Stock Up Your Lead Count Pantry with Chatbots

You are at the grocery store, pushing along your shopping cart to gather ingredients for the perfect meal at home. As you browse the produce aisle, you see many attractive options but can’t decide which are best to please your family. It just so happens that a friendly employee has shacked up nearby with a sampling of the different fruits for you to try.

This is a classic example of a shopper’s indecision solved by an employee’s expertise.

I like to draw this metaphor to explain chatbot technology for those unfamiliar with the topic. Let’s revisit this scenario replacing a couple of keywords.

First, we have the shopper, which in this case is a lead looking for a solution to his/her problem, or fruits for his/her meal.  Then, we’ve got the friendly employee, the chatbot, who is a subject matter expert on the variety of fruits (read: solutions) the lead can acquire.

The chatbot is a conversational agent engaging with business leads on your behalf.  If you owned a grocery store, surely you’d have subject matter experts on the floor helping customers. The same principle can be applied to your company website, social media channels, so on and so on with chatbot assistants.  Let’s dig in deeper on how chatbots are helping sales and marketing professionals to generate leads!

Digital Yet Satisfying

Imagine getting hungry for a midnight snack and realizing your pantry was empty.  Naturally, you’d hobble down to your local store to grab a bite to eat.  But what if the doors were closed!? Successful stores maximize their potential customers by leaving the lights on 24/7. Chatbots are doing the same for your prospects on the digital web.

Like the 24 hour stores, Chatbots don’t sleep. They catch your leads anytime and ensure they get the best experience possible. And did I mention they don’t get tired or (h)angry either?

They also have reliable memories.  Chatbots remember to address returning leads with personalized messages.  After a couple days go by, they remember to follow-up on inactive leads with the power of automation.  It’s a lifeboat of relief for the modern marketer and sales professional, often overwhelmed by the sheer volume of lead opportunities.

People like it when things are easy and convenient for them. When walking around in the shop, there are signposts to direct traffic to desirable choices. When thinking how best to reach your prospects, it’s helpful to know that sending and receiving text messages is the most prevalent form of communication for American adults under 50, according to a Gallup poll. Chatbots scratch that itch with enthusiastic resolve.

To summarize, the top benefits of chatbots according to their customers:

• 24-hour service
• Getting instant responses
• Getting answers to simple questions
• Easy communication
• Friendliness and approachability

Have A Reliable Aide

Leads are being overwhelmed with a ridiculous number of options.  Do I want the Red Banana, Cavendish Banana, Lady Finger Banana or one of the twenty other types on the shelf?  Your chatbot filters through all the noise and gathers only the most relevant choices to present for peace of mind.

Let’s examine a possible conversation that both a chatbot and store associate could have with a possible customer:

Visitor: Hi, what do you have here?

Representative: Hello, I have a lot of different things.  For those that enjoy sweet flavors, there’s this.  For those that enjoy sour flavors, there’s that.  Which one would you prefer?

V: I like sweet things.

C: Excellent.  Would you like to try a sample free of charge?

V: Sure.  But I have some questions.  Is it made with meat?

C: No, it’s 100 percent sugar.  And we are doing a special on the price for today only.

V: Really?  I think this taste great.  How much?

 This short conversation engaged the customer and helped the representative discover the best solution for his/her needs.  But it goes a step further on behalf of the sales team—it actively upsells other opportunities by providing strategic keywords to trigger emotional responses. One of the most powerful tools in a sales & marketeer’s toolkit is behavioral psychology, which can be translated directly into your chatbot!

Conversations your chatbots have with leads are not just one-way.  The AI is constantly retrieving, adapting, and outputting messaging based on the context of the conversation, just like a normal human would.

Picking The Right Ingredients

Just with leads, not all fruits mix well as ingredients for your recipes at home.  In fact, some ingredients make things worse. The same can be said for lead quality.

There’s an age-old debate whether pineapple is a topping that belongs on pizza (for the record, I support that choice). What works for one person isn’t always best for another.

Chatbots are constantly sorting through lead preferences and matching them with the best fit.  This is good for marketers and sales too.  Prequalification is a huge time saver and gives them the information to focus on the presentation pitch and less on discovery activities.

Increasing quality leads is the top priority for 68% of B2B professionals, followed by increasing lead volume (at 55%.)

Sales has quotas to meet.  But if you bring in the wrong lead, it can lead to an unsatisfied customer who might potentially write a bad review.  That’s something you should prevent at all costs!

[UX Tip: When creating a chatbot, map out all your desired leads and what paths they might take to achieve the solution to their problem.  This gives clarity to writing the conversation flow for your bot!]

Healthy Businesses Eat Healthy Fruits

Put your business in the shoes of the shopper. If you were struggling to pick the best ingredients for a recipe, wouldn’t you consult a chef to hand-pick the right ingredients for your delicious meal?

A chatbot is a wonderful lead magnet to filter only the most qualified for your business needs. They operate a trusted advisor for your prospects, available 24/7.

By 2025, customer service organizations that embed AI in their multichannel customer engagement platform will elevate operational efficiency by 25%, according to Gartner. Saving money for your lead generation activities with chatbot technology is a welcome boon for marketing and sales professionals looking to maximize their budgets.  I hope this article has shed some light on the appetizing benefits chatbots can bring to your business.

Interested in trying chatbot technology out for yourself? Try vChat today!