Head to any website and look to the lower right corner. It’s highly likely you’ll see an icon indicating the presence of the increasingly commonplace chatbot. But why have they become a new standard in customer experience?

Customers’ expectations have changed in response to digital technologies. We expect to make contact quickly, easily, on the channel we want to use. We also expect near instantaneous gratification in everything. From tracking a missing order to finding the right answers to our questions and enlisting business consultation services, we don’t want to go through the trials of filling out a form or emailing a representative. We want what we want and we want it now.

Enter chatbots. These automated interactions can provide this level of immediacy without the customer needing to navigate elsewhere. They can even work cross-platform, across websites and social media apps like Facebook Messenger if required.

Unlike humans, chatbots never sleep. They are able to work around the clock to help B2B businesses service their customers’ expectations and the scale of demand, and do so without the resource requirements that could over-burden an organisation.

However, the arguments for using chatbots go beyond merely supplementing your available human resources or and freeing up your team to work on projects that add more value for the customer. Working in tandem with other marketing automation tools, chatbots can create an even more powerful and personalised experience.

A good chatbot experience with a high level of professionalism and polish can wow customers. When created with a bit of flair, the best ones embody the brand’s personality and encourage users forward on the buyer’s journey. 

To be a successful channel, companies need to put some work in up front. You need to consider which points in the customer journey could benefit from chatbot assistance,  and create a thoughtful customer experience in terms of workflow construction and script writing.

In this article, we’ll look at how you can enhance your B2B customer experience, marketing, and sales process by implementing these powerful automated tools.

Types of Chatbots

Chatbots are the champions of getting the conversation started and have come a long way in recent years. Improvements in AI and natural language processing have made them increasingly sophisticated, and the things they can do often comes as a surprise.

There are three main types, although there is some overlap between them:

• Rules-Based Chatbots: These are some of the most common types of chatbot. They follow an “if this, then that” command set that answers questions with pre-made answers and conversation flows. These bots are designed never to fail customers. They will either provide the right answer or connect the customer to someone who can. If the question isn’t answered, the chatbot can transfer the customer to live help, or maybe have them fill out a form for a representative to get back to them.

• Live Chat Support: These bots act as more of a conversation starter or placeholder to answer questions before a customer service rep becomes available to help. Customer support teams and B2B marketing teams frequently use live chat support so potential customers can start a conversation and provide useful seed information that helps the sales team quickly provide the information they need. They also collect an email address so there's a way to follow up when the conversation finishes.

• Artificial Intelligence: Digital marketers consider AI chatbots as their best friends as they are more evolved. And true to AI, they learn from programmers, developers, and customers. They are better able to recognise customer needs and provide custom replies. With natural language processing and machine learning, they are better equipped to handle challenging tasks and answer complex questions about products and services offered.

You may find one of these options or a combination of all of them could be best for your company. However, more in-depth options will require up-front costs and likely out-of-house help from chatbot developers. But the more you put into your chatbot presence, the more you will receive.

General Purpose vs Targeted Applications

Sometimes, the simplest answer is best, and implementing a simple chatbot solution can work wonders for a homepage. Here, a general-purpose bot can provide all users with an intuitive interface to help answer queries and point audiences in the right direction. They can act both as a 24/7 directory for information, linking users to content on specific topics, and as a connector for their human counterparts, routing them to additional support. 

However you can use chatbots for more targeted applications, displaying them on specific web pages and landing pages. You can also target them so they only show to particular audience types instead of everyone (e.g. new visitors vs returning visitors or recent visitors). 

Integration with a marketing automation platform allows further fine-tuning. You can have them only show up for leads in the pipeline or to existing customers. Alternatively, you can target them to users tagged to a particular geographic area or custom fields like interest groups.

Say, for example, you decide to use a chatbot to start contact with opportunities who visit the ‘book a demo’ page more than once but haven’t booked in yet. Their behaviour suggests they are a warm lead, so making contact might be profitable at this point if they have unresolved questions or are having trouble booking in.

Customer Intelligence

A cleanly written chatbot script, complete with helpful workflows that drill down into the users’ needs, can be put to work to simplify both yours and your customers’ lives.

Using bots, you can get immediate feedback on questions about your customers’ problems, the solutions they’re looking for and the questions your website leaves unanswered. By recording conversations with the chatbot, you can improve your UX month after month, removing points of friction in the customer journey and solve your customers’ problems earlier so they’re ready to commit faster.

Chatbots that are part of an integrated automation platform can also help you get to know your customers better. The information they collect syncs directly to become part of a contact's ‘life of the lead’ record. If you’re putting together your marketing technology stack from a range of platforms, consider how the platforms integrate and whether they can build that 360º view of the lead.

These benefits can give sales a boost over time by removing barriers to entry and providing immediate help to potential customers. They can save companies money in decreasing human resources and also provide more on-ramps for sales.

Chatbot Do’s And Don’ts 

Do: 

• Give them a little flair and personality: As utilitarian as chatbots may seem, they are the perfect avenue for communicating your brand. Don’t be afraid to give them personality and voice, perhaps with a branded name and some witty lines of script.

• Always think about ease-of-use: Chatbot should help your customers with their purchase decisions and make everything easier for your audience. Design your solutions to reduce friction, not add to it.

• Take notes from competitors or other chatbots you like: The next time you come across a chatbot, take notes on what works and what doesn’t. Implement the best parts and don’t be afraid to add unique solutions.

• Focus on ready leads: If resourcing your customers’ support expectations is a concern, automated solutions like chatbots can be excellent solution. Use them to triage routine enquiries so you can focus your team’s personal attention on existing customers and priority leads.

• Make the constraints of the chatbot clear: If your customer asks the chatbot how they can find inner peace, they will be sorely disappointed. Help users to stay within the bounds of the chat, for example by providing yes/no questions and simple queries that will keep them within a flowchart of results.

Don’t: 

• Don’t let them waste your customers’ time: Do you remember Clippy, the Microsoft paperclip? Take notes from Microsoft’s mistakes. For busy customers, a great chatbot experience is likely to be a brief one. Get to the point and don’t provide distracting or unsolicited help that comes across as too “chatty” for your chatbot.

• Don’t let bots make help from a human scarce: Provide a gateway and guide, not a barrier. Don’t use chatbots to prevent or avoid customer interaction. Even when you have chatbot solutions in place, customers should still be able to get in contact with a person quickly and easily. If it is out of hours and a human service rep isn’t available, use the chatbot to collect the relevant information from the customer and state your follow up time frame.

• Don’t let there be a negative outcome: The only things that should occur from a chatbot interaction are: (1) You solve the customer's problem or answer their question, (2) You put the customer through to a person who is better placed to help them. Do everything you can to eliminate frustration in the process and assure your potential customers.

Marketing Automation Tools To Drive Your Business

Chatbots are an increasingly popular way to add customer interactions to your site, simplify engagement throughout the customer journey, and multiply the power of your marketing and sales staff by freeing up their time. They can provide a refreshing and creative marketing mouthpiece and position your company as modern, smart, and ready to solve problems.  

Our integrated marketing automation platform provides these services all in one place so you can focus on building strong relationships with your target audience. Book a demo to find out more.