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Customer service is essential to any business. You may be surprised to hear it takes customers 12 positive experiences to feel satisfied… after just one negative experience. If you want ti to recuperate on these negative reviews, the chatbot ideas in this article will help you. See, the ways to deliver top-notch service are changing with new digital tools. Customers frequently communicate over email, visit websites to chat. Or even use companies’ social media sites to resolve their questions. It’s vital to keep up with the new landscape of customer relations.

Bots are a fantastic way to make quick contact with returning and potential customers. Bots help to automate tasks, freeing your employees up for more in-depth requests. So, are you looking for chatbot ideas for your website? And see what can be automated on your end? Here are 6 different types of bots that serve different purposes for companies.

Explained: Chatbot Ideas

So, what exactly are chatbots?

Bots (usually) are chat widgets included on webpages or code embedded in a messaging app. Designed to converse with visitors to your page, answering simple questions or requests. They might direct a customer to what they’re looking for, or find an easy piece of information. Chatbots can be text-based or auditory. Though, they vary in sophistication. They all rely on some kind of artificial intelligence (AI.) The AI aspect can crawl webpages, answer questions, and offer help.

Many chatbots also can learn or self-teach. As they come into contact with new words and concepts, they can add them to the program’s neural network. While all this is very cool, chatbots don’t come close to passing the Turing Test yet. A test designed by mathematician Alan Turing to assay how intelligent AI is. The Turing Test is used to prove how close the program comes to reflecting actual human behavior.

Though chatbots seem relatively new, the first official bot was created in 1966. Today, their popularity snowballs. Nearly 80% of businesses plan to put in place a chatbot in 2020. With that figure, it’s easy to see that not employing a chatbot can put your website at a disadvantage. Whether you raise money for a cause, selling a product, or providing an educational site, there is a bot for you.

6 Chatbot Ideas for Your Website

Chatbots are versatile programs that can be used for many different purposes. Here are 6 common but helpful chatbot ideas you might want to use for your website.

1. The After-Hours Chatbot Concept

Most companies do not have resources to staff human beings on customer service chats 24/7. But the internet never stops. There will be times customers visit your site with questions while your customer service line is closed. An after-hours bot can help. Instead of leaving potential customers to their own devices… or worse yet, going for a different site, this chatbot can collect leads 24-7. The bot can engage with customer questions. Plus, provide a pretty good approximation of a live customer service agent.

If the after-hours bot isn’t able to answer all the questions or concerns, it can collect the customer’s information. It can then ensure that a human will reach out during business hours. This service is priceless in our fast-paced society. Especially where people want responses fast and don’t want to have to visit a site many times. As with most chatbots, an after-hours bot’s purpose includes better customer engagement. It takes the sometimes impersonal feel of website interactions and welcomes them in a personalized way. It also conveys to your potential customers that you’ll be there to answer their concerns every step of the way.

2. Straight Up Facebook Messenger Chatbot

One wide-open area for chatbot development is on Facebook Messenger. A popular messaging app, Messenger, is already installed on millions of devices. Also, there are only around 300,000 current Messenger chatbots. Meaning your bot stands a good chance of reaching actual people. There are many applications for a Messenger chatbot. One important one for employers is finding and recruiting potential employees. Whether unemployment is low or high, reaching quality candidates for open job postings can be challenging.

According to surveys, over 50% of employee-aged Americans scroll through their FB feed at least once a day. This is a vast pool of potential employees. Most of these people also use the Messenger app, so the bar of entry to communication is low. Another excellent application for a Messenger chatbot is customer engagement. Visitors to your Facebook page can be greeted with a personalized message. It can then even offer help finding the information they seek. That is excellent audience outreach.

With email marketing, CTR remains reasonably flat, a Messenger chatbot offers a fresh way to get your content out to interested parties.

3. The Welcome Chatbot Idea

Many businesses struggle with their conversion rates. They may have plenty of web traffic, but only a small percentage of visitors are taking action and converting to monetized visits. This problem is endemic and frustrating. Does this sound familiar? If so, a welcome chatbot might be the answer! A welcome chatbot is a little pop-up that greets visitors to your site. It usually has a name and often an image to personalize it so that visitors will want to interact with it. It is typically innocuous enough of a pop-up that people can simply ignore or close it if they aren’t interested in it.

The welcome bot is an excellent way to open a dialog with potential customers. But think about some of these added benefits. A welcome bot can help raise your conversion rate drastically. Even if visitors don’t convert, a welcome bot can gather lead data as well. A welcome bot provides a friendly face and often a bit of humor. It can also assist customers and nudge them over the finish line towards taking action on your site. It can be customized by the page your viewer is on for maximum efficiency.

Welcome bots are relatively easy to build and can provide huge boosts to your conversion rate. What is not to love?

4. The Voice

Not every chatbot is text-based. In fact, many of us speak to chatbots every day! Do you find yourself asking questions of Siri or Alexa, or calling out, “OK, Google”? If so, you are using a voice-based chatbot. This bot can respond to sounds, either by speaking back to you or performing a requested task.

Voice-enabled chatbots interact through sound. They are activated orally or through text, and they can communicate through either text or voice. These chatbots provide a host of benefits as well as some challenges. Interacting with technology through voice is definitely more user-friendly for most people. Humans are used to querying aloud and listening to instructions. For people who struggle with typing or reading, voice chatbots are a great alternative.

Voice bots are also particular in their ability to pair with other apps and services. Alexa, Siri, and Google’s new Meena can all surf the web, tell you the weather, make a phone call, or play a song. They can be programmed to interact with smart appliances to turn on the lights or heat when you’re not home. Bots that can make sound have another advantage over text bots in the level of engagement that they can bring. They are more engaging to interact with and bring customer interaction to a new level.

Also, It is better to hear a joke than to read one – even if it’s told in Alexa’s somewhat slow rhythm. As technology improves, bots will be able to approximate better emotion and delivery.

Many of us use voice chatbots every day, and we can see room for their growth in the future. These bots are a sign of what is to come! These intricate pieces of AI will only become more and more common in our lives.

5. A Survey Chatbot Concept

Are you interested in gathering data from your site visitors? Maybe you need to find out what they’re looking for, or whether they would consider donating to your cause.The survey chatbot is your answer! Personally, one of the most favorited ideas of all chatbot ideas!

There are many practical for a survey chatbot. From customer engagement to managing a workforce, the survey bot can gather relevant information for your needs. For consumer websites, a survey chatbot can collect valuable information from visitors. It can request an email address, gauge satisfaction with the visit, and help you understand how likely someone is to buy your product.

For your workforce, a survey bot is also great. You can send the survey bot over your company’s messaging app to find the best time for meetings. It can also ask employees about what they’re working on and how they need help. A survey chatbot program often comes with many tools for reporting on the data that it gathers. It will offer analytics that can guide decision-making with relevant information.

That survey chatbot can also be programmed to respond to repetitive questions based on its queries. It can handle frequently asked questions of site visitors. Or gather meeting times and reply quickly to employees on scheduling matters.

6. Site Navigation Bot

Do you remember the days where you’d often have to click the “Site Map” link to find what you were looking for on a website? Thankfully, web design has come far and has focused on making information readily accessible to users. That said, shopping on webpages can still take a lot of clicking. And in some cases, maintaining many tabs to make comparisons between products. But, even these relatively minor inconveniences can create enough friction to stop a sale or action.

That’s where a site navigation bot comes in. These chatbots can serve as guides to your site map. Quickly finding the right size or color product that the customer is looking for. This can smooth out the friction that sometimes prevents a prospect from becoming a customer. A site navigation chatbot can also act as a salesperson. A chatbot like this could offer a comparison of products. Or it could be steering customers to complementary products. Navigation bots help boost sales on websites that use them.

If you have created an educational website, a navigation bot can also be handy. It can keep visitors engaged while directing them to the information they seek.

National Geographic has used this technology in innovative ways. They’ve been creating chatbots that channel the subjects of their shows. They recently created a navigation bot that channels Albert Einstein. And another – newer one – named Aretha. These bots provide information, links to webpages of interest, and a dose of humor.

All Chatbots are Support Chatbots

These are six ways that chatbots can be used effectively and innovatively. There are many more methods of employing chatbots for your website’s needs.

No matter what, remember that nearly every kind of chatbot is there to support your visitors. One of the cool things about chatbots is they can connect with customers even when a human is not staffing the desk. From providing help to personalizing your content, chatbots serve many overlapping purposes.

Chatbots bring positive benefits to your business in more than just customer engagement. They can mean the difference between converting a casual visitor into a customer. They can also collect essential data to help you drive sales and content in the best ways.

Let Us Help You With Your Bot

Are you intrigued by these chatbot ideas and ready to implement your own? Check out all the fantastic features that we can help you bring to your site. Get started on your chatbot today!

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