Successful eCommerce depends on giving customers a pleasant experience from the homepage to their shopping cart, which can be tough to manage.
On the other hand, with how streamlined everything is today, being physically available 24/7 to handle customer questions or simple site navigation isn’t mandatory. Improving customer experience (CX) with chatbots has become a reliable tool that saves time and offers users assistance to help simply their buying journey. Not to mention, it comes with powerful benefits to enhance your business and keep customers coming back for more.
There are many simple tasks that chatbots can handle for you, and if you’re still not convinced about the process, here’s how chatbots could be your CX missing link:
Chatbots Already Making a Huge Impact on Customer Service
If you’ve ever returned a package to Amazon or called to dispute a problem with a retailer online, can you say for sure that your customer service agent was human?
In fact, a survey by PwC shows that 27% of consumers were unable to tell the difference between humans and chatbots according to their last customer service experience, showing how chatbots already make a huge impact on customer service all around the world.
For example, research from Gartner claims that 85% of all customer service experiences will be handled by chatbots by 2022. Plus, by as soon as next year, 80% of all businesses are set to use chatbots (or are transitioning to them). More importantly, the shift isn’t solely reliant on making things easier for businesses and customers—it also aims to save a hefty amount on costs. Additional studies from Juniper Research show that the total cost savings of businesses who use chatbots will surpass $8 billion as of 2022.
Needless to say, chatbots present an opportunity to automate repetitive tasks, minimize costs, and provide quick, helpful solutions to customer inquiries.
Chatbots Allow Businesses to Provide Better CX
Since chatbots remove the need to waste human resources on repetitive tasks, businesses can focus on providing better CX on multiple fronts.
Traditionally, customer service reps get bogged down by trivial disputes that require call center support, call transfers, and filling out notes with complaints. With that in mind, chatbots instantly free-up a lot of time spent on such tasks, and employees can spend more time on dealing with more complicated customer issues and improving the overall customer experience through ongoing training.
Something else to consider is the availability of employees to develop better customer relationships through constant interaction and personalization. Rather than only providing assistance to customers between set hours, chatbots allow for 24/7 customer support through a range of systems. Whether it’s offering chatbot messaging within an app or having a chatbot assist customers on your website, someone (or something) is always there to provide insights and make the customer feel welcome. Over time, customers begin to rely on this entity to help them with problems or they may seek their knowledge for tips and tricks from recommendations and references to other internal links.
Lastly, chatbots are excellent vehicles for marketing and brand reputation. More than anything, chatbots are a representation of a brand that expresses brand values through seamless connections and handling customer requests. For instance, chatbots have a better track record of open rates than email responses for customer service issues. Also, engagement rates are higher since chatbots can instantly send discount offers, product information, or other forms of visual content. Finally, chatbots can accumulate user data and provide better CX through personalization, like remembering interests, names, reminders for important sale dates, or return periods, etc.
Customers Prefer Chatbots
With businesses having the chance to provide better CX, customers have been taking notice and studies show that the majority of them prefer chatbots over traditional protocols.
According to a survey by Zendesk, one of the main factors that support customer satisfaction is a company’s first-response time after an inquiry is made online or by phone. Ideally, someone needs to get in touch with the customer immediately and solve the issue, and with chatbots, the problem is a no-brainer.
Artificial intelligence (AI) allows for fast automation designed to solve customer problems. Additional research from PwC claims that 62% of consumers support the idea that AI can minimize wait times for customer issues while maintaining a high level of personalization and care. Plus, another 38% of consumers support that AI gives better, individualized attention and experiences than a human employee.
Of course, nothing can replace a human entirely for some matters, but knowing that society is on board with chatbots and they accept their usefulness in terms of providing better CX is an important milestone. Overall, companies can feel a lot better about making the transition to chatbots for their own success.
Start Making the Switch to Chatbots Today
Yes, chatbots are a great customer service tool, but more importantly, they play an integral role in reshaping your company’s CX as a whole.
From fast response times to supporting conversions throughout a buyer’s journey, you can integrate chatbots into any aspect of your business that needs improvement. Even if the change seems too advanced or confusing against your current process, those who don’t embrace the future will get left behind—especially since technology is always changing and being improved on.
Don’t wait until the last minute to make an impact. Start making the switch to chatbots today and see what you’ve been missing.
