Top 5 Ways to Use Chatbots to Drive Conversions Through CX

Chatbots and Customer Experience are Now Synonymous 

Over the last few years, your customers have become accustomed to a new way of shopping online. More than ever, people are not only comfortable using interactive and automated chatbots to help them navigate your site– they’ve come to expect it. The key is that your chatbot needs to be intuitive and finely tuned to the customer experience your site visitors are expecting to have success.

Chatbots Are Expected

Studies show that chatbot usage has increased 92% since 2019–  which makes chatbots one of the fastest growing customer engagement channels that exists right now. And if you’re still among the few who are nervous that a “robot” might scare away your customers, think again. 

If we take a look at some recent Hubspot statistics, it was revealed that 48% of customers shopping online are comfortable having interactions that are managed by a chatbot. Furthermore, 71% said that they would have no issues interacting with a chatbot if it meant an improved user experience for them.

What Do We Mean When We Say Chatbot?

Just to be clear, there is a difference between having live chat and a chatbot on your website. Specifically, if you have live chat on your website, a human agent is engaging with visitors on your website. A chatbot is a piece of software that works by using pre-programmed responses, smart automation, and artificial intelligence (AI). A hybrid approach (when implemented properly) is to give your site visitors the simulation– and seamless results– of being helped by a chatbot and live person at the right time.

Chatbots can be used as a support tool, a customer service solution, or even a lead generation method, depending how they’re programmed.

Gone are the days where companies try to pass off their chatbots as real people. In fact, nowadays, it’s clearly stated in the chat window that you’re talking to a bot. In some cases, the chat will even display a ‘robotic’ avatar or use robotic language such as “beep boop”, explicitly telling site visitors they’re speaking to a chatbot.

Gone are the days where companies try to pass off their chatbots as real people. In fact, nowadays, it’s clearly stated in the chat window that you’re talking to a bot. In some cases, the chat will even display a ‘robotic’ avatar or use robotic language such as “beep boop”, explicitly telling site visitors they’re speaking to a chatbot.

Chatbots are Dynamic and Evolving

When it comes to getting more conversions on your website, it’s all about capturing– and keeping– your customers' attention. Most online shoppers are no longer engaging with static websites like they used to, and a chatbot is an amazing way to bring an evolving, dynamic element to your website to hold customer focus. 

In addition, chatbot technology has evolved exponentially– even in the last year. With these advances in technology (and even the ability to use AI and machine learning) chatbots can masterfully handle more than two-thirds of your customer conversions from beginning to end without any interaction from a live agent. 

Chatbots aren’t just one of the most important marketing channels of the present– but also have a bright future. Trends point to the fact that by 2027 the chatbot market will reach a staggering $454.8 million in revenue. You certainly don’t want to fall behind the curve.

Top 5 Tips to Increase Your Chatbot Engagement

Chatbots are an amazing tool to give your customers a way to interact with your brand immediately and dynamically 24/7. Let’s take a look at the top five ways that you can use chatbots to drive conversions through an improved customer experience.

1. Use a Data Driven Approach

Having a chatbot on your site is only the first step toward driving conversions through user experience. Why? Most chatbots that come ‘right out of the box’ aren’t properly programmed to deliver a VIP user experience. 

One of the most powerful ways to use your chatbot to increase customer engagement and drive conversions is to see what customers are interacting with, look at your customer journey to identify, where and how they’re converting. By looking at your website’s data, you can see where customers are spending the most time, what touch points they’re experiencing prior to converting, and more. By using this data to help program your chatbot, you can improve your conversion strategies. 

Beyond that, you can also see where you’re underperforming and try to improve on those portions of your customer experience. Perhaps a particular page or portion of the user journey has a particularly high bounce rate– maybe a well-placed, properly timed chatbot message can turn that around. 

We don’t recommend using the chatbot ‘straight out of the box’ on your website. If you do, you actually risk hurting your customer experience and conversion rates.

2. Engage at the Perfect Time

A major aspect of the customer experience is a non-intrusive approach to how you present information. We’ve all been the victim of an unsolicited pop-up appearing when we first visit a website. And reflexively, the typical response is to close the pesky window without giving it the time to fully load. You don’t want this to be the same perception people have of your site’s brand. 

Don’t have your chatbot be the very first thing that pops up when a visitor lands on a page of your site. Instead, let your curious site visitors digest the content on your site and get their bearings. Let them browse to find what they came to the site for in the first place. This allows them to get familiar with your brand and your offerings. 

By using triggers, cues, and AI triggers, you can have a chatbot respond at the perfect time for optimum engagement to curate the perfect site experience and drive more conversions.

3. Be Available 24/7

One of the major advantages to chatbots is their ability to run at full capacity 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. No matter what hour of the day (or night) a chatbot can engage your audience in real-time conversation. This is huge when it comes to customer experience. 

Whether it’s a weekend, a holiday, or any time during your off hours, customers can interact with your chatbot to get answers to questions, have support issues solved, and find the products they’re looking for.

This sort of option not only makes the user experience on your site feel modern and accommodating to customer behaviour, but it’s also an amazing way to save on support costs. When a chatbot is active during your normal business hours, it can handle basic support and sales functions so you can direct your resources elsewhere without missing a single sale.

4. Never Set it and Forget It

Just like with any other sales or marketing channel, your existing chatbot approach can become stale or outdated. Some companies take the time to craft a well-built chatbot and utilise it to great success– but that success eventually can start to dwindle. 

Whether the market shifts, seasons change, or customer behaviour evolves, a winning chatbot strategy can become a losing one over time. It’s key to observe your chatbot’s performance and make any tweaks and adjustments as necessary. 

So how often should you check in on your chatbot for fine tuning and changes? It really depends on the size of your site’s audience and the amount of traffic you’re pulling in monthly, weekly, or daily. It also depends on results. If you start seeing a dip in conversions that lasts more than a few days you may want to see what patterns you might be able to glean.

Additionally, chatbots can also leverage AI technology to build a curated, personalised customer experience. This technology allows your chatbot to take in user questions and offer answers based on previously successful interactions with your website. This machine learning also monitors user behaviour and more to deliver improved results in future interactions. 

If you push past the ‘set it and forget it’ mentality with your chatbot, you have a great chance of driving more conversions and delivering a better customer experience overall.

5. Scale Your Support and Sales

The final method we’ll give you for using chatbots to drive conversions and improve user interface is to scale what works. One of the best ways to win over a curious site visitor is to have top-tier customer service. 

It can be challenging for some companies to scale their customer support and keep the quality at its peak– and that’s where chatbots come in. When you have a well-crafted chatbot, you can cut down on overly lengthy support times that come along with more traditional channels such as emails and phone calls. 

You can also use a chatbot to scale your sales efforts. If your chatbot is set up properly, it can be an excellent way to make customer suggestions, intuitively suggest upsells, and be proactive at making sales from browsing site visitors.

Are you ready to unlock the power of chatbots and drive more conversions?

We specialise in creating and optimising chatbots with a human-led approach. 

Our team of experts works with companies of all sizes to ensure their chatbots are fine-tuned and optimised to provide the best user experience. 

Whether you’re just getting started with chatbots or want to optimise your existing chatbot, we can help. Let’s chat about how we can help you boost your brand’s conversions!