You need to keep one thing in mind in the business world: customers want an experience.
The customer has the power. Today, there are plenty of options of services and products to choose from. So what drives the customer to make a decision? That’s right, the experience.
Your business’s customer experience (CX) will determine why your customer should continue doing business with you. According to Forrester, 73% of customers say that the most important thing a company can do to provide good service is value their time. The customer sets the bar high; the experience needs to fulfil their needs and surpass their expectations.
Chatbots have been gaining space and notoriety in CX, and they are a great example of how automation can add value to the customer experience. As a result, the chatbot market is expected to grow a massive $9.4 billion by 2024. With artificial intelligence, chatbots can automate most of the responsibilities and manage the customer experience process and allow staff to deal with more complex needs.
So, where to start? This article will discuss how to add value to your customer experience (CX) using chatbots.
Rise of CX
The customer experience (CX) is your consumer’s perception of your business based on their interactions. It is related to customer satisfaction throughout all the stages of the customer journey, from awareness to retention.
As we first mentioned, the experience that customers get from your brand means everything. There is no room for mistakes. Around 32% of global consumers stop interacting with brands after one bad experience, and 92% would abandon the business after two or more negative interactions.
Customers don’t complain if they don’t like it, they will leave. Losing customers is costly for businesses, and the reputation is also at risk, as 13% of customers will tell over 15 people about a negative experience!
On the other hand, if customers have a positive experience and feel appreciated, they can spend up to 18% more on a product or service. Thus, a successful CX can prevent issues, retain your customers and enhance your results.
For SaaS, an outstanding customer experience will focus on customer retention and customer awareness. You want to make sure that all your customers are happy, not only the new ones! It is a way more cost-effective strategy for businesses, as customer acquisition costs up to 7 times more than retaining an existing customer. Plus, a loyal customer trusts your business, therefore, is willing to pay more or even cross-sell and up-sell when compared to a new customer.
Understanding Conversational Chatbots
If companies wish to uplevel their customer experience and stay relevant in the market space, they will need a chatbot. A total of 80% of large enterprises will need to have a “conversational-technology-focused-centre” implemented to keep up with their customer needs.
Chatbots use artificial intelligence to create online conversations between customers and businesses, and they can create different types of interactions. The best exchange will depend on your objective and what works best for your business.
The keyword bots are easy, very simple to use and one of the most common chatbots. Button bots interact by presenting a list of choices, generally called quick replies, and the flow of the conversation is driven by which one of the quick replies the user chooses. Thus, the bot will respond depending on the customer’s reply button. Button bots also can collect data such as names, email addresses, booking times etc., but overall they are very straightforward.
The NLP bots are more complex, but they are more versatile and more CX efficient, as the customer talks to the bot as they would talk to a person. Neutral language processing (NLP) turns unstructured data into structured data, allowing machines to understand text and speech and create relevant and adequate responses.
For this reason, NLP bots are more intelligent, so they can understand the intent, tone and context of the conversation and respond to the user in the best possible way. Flow XO supports NLP style interactions with plugins to two compelling, popular and free NLP systems, Google’s Dialogflow and Facebook’s Wit.ai
There are also hybrid bots, a mix of button bots and NLP bots and provide a good balance for businesses’ customer experience.
Ways that Chatbot Drives CX
Personalisation, problem-solving, proactively, and value are differentiators for outstanding customer experience (CX) performance, and they are all chatbot’s deliverables.
Here are the key areas in that chatbots add value to the customer experience journey.
Ensure a strong front-line
The customer experience starts from your first contact with your customer, so having a solid frontline is crucial.
Chatbots are the perfect way to welcome new visitors to your website by providing a friendly, effective and proactive interaction with your customers and helping them to solve their queries. Also, you are always available to help your customers if they have any issues or need any information.
It is the perfect opportunity to add value to your customers and increase your chances of driving customer retention. People prefer chatbots for their dynamic and efficient communication, and over half of consumers (62%) would prefer to talk to a bot rather than with a human agent.
Keep Customers Engaged
Chatbots provide an interactive environment to customers across all the stages of the customer experience journey, so they are great at keeping them satisfied and engaged.
Apart from being a great support channel, they can act proactively and identify issues and follow up if needed.
Customer engagement and customer experience are two different things, but they operate together. While customer experience is the customer’s view of your company, customer engagement is how a business interacts with customers.
Engaging your customers and nurturing their relationship with your business will increase their loyalty to the brand, raising the level of your customer experience.
Retention
The better your customer experience, the bigger your customer retention.
If you deliver a successful customer experience, you will increase your customer retention rates, which are more cost-effective than customer acquisition. Many businesses search to improve customer retention rates, but it is not rocket science. In fact, companies reported losing most of the customers (75%) over waiting times.
Chatbots are a great tool to overcome this challenge. By implementing bots, you can provide a 24/7 interaction with your customers, nurture connections and always be one step ahead of their needs. In addition, it drives customer loyalty, improves retention rates and, of course, customer experience.
Personalization
Today, a successful customer experience comes with personalization. Customers expect businesses to know their names, preferences, and individual needs. A personalized customer experience means that you are capable of delivering custom-built CX.
McKinsey states that customers expect a customized experience, and 76% of them become frustrated when it doesn’t happen. It also provides excellent results for companies as companies with personalization strategies drive 40% more revenue.
With chatbots, conversations with customers can be fully tailored to attend their needs. Today, chatbots can fully understand customer behavior and apply an individual approach to the overall customer experience. on a personal level – and to use this to the knowledge they receive
Value to the Journey
There is a rising customer preference for a more conversational approach to engagement. Thus, it adds value to the customer experience journey.
Chatbot implementation adds value to the customer journey, as it facilitates the interaction between businesses and customers and offers an omnichannel customer experience.
An omnichannel chatbot ensures your organisation delivers consistent and high quality messaging and interaction across your digital channels. It drives brand awareness and customer loyalty, improving your overall customer experience journey.
Your Way to a Successful Customer Experience
If you want to take your customer experience to the next level, you will need to use tools that can support you and surpass your expectations.
Chatbots are one of the most cost-effective tools available to improve your customer experience. It solves the main challenges of managing customers’ expectations and challenges and can elevate your experience level.
Flow XO provides a meaningful customer experience via chatbots. We deliver personalised and intuitive chatbots that offer a superior experience from start to finish. With Flow XO, businesses can access a complete set of data, which allows them to measure and personalise their customer experience performance. If the customer prefers, we can even transfer the conversation to a human.
Flow XO is a customer-centric chatbot builder and delivers tailored solutions for companies that want to take their customer experience to the next level.
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