9 reasons why you should implement a chatbot for customer service

According to data obtained by gnani.ai, 86 percent. of users leave the store forever after a second bad experience. What's more, customers are almost three times more likely to stay longer with brands that provide quick customer service and solve sales problems immediately.

One of the answers to this challenge may be the implementation of a chatbot in your store that will take over some of the duties related to customer service.

A chatbot is an automated system whose task is to answer questions and conduct conversations with users via a widget visible on the website. Some chatbots use AI, but many do without it, relying only on predetermined sets of answers and even suggesting questions for users to ask.

A revolution in the operation of chatbots was the appearance of the ChatGPT service, which allows you to conduct a natural conversation with the large language models (LLM), which generates responses based on the texts on which it was trained. ChatGPT has been available since November 2022 and since then it has taken the media and user attention by storm, breaking the barrier of one million users in a week. We also wrote about LLM in the article: How AI in search engines will affect online stores

This technology is now increasingly used to create specialized chatbots that no longer prompt questions and do not operate on previously prepared answers but use natural language.

What is a chatbot

Reasons to Implement a Chatbot

Chatbot is a very good supplement to marketing and sales activities. On the one hand, the human contribution to customer service is very valuable to any online activity, but on the other hand, the implementation of a chatbot can bring many benefits.

Redirecting the support team to more important tasks

The main benefit is a better allocation of time and effort for consultants who will always be needed in customer service. Their support allows us to solve complicated cases related to, for example, the loss of specific orders or knowledge of specific applications related to the products offered.

Nevertheless, the vast majority of problems reported by users are common and repetitive. The main issue here is to get a quick response. In this case, redirecting such users to the chatbot saves time for both employees and customers. Clients do not have to wait for a "human" response to their query.

24/7 availability

As mentioned above, most customer questions are repetitive and related to similar issues. Delegating these tasks to automated systems will provide answers almost as soon as you ask a question. Chatbot does not need to sleep, does not need breaks, and does not get tired of work, thanks to which it is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

According to data obtained by callcentrehelper, the average user is willing to wait no more than 20 seconds for a phone call, 4 hours for an email, 20 seconds for a live chat, and an hour for social media questions.

Easier handling of traffic peaks

Fatigue-free machines are also able to support the customer service department during peak demand. Chatbots can scale quickly – both up and down. This means that it is possible to purchase a better package to handle higher traffic volumes during peak periods. After the peak goes down, it is possible to quickly scale down the digital infrastructure and reduce costs.

Improved response times

By freeing the working hours of human employees and transferring some customer inquiries to chatbots, it is possible to significantly improve the overall "user experience" for store customers. This is turned into increased customer loyalty.

Lower customer service costs

Obtaining such quality and speed of service using only human employees would require large investments, which would not necessarily be justified by the return on investment. In this case, the quality to costs ratio is extremely beneficial.

Personalization

Paradoxically, the shifting of some customer service tasks to automated systems allows for much greater personalization. A well-programmed chatbot is able to service each customer on an ongoing basis as they wish, using various channels and with many queries. In turn, employees who do not have to process dozens of standard inquiries are able to focus more on those cases that really require their support.

Easier omnichannel

Chatbots can operate wherever chat is available. This means that their services can be implemented on a website and social media, among others. Thus, one system, properly implemented, is able to support the company in multi-channel activities. What's more, this system will behave similarly regardless of the context in which it is located, which positively affects the uniform perception of the brand.

Increasing ROI

More efficient customer service impacts profits from sales. That is primarily thanks to better contact with customers that have been already acquired. Quick and trouble-free contact with the store clients helps to avoid many misunderstandings, and thus - also negative comments on the web. From the e-commerce perspective, this is a huge advantage that allows you to minimize negative user experience.

According to Investpcro, the cost of acquiring a new customer is up to five times higher than selling a new service to an existing customer. We mentioned this, among others, in the article devoted to building brand loyalty: How to optimize Customer Lifetime Value in your e-commerce

Easier data collection

In the case of chatbots, it is possible to automatically report and collect data on their work. The chatbot can keep you informed about subsequent queries, and the software used for the analysis can pre-group them and present the results in the form of a clear dashboard.

From the perspective of larger e-commerce companies, this is an important source of knowledge that can then be used to improve the quality of service or even influence the general rules of brand communication.

Summary

In the era of the growing importance of artificial intelligence and the increasing availability of solutions based on it, chatbots are a natural element of the development of an online store. Properly used, they can be a huge support for the service team, a convenient form of communication for users, and, above all, a smart way to improve financial results.