marketing.

Chatbots – revolutionizing internet marketing:

People have started making fancy informative websites. These were the digital versions of the pamphlets but were more informative and were available all the time. So users could gather information about the business anytime from anywhere and this helped customer acquisition. But then came the next problem. The millennials, as well as the current younger generation, displayed a noticeable reduction in the attention span.
People want a lot of information. They want all the information to be presented to them in an instant. People also hate information overload and the presence of irrelevant information. Even if you have a detailed and informative website, users are not ready to spend a lot of time on your website. But at the same time, they are skeptical about doing business unless they get all the details about your business. So how do you tackle this complication? Enter chatbots! Chatbots take your websites to the next level. They provide information to your customers, much like your websites. Chatbots are always there, again, like your websites. But the one difference here is that these Artificial Inteligence are conversational. The interactive channel of furnishing information saves a lot of time and makes it easier to convince and convert the potential customers to customers.
If you have chatbots backed up by natural language processing algorithms and AI your bots would sound more human like and would be able to learn from the conversations and provide relevant personalized information to your customers.

Lead generation and data accumulation:

The moment a visitor of your website starts a chat, the email address would be collected. You can include an option to get the user’s permission to send relevant product and service related information to this email id. When the customer queries are answered instantly, they feel acknowledged and it gives a positive impact. It is a well-known fact that the new customers, as well as the potential customers, would have a lot of questions, most of which are very basic. The questions each one has would vary. The chatbots would be able to instantly provide relevant answers and can also attach any relevant links to the product/service page. This would be an indirect way of pushing the customer through the sales funnel and to make the first order happen. At the same time, for the customer, it would shorten the whole process and make it simpler to place an order. Too many clicks, difficulty in finding the relevant product and not getting sufficient product information are some of the barriers that prevent customers from making their purchase. Chatbots can remove all these hurdles and make the transaction convenient and quick for the customer.
At the same time when the chat bot gathers customer information from the conversation, it helps businesses understand their target segment better. It makes it easier to understand the type of customers that simply browse and those that actually show genuine interest in the products and services. This helps create better marketing campaigns directed to these target groups. Chatbots in a way, also help track the returns on the investment made in the marketing campaigns. The actual lead conversions can be tracked and you would soon be able to find out how effective your chatbot is.

No more cart abandonment:

Often the new customers might need a slight push to make their first purchase. Chatbots can instantly observe cart abandonment and get back to the customer to know more about what prevented the customer from placing the order. A suitable resolution could then be provided or the customer could also be provided a first order discount. Even a single order can go a long way in making or breaking the customer’s trust and thus impact customer retention. Customers would not abandon their cart anymore and when they know that their opinion counts they would be more confident in doing business with you. Once the order is placed you can also use the chatbot to promote and recommend products based on the customer’s account activity and order history. This can also help in cross selling.

Helps customer retention:

Customer retention is equally important. Some businesses do the mistake of focusing too much on customer acquisition and forget about customer retention. Your chatbots are always active. They track the customer activity. If the customer has not come back for several days or if the customer has canceled a transaction the root cause can be found and this gives data to help understand the factors that turn down potential customers. Making the whole experience more personalized, recommending relevant products and services, notifying the customers about running promotions and about new products introduced, can all act as the push that the customer needs to get back. Customer retention helps customer acquisition in turn. Most of the people who do business online state that they rely a lot on the reviews from the actual customers. The positive reviews from your existing customers can help acquire more leads. The best marketing for your business would be your customer reviews. So if you can keep your customers satisfied, it reduces the chances of losing out to competitors. It is a well-known fact that dissatisfied customers often approach the closest competitor. So chatbots can help keep the customers engaged and exceed their expectation. Also, make sure not to push too many promotions through the chatbots and make it annoying again like cold calling.
So, to stay ahead in the competitive market, make sure that you have an interactive and an intelligent chatbot up and running!