6 Foolproof Customer Engagement Strategies Using Chatbots
By Frank Schneider, VP of Sales, North America
Since the rise of AI applications in the business world, chatbots’ influence on customer engagement has been a hot topic. Enterprises using or considering AI virtual assistants must have an effective plan for improving customer engagement.
Below are a few tips to help your virtual agents create a first-class customer experience.
- Start with mobile
Many large, older organizations make the mistake of believing that their virtual assistants should be configured first and foremost for desktop use. However, Google announced in 2015 that mobile had surpassed desktop in search traffic in several large countries. Research from April 2016 shows that in the U.S., 65% of digital media time is spent on mobile, compared to just 35% on desktop. You should be planning customer engagement strategies for mobile channels first, and then ensuring they work everywhere else.
- Don’t get locked into a platform-based solution
Many customer engagement providers are touting solutions for a specific social media platform or communication channel. While it’s great to have a way to engage with customers where they are, there are risks to hitching your wagon to a single-platform solution that isn’t specifically fitted to each channel. Leave your organization some flexibility when it comes to how you reach customers with your digital engagement solutions.
- Use personalized recommendations
Personalization of content is a primary focus in the commercial world, especially in B2C applications. Think about the apps, websites and social media profiles set up to customize a person’s experience with a brand. Chatbots can and should be one of these tools. By checking someone’s purchase history, account status, and previous interactions with the company, your virtual agent provides tailored recommendations that not only please customers, but help improve revenues through cross-selling and upselling.
- Leverage a proven chatbot solution
There are many new and experimental virtual agents in today’s market. Since Facebook opened up its Messenger application to chatbots in spring 2016, over 11,000 bots have joined the platform. If you’re trying to choose a chatbot solution for your company, don’t pick one solely based on its features or the way it’s presented to you: find one with a verifiable track record of helping large enterprise clients deliver these solutions at scale.
- Take advantage of old chat logs and phone transcripts
The best virtual agent solutions learn from your previous conversations across other channels. You should have an AI virtual assistant analyze logs from customer interactions with live agents – both phone and chat – so it can learn about common issues and understand how to resolve them before having a single conversation.
- Don’t wait for customers to initiate the interaction
To reach the next level of engagement, you can’t wait for customers to contact you with problems they are experiencing. You must attempt to get ahead of their issues by prompting them to talk about their use of your product or service. A quality chatbot can be set up to initiate an interaction through SMS, mobile, and/or desktop with customers about topics important to your business.
As the leader in virtual customer service, Creative Virtual specializes in the science of conversation.
