The average person’s attention span is eight seconds.
This means you only have eight seconds to answer their questions, solve for their pain points, and keep them on your website.
So, what are organizations doing to capture visitor interest?
For many, the answer lies in conversational marketing. Conversational marketing is the practice of immediate, online-based communication that often involves chatbots. There are two main types of chatbots: AI-enabled chatbots and traditional chatbots.
Below, we share an overview of each and the benefits of using artificial intelligence (AI) technology in your conversational marketing strategy.
What is a Traditional Chatbot?
Traditional chatbots are keyword or rule-based chatbots that can only perform tasks they have been explicitly configured to complete. They answer questions based on predefined rules that generally guide visitors to “if/then” statements at each step.
For example, suppose a visitor engages a traditional chatbot on your website. They may first be asked, “Are you here to find information about joining or renewing your membership?” If the user responds “joining,” they’ll be entered into a conversation branch designed specifically for non-members. If the user answers “renewing,” they’ll be entered into a separate branch designed for existing members.
Because of this, traditional chatbots tend to be limited in nature and can only accurately answer or respond to the limited keywords, phrases, or questions they have been programmed to understand. Additionally, any bot changes must be programmed by humans.
What is an AI-Enabled Chatbot?
Unlike traditional chatbots, AI-enabled chatbots like Betty Bot combine advanced AI techniques and generative chat to provide personalized experiences for website visitors in a conversational manner.
Because AI-enabled chatbots can understand a variety of keywords and phrases no matter how they’re typed, they can more quickly and effectively answer inquiries. They can also learn from each visitor interaction, which means they’re constantly evolving and scaling to improve their reactions and responses.
Before they’re launched, the AI technology used for the chatbots extensively reviews your website’s content, including research, FAQs, product descriptions, and more, to ensure it has a complete understanding of your entire organization. Betty Bot, in particular, also analyzes the context and patterns in your content’s language to generate accurate and natural-sounding responses to your questions. This approach ultimately provides users with easygoing, engaging conversations without the hassle of dealing with human agents, including long wait times and being transferred from one person to another.
6 Benefits of Using AI-Enabled Chatbots
Naturally, integrating new technology into your tech stack can be intimidating, especially when it impacts members’ experience with your association. However, once applied to your website, AI-enabled chatbots can provide you with positive results, several of which are listed below.
1. Personalized and enhanced customer experiences.
When a visitor interacts with an AI-enabled chatbot, the chatbot analyzes the nature of the question and provides an accurate, personalized, and relevant response that matches the conversational tone of your customer service team. No matter the complexity of the inquiry, the AI-enabled chatbot can understand and craft the right response.
2. Saved time to focus on high-level priorities.
When a business integrates an AI-enabled chatbot, the chatbot helps free up the time of employees that previously managed online chats. This allows those employees to focus on higher-level tasks that AI technology cannot perform.
3. Around-the-clock customer service.
While both types of chatbots can offer 24/7 service, businesses don’t need to worry about employees having to take over traditional online chats when a bot gets “stuck.” AI-enabled chatbots can be trusted to successfully converse with customers no matter the time or day—and provide immediate responses.
4. Valuable information sharing.
Because AI-enabled chatbots are trained on your website’s offerings, they can easily connect members with valuable content to help them in the decision-making process. Without the AI-enabled chatbots, website visitors would otherwise have to sift through your website to find that content—or leave your website altogether.
5. Improved data collection.
AI-enabled chatbots can answer customer inquiries and collect an array of data that goes well beyond the data collection capabilities of a traditional chatbot. This information can then be used in marketing efforts to better understand a prospect’s needs, interests, and pain points.
6. A competitive advantage.
Given a web visitor’s short attention span, you only have a short amount of time to prove your exceptional customer servicing abilities before a prospect moves on to your competitor’s website. Using AI-enabled chatbots, you can quickly, easily, and accurately answer a visitor’s inquiries, impressing the customer without you having to lift a finger.
Seamlessly Integrate AI into Your Business Strategy
Integrating AI technology like chatbots may seem like a daunting process, but it doesn’t have to be. With tools like Betty Bot, you can have an AI-enabled chat up and running on your site in a matter of days. Interested in learning more? Schedule a free demo today.
