Following market research by Global Market Insights, the chatbot market is expected to exceed USD 1.34 billion by 2024. That’s billion with a ‘b’.
Another important ‘b’ word for chatbots is benefits. As in benefits of chatbots.
Fact is, 2023 chatbots are more than customer service safety nets. The reason for that is simple: Omnichannel experiences are where businesses are headed.
And the best chatbots do omnichannel very well.
Omnichannel? Everywhere and anywhere your customers are active online. Customers are constantly on the move, after all. They’re shuffling among platforms as comfortably as they’re texting friends. WhatsApp? TikTok? Gmail? It’s one big ecosystem, to say, at least from the perspective of customer bases.
Benefits of chatbots: A customer service chatbot does more than serve
So how can this chatbot trend have a positive impact on your business? Below is a write-up that answers exactly that, highlighting 10 benefits of chatbots with plainspoken business goals in mind. Let’s get to it!
1. Benefits of chatbots: Collect honest customer feedback and analytics
Feedback is near and dear to my heart. It should be near and dear to yours too! And the best chatbots are doing two things in collecting feedback really well.
Firstly, they ask for feedback and thoughts when customers are actually in the moment and having these thoughts. This is huge. That small UI aspect they loved or loathed? They’re not forgetting it like if you’d followed up with an email survey the week after.
Secondly, chatbots are an anonymous vehicle for those thoughts so the feedback you get is both real and unmoderated. So real you can bank on it, in fact, and steer company change in pro-customer directions without guesswork. The stats collected across chatbot interactions means there’s always measurable data to work with, too.
If you’re spending money on NPS (net promoter score) feedback tools and services, stop. Really. The benefits of chatbots mean a single chatbot can do it for you.
2. Benefits of chatbots: Control brand outlook
Customer interactions with your brand actually play a key role in how your brand is perceived. Public image and all, right?
This in turn should influence your greater brand messaging and what’s called your company’s voice and tone. The best chatbots are actually accelerating how companies adapt their messaging to better match always-changing customer behaviours and expectations.
Building a healthy rapport with your customer base through online communication – and across channels – will ultimately pay you back by fostering loyalty and ensuring public perception of your brand stays more in your control. If you're not looking at the brand benefits of chatbots, you should be.
3. Benefits of chatbots: Offer 24/7 customer service
Your support staff might not be able to answer chat and enquiries around the clock – but the benefits of chatbots mean your chatbot sure can!
5 seconds, they say, is how long customers on average are willing to wait in a chat window before moving on. Yikes.
So short a turnaround is unrealistic for humans to consistently achieve. Are you surprised if I say those same goals aren’t unrealistic for the best chatbots? Didn’t think so!
Chatbots are so good at 24/7 customer service that it’s become nothing short of a trend – whatever industry or part of globe. The other benefit to automating customer chat inflow is the analytics capture of those chats. If your business is leveraging the benefits of chatbots to handle all-hours customer support, you’ll never be without actionable data to make important budgetary or staffing decisions.
4. Benefits of chatbots: Electrify customer engagement
Customers are engaging with brands on the go and need answers instantly across devices. While your website might have the answers they’re looking for, the attention span of your average customer likely won’t let them find it.
Across ecommerce, fintech, and healthcare sectors in 2023, chatbots have to date brought USD 11 billion in combined cost savings. And there’s that billion again. You see, the benefits of chatbots are proving lightning rods for online engagement.
Chatbots enliven customer engagement by asking questions to quick-navigate websites for them, curating or in effect showcasing the product and/or service customers have in mind. The best chatbots also keep visitors on your website for longer by serving as tireless shopping assistants and personalising as much as possible of the customer journey. From time on page to web experience personalisation, the benefits of chatbots are many.
5. Benefits of chatbots: Ramp up conversions
Today’s best chatbots are driving conversion rates by supporting conversion events like newsletter registration or cart checkout from inside the chatbot itself.
Fewer steps for customers lessen friction (read: their second-guessing things) and across the board are driving website conversions. A dynamic form, for example, appearing inside the chatbot means customers aren’t redirected or given further instruction. Their next-step of name and email is literally right there in front of them, spurring action and clickthrough.
With the best chatbots, your customer journey mapping is also simplified. The conversion benefits of chatbots mean a tidier backend as a result.
6. Benefits of chatbots: Grow into any vertical
CMSWire reports that the chatbot market will exceed USD 24 billion by 2030.
Again, billion.
But it’s unsurprising, really. The broad applicability that the benefits of chatbots offer for any business type and scale makes them a kind of secret weapon or all-industry chameleon.
The benefits of chatbots are versatile enough that whatever your sector, you can benefit too. For instance, if opting for a chatbot service provider like Serviceform, there are assurances your tools will be industry-specific with the help of proven templates to get any business started and quickly.
DIY guidance and chatbot creator resources like templates ensure the best chatbots don’t roboticise customer interaction but actually humanise it – all while being conversational in a way that’s an extension of your industry.
7. Benefits of chatbots: Reward customers with omnichannel experience
The benefits of chatbots absolutely include integration. The best chatbots today in fact integrate rather easily with your favourite software.
Serviceform, for example, uses in-house integrations to quickly bring innovative chatbot services to any CRM, social platform, or otherwise.
This is all to seamlessly facilitate the introduction of chatbots (read: the many benefits of chatbots!) )to your existing software and website setup, of course. Prebuilt integration techniques are helping businesses get on the chatbot train quicker and with minimal service disruption. Customers have little patience in their experience with you across channels and devices, after all – so you should have just as little patience in adapting your business to their needs!
Research shows over 89% of customers prefer to interact with businesses over chat – and then go back to those interactions later when they need to. No tool picks up from where customers left off like the best chatbots. So let the benefits of chatbots stop your customers from having to repeat themselves over and over again!
8. Benefits of chatbots: Enjoy low-cost scaling
Using chatbots to handle customer interactions makes customer service less staff-intensive. The best chatbots save you resources by automating more administrative or repetitive customer service tasks.
You have an FAQ page, right? The best chatbots are making today’s FAQ experience an interactive one. Remember: Human intervention in customer service isn’t always the answer nowadays! The best chatbots mean no time, energy, or money is spent on further recruiting. Resource-saving like this is just one of the scalability benefits of chatbots.
9. Benefits of chatbots: Automatic lead routing
Automatic lead routing? Chatbots in real time connecting web visitors to sales reps or agents. But not all routing was created equal.
Tapping into the routing benefits of chatbots means connecting leads with reps and agents in the know – to say, those directly responsible for the product, service, or area the customer is asking about.
Thanks to the benefits of chatbots like automatic lead routing, talking to help generalists without answers is changing. Lead generation is up while getting customers quickly in touch with knowledgeable reps is reflecting well on companies’ authority as players in their sectors. Customers will come to respect and associate you with knowledge in the space.
Unfortunately, it takes a lot of good reviews online to erase or diminish even one bad one. Making sure your every company interaction is a knowledgeable one for today’s customer is honestly vital. The best chatbots with automatic lead routing aren’t just increasing sales; they’re helping companies repair and better manage their brand authority.
10. Benefits of chatbots: Lessen lead response times
Better said: Drastically lessen lead response times.
Takeaways from Giosg on customer service response times make clear that the longer a company takes to respond to a lead, the harder it is to win that lead. There are simply too many options available online for a potential customer to wait for you.
The best chatbots being touch-point taskmasters is why response time is another metric the tool is dominating in. Customers are greeted, informed, and supported in real time, pushing sales. Chatbots don’t need sick days nor breaks; they’re as sharp and chipper in the evening as they were in the morning. Who would have thought a great attitude counted among the benefits of chatbots?
Another service advantage in real-time response is the reflection on brand that is. You’re a company who cares. Who’s there. And customers today really want to know that.
In a big shift from previous decades, relationships between companies and customers have never been more casually personal than they are today. The benefits of chatbots are helping companies build today's faster-paced customer bridges.
Benefits of chatbots: Wrapping up
Customers are looking for interactions and solutions. The tricky part for businesses is customers today actually want both at the same time.
Again, on each and every platform they’re on. And, again, that’s omnichannel. The benefits of chatbots are paving more and more a way forward – a way for businesses to ensure they’re there for customers anytime and anywhere. This means all-hours delivery of personalised services and solutions, contextual offers or discounts, and re-engaging cart abandoners so more checkouts are completed.
Explore more interesting uses and benefits of chatbots by returning to our Chatbot guide main page!
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