All of your favorite sites have chatbots on them these days. Should you invest in one? Bots are excellent customer service and sales tools, and a website chatbot could make a huge difference for your business. BUT only if it’s implemented correctly. We’ll help you figure out if this is a trend your business can pull off.
Here are 10 of the pros and cons of chatbots for business, plus our five favorite website chatbots!
Is A Website Chatbot Is Right For Your Business?
PRO: Be There For Your Audience, 24/7
One of the biggest reasons businesses may choose to implement a chatbot on their website is because it gives you a chance to start a dialogue with your audience, 24/7.
CON: Your Audience Might Not Appreciate It
Who are you targeting? Knowing who you’re marketing to is crucial in deciding whether or not to invest in a chatbot. Is your audience the type to appreciate being able to chat with your bot at all hours? If they’re more the “pick up the phone and call” type, they might feel left behind by a chatbot.
PRO: Lead Gen, Automated
You’re able to be there for all the shoppers up at 3 am who have just one question to ask before they make that impulse by. A chatbot can serve as an automated salesman, helping you reach people you may have otherwise missed.
PRO: Customer Support, Automated
Likewise, a chatbot can help you stay in contact with your existing customers too. A frustrated customer, or one who prefers email to a lengthy phone call, will appreciate the ability to get in touch with you quickly and get their questions answered instantly.
CON: Is Your Bot Smart Enough For Unpredictability
A good chatbot is a smart bot. You can teach your chatbot the answers to questions you get regularly (more on that below), but a typo from the user could have your bot answering the wrong question or not understanding. It’s important to invest time in monitoring what questions are throwing your bot off and what it still needs to learn. (Or have your agency do it for you!)
PRO: Answer The Same Questions Again And Again
There’s one question you get all the time, right? You know the one – “Do you have any job openings?” or “I’m looking for my favorite product, is it in stock?” You can teach your bot to answer those questions instantly. That saves your time answering it and saves your user time waiting for a response. Win, win!
CON: Make Sure It Integrates With Your Business
A chatbot that doesn’t integrate with your business can get messy. Can someone man it when it needs to kick a question or conversation over to a customer service representative or salesperson? Will it need to, and be able to, integrate with your CRM? Take time to think about how your bot will integrate with your company’s operations.
PRO: Monitor And Add Information
Your marketing team will be able to monitor your bot to gather data on what people are asking it, so you can continue adding new information and gathering data on what questions your customers have.
CON: The Wrong Program Can Consume More Time Than It Saves
Chatbots for business are popular these days, which means there’s a lot of options out there. Take the time to think about what your goals are for your chatbot. Do you want it completely automated? Do you want it to connect with Facebook or avoid Facebook entirely? The wrong chatbot can cause issues, so make sure you’re picking a good fit. (Check out our suggestions below!)
PRO: Kick-Off That Big Campaign
Your chatbot can also help you field conversations about subjects you’re expecting a lot of calls about. If you’re about to launch something new, you can use your chatbot to drum up excitement for your project, product line, or campaign. Teach it to suggest products to people, answer questions about your campaign, the possibilities are endless!
Suggestions
Sold on a chatbot? Here are our five favorites and how they could work for you.
#1: Hubspot Live Chat
- Free tier for 1 million contacts
- Need to use the free CRM that comes with it
- No login required to chat
- Live chat with automation
#2: Drift
- Starts with a free plan up to 100 contacts, then goes up to $50/month for unlimited and so on
- No login required to chat
- Live chat with automation
#3: Intercom
- No free plan as it starts as low as $38/month
- It does all of the things
- No login required to chat
- live chat with automation
#4: ManyChat
- Free tier for unlimited contacts
- Sign in to Facebook required
- A chatbot, not live chat
#5: MobileMonkey
- Sign in to Facebook required
- Free tier for unlimited contacts
- A chatbot, not live chat
In a nutshell, a website chatbot is a great tool for generating leads and supporting your current customers! But, it’ll only be effective with the right resources behind it, and with the right bot. That’s where we come in. If you’re still unsure, we can help you choose the right chatbot for you.
Ready to get started? We’d love to get started writing scripts and implementing your bot. Let’s chat strategy!