AI’s ability to effectively deal with a wide range of customer needs has completely transformed the B2B landscape. With voice detection technology, autonomous cars, and suggestive searches, AI has successfully sneaked into our day-to-day lives. AI-powered apps like CircleBack help keep prized connections up-to-date for access anytime. Similarly, Google’s voice-controlled smart assistant lets you send messages, check appointments, play music and so on. AI-powered chatbots, virtual assistants or automated messages can answer queries that were once answered by humans.
Needless to say, chatbots are on the rise; according to Opus Research 2017, $4.5 billion is expected to be invested in enterprise intelligent assistants by 2021. Moreover, by 2020, over 80% of businesses are expected to have implemented some sort of chatbot.
So, chatbots are definitely in huge demand by businesses. But why? Do chatbots help generate leads or help increase conversions in any way?
Let us check why B2B marketers wish to invest more in chatbots.
1. Chatbots reduce unwarranted strain on human resources: Using chatbots for customer service or sales frees up your employees to scale-up your organization’s efforts. RapidMiner generated 4,000 leads using the chatbot system, Drift. Chatbots influenced 25% of its sales pipeline. RapidMiner went on to replace every lead capture form on their site with a chatbot.
2. Chatbots offer an active communication channel: This is a great way to engage increasingly more prospects in real-time. It is better than other communication channels as it can engage multiple prospects simultaneously, offering them information about products or services that interest them. With real-time communication, chatbots are able to pick up a huge amount of valid data, which can then be further analyzed for better customer service.
3. Chatbots help analyze the consumer behavior by collecting consumer data: Businesses utilizing chatbots collect loads of data in a short period of time. This data, in addition to other clean data exported to the CRM via your AI-powered contact management app or other sources, helps holistically analyze consumer behavior. This allows B2B marketers to offer personalized content to their prospects, thereby offering a superior yet less costly way to grab them and turn them into a lead.
4. Chatbots offer an economically viable option: Innovative, exceptional and highly functional features of messaging chatbots come at a lower cost, and their ability to track customers responses makes the case for deploying chatbots. In comparison, AI engineered apps for mobile or web platforms are a complex and costly affair. Major tech platforms are either launching a Bot platform or creating a messaging app to keep in touch 24*7 with their customer base.
5. Chatbots are available 24*7: Unlike humans, bots are available 24*7 to collect orders, solve customer queries, and market the content in multiple languages, 365 days a year. Chatbots help customers find relevant information within minutes using an easy to use interface.
Given the above advantages, chatbots seem to be the next ‘Big Thing’ for the B2B marketers to collect data and connect with the prospects. In addition, chatbots also fare well with millennials who prefer live chat over phone, and constitute a significant part of the current US labor force. So, invest in chatbots if you wish to expand your horizons, generate more leads, increase conversions and transform customer experience in a shorter time frame using new channels.