Category: Blog

A chatbot is meant to perform and execute certain tasks. Right from performing recurring activities to handling hundreds of customer queries, the chatbot is a one-man army. A chatbot is a platform that connects directly with your customer and represents your company in the most precise way. Now, when you’re about to design a chatbot with certain expectations, you need to be careful about them. Since you’d be looking forward to building high-performing bits, there are a few simple practices that can help you build a chatbot and let them perform accordingly in the future. 

Fortunately, with the new easy-to-build software, all business owners and organizations can launch a high-quality chatbot with an awareness of their expectations and goals. 

We have compiled a few Dos and Donts for you to better understand the best chatbot practices.

Here are a few best practices you can follow:

• Creating an identity for your chatbot
• Setting expectations for your chatbot
• Being meticulous about the performance of your chatbot
• Usage of buttons
• Being upfront about bot functionality
• Ready to face errors 

Create an identity for your chatbot:

Anything that has its brand and voice stands out to be different and powerful.  

Given two chatbots that say:

• Welcome to La Coste, how may I help you?
• Hi there, I’m Molly, your personal assistant. How would I be of help to you?

Which one would you choose? For sure, the second one sounds more welcoming and catches a user’s attention quickly. Long things short, give your chatbot a name, a face, and its own voice.

Set expectations for your chatbot:

It is an undeniable fact that chatbots can take over almost all complex tasks. But, do not expect them to work wonders like a fairytale. Know your goals. Set certain expectations. Now, goals may vary from business to business. If you’re an eCommerce platform and your main goal is to generate leads, the design of your chatbot should focus more on how it can generate leads. Whereas, if you’re planning to launch a chatbot for providing customer support, the design would change accordingly.

Now with the expectations part, you cannot expect a lead gen chatbot to also provide customer support or vice versa. 

Be meticulous about how the representation of your chatbot affects the user experience:

Humans tend to respond to faces. We personify objects by their nature, their looks, and chatbots in this case are no different. How a particular user perceives your chatbot is crucial since it decides how likely people would engage or interact with it. 

The majority of chatbots use inanimate or abstract images, company logos, etc. as their faces. While there’s no wrong in using those images, a personal face or something similar would work better. 

Use Buttons to make the conversation easier and guide customers:

Button-based or click-based chatbots expedite the efforts of typing and saves time. This can come in handy when you want to provide your customers with the best user experience. Buttons are a great way to enhance engagement in a more convenient way. Buttons offer options and in case of simple questions, these buttons can be useful to take inputs from the user.

Being upfront about bot functionality:

Learn how your bot functions. If you want a user’s phone number, make sure the input format is set to digits only. This practice is better to set clear and precise expectations from your bot. Being upfront also means KNOWING YOUR BOT. Once you know your bot, you’re free to take the next steps accordingly.

Be prepared for any errors:

This implies that you should be completely ready for any ambiguities, errors, or mishappenings. Allow users to rethink, rephrase, and reask their queries. If your chatbot isn’t capable of handling any queries, support it with the provision of asking the user to either redirect the user to another question. 

These were a few Dos. Now, let’s take a look at some of the Don’ts:

Lock users in a conversation:

Nobody likes being stuck in a loophole.

How does it feel to receive promotional emails several times even after unsubscribing from the sender? Pretty annoying, right?

This can be the case with chatbots and visitors on your website. If your chatbot doesn’t allow a user to end the conversation or leave it midway, there are chances that he/she might get frustrated and leave the website. A customer should be given the freedom of ending the conversation manually. 

Assume conversations will happen smoothly:

It is good to know that chatbots handle almost all kinds of queries and requests. But it does not eliminate the chances of a rough conversation taking place. In case the flow doesn’t go as planned, it may cause rigidity in the chat thereby prompting visitors to leave the conversation. 

Rush Chatbot Design:

Designing is the basis of any big step. Imagine you’re constructing a house but you lack any floorplan, or you misplace the original layouts, will the final piece look good?

Probably no. The same is with chatbots. Take time. Analyze your gaps. Find your purpose behind designing a chatbot. This way, you’ll end up with a proper step-by-step plan and come up with an appropriate chatbot for you. 

Forget Text:

Buttons sound nice and save time. But, what if someone wants to ask a random question and doesn’t find the option to give in his input? It would lead to a bad user experience and lesser customer satisfaction. 

Text boosts up the engagement and increases the interest of a user in the conversation. Texts give you the freedom to ask any question whenever and wherever you want to. According to sources, 34% of people would choose texting over speaking to a customer service representative. 

Send huge blocks of text:

Imagine receiving a 300-word text in the first message ever from a chatbot. You’d get intimidated with that much amount of information. Our brain processes information when it is mentioned in pieces and is up to the point. Seeing such a huge block of text may make it harder for the user to filter out the essential information. Also, if there’s anything very important in the message, the user might not even notice it. So, it is always better to send out information in short and precise text pieces.

What is automated customer service?

Automated customer service is defined as a method of consumer support that can be provided by an automated system in the form of a chatbot, help centers, and other artificial intelligence. The automated customer support can be available 24*7 and can be used both as a way to reduce the cost of human support representatives or as an assistant. The customer support team often needs efficient help desk software in processing, receiving, and responding to requests for service which can be done by automated customer service. 

In other words, automated customer service is a purpose-built process that aims to deduce or reduce the need for human involvement while providing advice or assistance to customer requests. Here, your job is to understand your customer’s needs and provide timely and relevant help to them. Sometimes, the unusual difference between expectations from customers and internal support skills that are provided by your company complicates the situation. But that’s what has to be done– to bring both at the same level and connect the two to make good customer service for your customers. That’s where automated customer support plays its part where it provides opportunities to offload the human touchpoints when they become unnecessary or inefficient.  Creating the balance can include:

• Using preloaded email replies and canned responses
• Knowledge bases with customer self-service portals
• Chatbots and live chat (which can be overseen by customer support)
• Organizational automation with “if this, then that” logic
• Using artificial intelligence and machine learning
• And assigning requests immediately to the right person or department

But that doesn’t mean that doing all this automation replaces the relationship between customers and employees. Only, it makes the process easier for you. 

The necessity of Automated customer service in your business

Always-on support

Providing spot-on support is one of the advantages of automation. Helping out your customers and solving their queries within time regardless of your customer’s time zone, circumstances or location. Unlike live agents, Automation tools aren’t constrained by the call center’s opening hours and your customers seek rapidly ”˜self-service’ issues which can be done without taking the help of call center agents. Because of this reason automation can handle well frequently asked questions and frees up human agents to work on more complex issues of customer service.  

Lower operational costs

Automated customer service drastically improves operational efficiency and cuts down customer service costs. 

Time and efficiency

Automation frees up your time so that your team can handle more complex user queries and strategic tasks. On the same hand, automation quickly solves your customer’s queries with less effort required on their end. This is in valuing other people’s time which is the most important factor in providing a positive customer experience. 

Customer satisfaction and loyalty

Automation provides faster response time, short resolution time, and consistent support across multiple touchpoints. Which are the key features in providing positive customer service and keeping your customers satisfied. 

Agent satisfaction

Various tools like chatbots help to alleviate pressure on the agents by automating customer interactions over their preferred channels. Automated customer support can handle high-volume, low-value queries and freeing up the time where your team can do more difficult tasks. When it is integrated with a cloud contact center, they give agents a unified view of customer’s data and conversation history, so that your customer service team has all the information they need to resolve the queries quickly.     

Scalability

Automated customer service tools like bots allow your customer service team to provide omnichannel, personalized customer service. Artificial intelligence automation makes it easy to test, measure, and learn so that you can continually optimize the customer service experience.  

Examples of automated customer service

Employee analytics

Intelligent automation systems know how to dig out data and numbers from deep within the data pools. Software like Gusto, Culture Amp, and Luminoso help HR teams in making sense of large amounts of employee data to improve employee happiness year-round (instead of waiting for the annual review). Large companies like Roche, Johnson & Johnson, and Hulu already use these tools to better understand and engage with your global teams. With every new technology there comes its new advantages and disadvantages. In its recent report, the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) mentioned the dangers of blindly trusting an AI-powered tool. Like any other tool, even a powerful AI tool can have errors in its employee data analysis. For example, if the AI has insufficient data to work with, it can end up taking the bulk of its insights for one large company and giving uneven numbers to the others. To avoid this situation, always ask your vendors for case studies, examples, and references to understand how these tools will function in a real-world workplace area. 

Hiring process

Hiring new talents is always one of the toughest and important tasks for any company– just looking at the application can keep your HR busy for days. That’s where automated hiring tools can help to read through the applications at incredible speed, just by searching for specific keywords to quickly identify the candidates from thousands of applications. According to CareerBuilder, 71% of employers said that automated applicant tracking software helped them to improve the candidate experience. Automated hiring and recruitment tools such as Smashfly, BreezyHR, and Mya use AI to notably reduce the time to hire and speed up the screening process. Sometimes, automated systems can overemphasize certain keywords, causing them to miss qualified applicants and some applicants can even cheat the system. Peter Capelli, HR Professor at Wharton said that it’s important to ask your vendors to show you how their services got you the right employees. Automated recruitment tools like Breezy makes the process human with quick video assessment tools to help HR pros save time and get to know about the person behind the resume. 

Employee help desk support

With new powerful AI, chatbots are becoming more common but also more smart and useful. Chatbots are just not limited to customer requests. If you’re tired of answering the same questions again and again, you should probably take the help of chatbots. In this case, Chatgen can help you answer the internal requests. The chatbot can work well for IT, HR and office managers, and more, they will have more time to do big projects and their core responsibilities. Chatgen uses AI to draw insights from each request, so it can answer questions quickly. 

Meetings

Meetings can often be tricky whether the companies are big or small. It’s often a tough task to find a place, schedule the meetings, and make sure that all the right people show up. Tools like Doodle can help you in quickly doing the tasks by helping you in tedious group emails so you can easily compare availability and find out the time zone that works for everyone, even if the participants have different time zones. To streamline face-to-face meetings, Teem provides automated office lobby displays to let customers and visitors know they’re up and help direct meeting participants to the right room. 

Form autofill

LastPass and RoboForm can help you in filling out the online forms and freeing you from remembering passwords every time you try to log in. These tools use strong encryption technology to help you securely and automatically fill in any online form. Even filling out payment information is fast, secure, and easy. The tools can also help you generate very strong passwords and store them in a locally encrypted password-protected vault. This helps you to save the spot for the stuff that’s more important to do. You’ll only need one password with these tools. 

Advantages of Automated customer service

Leaving no room for human error

Automation tools can minimize or remove the error to a great extent by reducing the work of human agents in this service of your area which provides less chance for mistakes to take place and providing employees to put their attention in other areas. 

Minimizing the wait time

Traditional customer service has a long wait time which is not liked by many people. This problem can be solved by using automating customer service.  

You don’t need to hire more employees

It’s not always profitable to hire new people for business. Sometimes, low funds or small office space doesn’t allow for the hiring of new talent. But you can use a live customer support help desk software which is very affordable to use and solves your problems in many ways.

Sr. No	Topic
1	Template for first-time visitors
2	Template for repeat visitors
3	Template to handle angry/frustrated customers
4	Template to handle being unable to fulfill a request
5	Template to apologize for any mix-up
6	Template to thank your customers and wrap-up the conversation
7	Conclusion

“I’m sorry that you’re having a bad experience. Thank you for reaching out, please hold on while we retrieve your information.”“Please give us some time to address your issue.”

While these seem genuine on their own, this is not what you want to hear when you’ve already reached out to the business multiple lines. Customers today expect quick responses, and adhering to age-old call center scripts will only do more harm than good. 

Live chat is used by 67% of B2C businesses solely for customer support. (Finances Online)

Creating a positive customer service script helps you resolve your customers’ queries faster and deliver a consistent customer experience. It also helps agents maintain the right tone of language when they are dealing with agitated customers. 

Creating customer care call/chat scripts is a part of creating a robust customer service process (Link to customer service process blog). Call center scripts are a great resource for your agents to refer to when they are in a pickle. They are also an excellent tool for training new agents.

Below is a free call center script sample for all your customer service phone/chat script needs.

Customer service template for first-time visitors/callers

Hi I’m xxxx from <company>. I’m facing an issue with my order. Hello there, good day to you. I’m <xxx> and I will be assisting you today. Can you please tell me your order number?

When it comes to B2C, the majority of all issues will be with a purchase or to check if you have an item that they’re looking for. Here’s a sample for that:

Hello there, I’m checking to see if you have <this> product available. Hey John, good day to you! I’m <xxx> and I’ll be assisting you today. Can you please wait a minute while I check that for you? Sure Hey John, thank you for your patience. I’m sorry to say that we’re currently out of stock, but we’ll be receiving the product on <date>.  Oh, alright. Thanks for your assistance. Hello there, I’m checking to see my order status. The tracking link that was sent does not seem to be working. Hey John, good day to you! Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Can you provide your full name and order number so I can check that for you?

Customer service script for repeat visitors

It is important to use a customer service call/chat software that helps you pull up customer information even before you attend to them. This helps you give personalized replies, and also save time spent on retrieving customer information. Here’s an example of “how you can handle repeat visitors?”:

Hello <name>, it’s good to see you back! What can I help you with today? Hello <name>, good day to you! Welcome back. Are you still facing issues with <previous issue>? Hello <name>, welcome back! I see that your problem is still not resolved. Do you want to pick up where we left off last? Hello <name>, good to see you again! Hope you’re having a good day. I see that you still haven’t received your order. Let me check that for you right away.

Customer service call script for handling angry/frustrated customers

When customer issues aren’t resolved even with multiple calls/interactions, they tend to get angry and frustrated. Some may even be verbally abusive. To deal with such instances, start by showing empathy and understanding their concerns. Here are a few things you could say to help diffuse the situation: 

I’m so sorry you had a bad experience. Let me see what I can do to help fix this as soon as possible. I completely understand your frustration. I’m sorry this took so long. Can I have your order details so we can fix it right away? I’m really sorry that your order was delayed. There was some issue with our delivery partner that has been fixed now. You will be receiving your order by tomorrow.  I’m really sorry that you weren’t happy with our product. Can you elaborate on the issue you faced so that we can fix it for you? I’m sorry this has happened. Let me talk to my supervisor to see if I can get a replacement for you.

Call center script template to deal with being unable to fulfill a request

While customers are the king, you may not be able to meet all their needs. While it’s always okay to say no, here are a few polished ways to say that you don’t have the ability to fulfill their request that doesn’t lead to a bad customer experience. 

I’m sorry, but we’re out of stock for that product right now. Would you like to look at other similar products instead? I’m sorry but we don’t have that feature right now, but our team is working on building it. It’s scheduled to be available by <date>. In the meantime, here’s a workaround you can use to fulfill your needs.  I’m so sorry, but we currently don’t have what you’re looking for. It looks like we are unable to fulfill your request at this time because of <reason>. Let me talk to my team and reach back out to you when we find a resolution. You can expect a callback by <provide timeline> I’m so sorry, but there are no options to customize this product as of now. Whatever we have in the store is what’s available right now.

Call center script sample to apologize for any delays, product mix-ups, and other issues

The first thing to do when there’s an issue from your end is to apologize. The customer will already be frustrated that their needs have not been met, so you’ve to empathize with them and explain what’s causing the problem. 

Below are a few scenarios like mix-ups, delays, and how you can address them.

When a feature is not working as advertised: I’m sorry that this isn’t working. Did you try configuring it <this way>?  When there’s a delay in delivery: I’m sorry to say that there’s a small delay in your delivery. We’re working with our delivery partner to sort out the issue, and we’ll keep you posted on when you’ll be able to get it. In the meantime, is there anything else we can help you with? When the product received is broken: I’m so sorry to hear that. Can you send a photo of the product so that we can send a replacement? Or if you’d like a refund, we can process that for you as well. When the product received is a different size than what was ordered: I’m so sorry about the mix-up, let me mark this item for return and initiate the correct order right now. When the product isn’t what they expected: I’m so sorry that this isn’t what you expected. Would you like to look at similar items so that you can exchange it? Or if you’d like to return it, we can go ahead and initiate that for you.

Customer care scripts for thanking your customers

The end of a conversation with a customer is always a great opportunity to introduce other products, especially if they’ve had a happy purchase. Here are a few pointers on how you can nail it:

Thank you for shopping with us! Is there anything else we can help you with? Great, have a wonderful day! Thank you for purchasing with us. Customers who bought this product usually also bought this along with that item. Would you like to have a look?  Thank you for doing business with us. If you have any other concerns, please reach out to us on our 24/7 service line.  Thank you for choosing us! Here is something that you might like to check out before you leave. Our customers love to pair <purchased item> with <suggested item>. Would you like to have a look? Thank you for reaching out to us with your concerns. Again, we’re so sorry about the delay. You can expect your product to arrive by <date>. If you have any other issues, please call our 24-hour service line and we’ll be able to help you. Have a good day!

So what’s the importance of positive scripting?

Creating customer service scripts is an integral part of building a customer service strategy, and it can help your support teams communicate faster, and deliver a consistent customer experience. While scripts are a great resource, the first step should be to empower your front-line agents to think on their feet and make quick decisions.

Know more about how you can Automate Conversations using AI Chat

In today’s time, the success of your brand lies in the hands of your customers. Whether your company will make or break depends on how you treat your customers. Customers wanted to be treated like they are very important to you and you always put them first. All of this can be done by providing lots of value to them and always going out of your way for them. 

Providing genuine value and support to your customer guarantees your own success. Delivering value to your customers is considered a core step in building your business. It all starts by learning your customer’s best interests at heart. 

Big companies like Amazon, Apple, and Zappos all work on the foundation that their customers come above everything else. Yes, Amazon acquired Zappos but it was because of their mutual understanding of the same values and beliefs that they share. 

If you are looking to expand your company, it’s important to understand why customer service is so important. With customers having so many choices to choose from, you have to set yourself apart from the rest and make your brand stand out. For that you have to ask questions from yourself: What value can you provide to your customers? What makes you different from your competitors? Why should a customer choose you over your competitors? We have always heard horror stories about bad customer service but very few about good customer service. What’s the reason behind that? 

Because bad news spreads like fire as compared to gold news. Warren Buffett said, “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” This is so very true. Everyone knows this but not anyone follows this.

7 reason for good customer service  

Happy customers build a better reputation.

Happy customers help in contributing a better reputation for your brand. Better reputation goes a long way in any business. Not only it attracts new customers but also investors, partnerships, and employees. If you are looking to improve your company’s reputation you should start with amazing customer service.

In a report, 69% of customers would recommend the company to others after experiencing positive customer service. 

Growing a company through referrals and word of mouth is one of the best ways to sustain a business. And it goes a long way. Recommendation from a friend miraculously works better for someone, who is overwhelmed with options.

Paid methods and social media campaigns work on their way but nothing can beat the word that has been spread by the word of mouth. This all can be done by making your customers happy through great customer service.

Churn decreases with more customer care.

Customers often cancel their subscription or switch to competitors when they experience bad customer service. This leads to an increase in churn which provides a fairly cut-and-dry measurement of satisfaction. This showcases how important customer service is: 89% of consumers begin doing business with a competitor following a poor customer experience.

The services can have their flaws, the products can have glitches. Your customers can all forget that if you provide them seamless customer service. 

To avoid customer churning try to focus on providing excellent customer service to your customers.

Employee happiness correlates to customer happiness.

Along with customers, good employees are also in demand in any company. Especially at startups, employee happiness goes much beyond a paycheck. 

Gallup found that highly engaged employees achieve a 10% increase in customer ratings.

To make your employees happy: create a mission-driven company where employees have a reason to return every day to brainstorm new ways to please the customers. Give your employees an opportunity to be a part of something larger than themselves. Tell them how each customer depends on them. This motivates and encourages them to work happily.

Brand awareness soars with positive customer experiences.

The companies get more attention when they emphasize creating awareness for their brand. Positive customer experience plays an important role in brand awareness, as they often lead to word of mouth advertising. 55% of customers become a customer of a company because of their reputation for great customer service. 

To spread your brand far and wide, provide positive customer service to your existing customers and let them spread the word about your company to others. Analytics will help you to track awareness by measuring everything from online reviews to social media sentiment to recommendation potential. 

When you’ll create a brand awareness strategy around customer loyalty, you’ll soon see an authentic and sustainable growth of your brand. 

Valued customer service unites goals and processes.

Having a same-end goal in a company makes the entire workflow more streamlined. The ultimate emphasis should be put on your customers, then slowly move through each department to align them behind customer service. 

To make collaboration last longer, set a longer goal to improve your customer experience-based metric, like NPS. Next, divide the responsibilities on every department to get things moving. This way you’ll easily hit your KPIs with a more streamlined process and will get happy customers in return.

It elongates the life of any business.

Only four out of every 100 businesses last through 10 years. That’s a huge 96% failure rate. The reason for this failure can be ignoring your customers. When you ignore your customers and you don’t focus on going out for them, you are cutting short the potential for longevity in your business. If you want to last your business longer then you should focus on the foundation i.e., your customers. As nothing is possible without them. 

Great customer service opens doors for new partnerships and other opportunities.

Giving all your attention to your customers and going above-beyond for them opens the door for new partnerships. This shows a lot about how you treat your customers and what value you provide. It’s something not every company does but it most certainly opens up the door for new opportunities, collaborations and partnerships.

Corona has changed customer service significantly. Many shops are closed or only open under strict conditions. Life is shifting more and more into your own four walls. And with it, the shopping behavior of your customers will also change. Think back to the past few weeks for yourself: What was your first point of contact for questions about a product or service? It was probably the company’s website with a customer engagement or chatbot function. Good customer service on the Internet is more important than ever. And chatbots can make a decisive contribution to optimizing it and ensuring a high level of service for your customers. In this article, we will show you how you can benefit from a chatbot in customer engagement – during and after the Corona period. We also give you tips on how to best proceed when introducing your own chatbot.

What is the real potential of chatbots?

Chatbots spread even before the Corona crisis. A trend that is unlikely to change in the next few months. For example, around 53 percent of customer service employees surveyed stated in the SalesForce State of Service Report that they would like to use a chatbot in customer engagement service in the next 18 months. Companies that already use a chatbot state that they can see numerous advantages for themselves and their customers. 84 percent say that the prioritization of tasks has improved, 82 percent were able to reduce the number of queries resolved upon the first contact.

From a company perspective, a very positive engagement of chatbots can be seen. But how does it look from the customer’s point of view? There has also been positive feedback on the topic of chatbots from the customer’s point of view. Salesforce surveyed over 8,000 consumers worldwide in its “State of the Connected Customers” report. The result: More and more consumers see it as the task of companies to implement the wishes of the customer and to adapt to the communication habits of their customers. 75 percent state that chatbots or voice assistants play a decisive role in this. 

The impact of chatbots on customer engagement can already be measured today. A study by LivePerson and Forrester Consulting concludes that chatbots increase customer satisfaction. Around 50 percent of the companies surveyed name increased customer satisfaction as the greatest advantage of the chatbot in their customer service.

This is how you can benefit from a model chatbot in customer engagement 

The studies already make it clear: Chatbots offer companies numerous advantages. In order to benefit from these advantages, chatbots can be used in customer service primarily in the following three areas:

1) Chatbots for processing customer inquiries

Assistance in processing incoming inquiries is the most obvious use of a chatbot. Especially with recurring inquiries, the chatbot can be used excellently and relieve customer service. The result: Customer service receives fewer customer inquiries to process, it has to do fewer monotonous tasks and it can concentrate more on processing more complicated inquiries. 

In addition, the chatbot can be contacted around the clock. It gives your customers immediate feedback without you having to wait long for an answer.

2) Chatbots for new customer acquisition

Another use case is the acquisition of new customers. In this area, there are also a large number of recurring tasks that a chatbot can take on. There are many repetitive tasks, especially when first approaching potential customers. As soon as the first interest is established, the chatbot can pass the further acquisition call on to an employee in customer service.

3) Chatbot for internal communication

One area that is not so obvious at first is support in internal communication. A chatbot can help with simple organizational tasks within the customer service team, such as coordinating meetings or searching for information in internal documents. 

In summary, it can be said that chatbots in customer service offer the following advantages across various tasks: 

•   Chatbots can answer your customers instantly.
•   They are available around the clock for customer inquiries.
•   Chatbots give your customers additional options to get in touch with your company.
•   Chatbots relieve your customer service team of monotonous tasks.
•   This allows your team to better prioritize tasks and focus on more complex tasks.
•   In addition, a chatbot can simplify internal organization.

What makes “good” chatbots?

However, not all chatbots are the same. In order for your chatbot to be able to perform the above tasks really satisfactorily, there are a number of points that you should be aware of. Upfront, it’s important to understand that there are two different types of chatbots: rule-based chatbots and AI-based chatbots.

With rule-based chatbots, all possible questions and answers are defined in advance. Which answer is displayed is decided on the basis of keywords. If, for example, the word “opening times” appears in the user’s question, the bot outputs a list with the opening times on the various days of the week. If a question is not defined, the chatbot cannot answer it. Therefore, this type of chatbot quickly reaches its limits.

AI-based chatbots, on the other hand, are better suited for complex applications and especially for customer service. However, you need good preparation to introduce you to your company.

The following steps are important for this:

1) Build up an internal knowledge database

So that your chatbot can answer customer queries as independently and comprehensively as possible, you need at least a knowledge database, or even better, a knowledge graph.

Because it makes a big difference whether you only have the data available as facts in the form of texts, images, or PDFs or these are available in the form of knowledge. Data that has already been processed into knowledge put the information in context and gives it meaning.

The consolidation of data and its preparation in the form of a knowledge graph, also known as a knowledge graph, serves as the basis for a chatbot that can understand inquiries and answer them in natural language. It forms the basis for a chatbot to work and to offer real added value for the user.

2) Develop a chatbot model

Before you can start developing your chatbot, you must first analyze where you currently stand.

It is important that you think about what the chatbot will be used for in advance. Should your chatbot give product recommendations, for example, or do you rather need a bot that gives users information about your hotel and surrounding excursion destinations? Make a list of possible use cases that answer the following questions: 

• Where does the chatbot actually offer added value for users and employees?
• For which applications should your chatbot be used?
• Which target group is the chatbot aimed at?
• On which channels (social media, website, smart speaker) should the chatbot be used?

3) Define the content that your chatbot should cover

Now that you have identified the main use cases, you need to determine what content the chatbot should cover. Important: Go deeper and make a list of all relevant topics. Data from customer service, for example, can be a helpful source here. If you look at which questions are asked particularly frequently to the customer service team, you can derive the first topic blocks from this.

Another helpful clue can be search queries that your potential customers use to find your website. For example, the Search Console gives you an overview of how many clicks you received for the various search terms.

4) Involve different teams

When it comes to implementing a chatbot, you should involve as many teams as possible in your company – not just your IT department.

Your customer service and sales team are particularly important contacts. Both teams are in contact with customers on a daily basis and know exactly what customer problems are. It is best to arrange discussions with the relevant teams and listen carefully to what the individual team members can tell you from their experiences.

Testing in-house is just as important as gaining experience. At ChatGen, we recommend that our customers test the use of the chatbot in the company with an initial use case. This enables you to gain valuable experience in the usage habits and improvement potential of your chatbot.

At the same time, you can slowly prepare your employees for the upcoming change and a general orientation towards conversational AI. If you introduce the chatbot as a new tool step by step and involve your employees, you can develop it together instead of specifying it from above. 

5) Make use of early customer feedback! 

Don’t be afraid to go live with your customer service chatbot as soon as you have a first version ready. This is the only way you can collect real customer feedback. You need this in order to tailor your chatbot ideally to the needs of the users.

We hope this article has given you a good overview to help you decide whether a chatbot in customer service is relevant for your company. If you need help with the implementation of your chatbot or if you have further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Conversational AI (Artificial Intelligence) has been revolutionizing the world of communication between a business and a customer. One of the amazing creations of Conversational AI is chatbots. To-date, chatbots are found performing every task such as customer engagement, lead generation, enhancement of sales, and much more.

Fact Check: According to research, the interest in chatbots almost grew by 160% in 2018. (Gartner)

With such a whopping interest growth, there’s an estimate of companies being able to save 2.5 billion customer service hours using chatbots by the end of 2023.

How these magic phrases play an important role in customer service

Customer service and support are becoming an important part of any company. As the world is coming closer, thanks to technology, we all are realizing how important customer support has become in our day to day lives. Now, when it comes to customer support there’s a certain way to handle things. Using the right accustomed service phrases helps the companies to make long-lasting relationships with the customers. 

According to a recent study, 65% of people want customer support representatives to speak with them in a casual tone over a formal tone. It’s also important to read between the lines. 78% of people became frustrated when their request was denied and the customer support team spoke with them in an overly casual tone. 

Tone can make or break a deal. Sometimes, it can be tough to define the tone that your team can use with your customers when everyone’s brand voice is different. 

Using the right customer service phrases in any interaction can transform good customer service into a great one. If by mistake, the wrong customer services phrases can be a big turn-off for your customer. 

Top #No magical phrases for customer services.  

That is super helpful!

This customer service phrase helps your customers to solve their doubts. In such a situation, customers have self-doubt and they have reached out to seek support from you. In that case, your support team is in a position to eliminate their doubts and make them comfortable. 

I will keep you updated.

Whatever your type of business is, always make sure to tell your customers that they will be updated on the events/news. This helps them to create trust among your customers and makes them feel like that the customers are their priority.

From what I understand”¦

You should use this customer phrase to let your customers know to correct you in case you misunderstood the situation. It’s always helpful to repeat what the customers have said to you. Through this step, they might be able to catch the missing step, find out the problem, and solve the issue. 

Let us know if you have any other questions.

This is a perfect phrase to add for those customers who hesitate to question more. This can be because they are shy or are nervous, whatever the case is you must make them feel comfortable and let them know that you’re there for them. It’s a great way to build a reputation and make a solid first impression.

I can help you with that!

This customer service phrase should be used when your customer has been struggling with an issue. The first thing your support team should do is to let them know that you can help. You can also use the words like ‘absolutely’ and ‘of course’ which sets your customer at ease.

That’s a great question.

This customer service phrase reduces your customers’ concern when they feel like they are being ignorant and they are not being able to find the thing that they are looking for after looking for it for a long time. These phrases comfort them and put everyone on the same page.

Happy to help!

After the conversation, it’s important to make sure that your customers are happy from the support team, this phrase helps you to confirm that they are satisfied. Ending the phone call/email with this phrase lets the customer know that they can reach out to you again if they have any further issues. 

As much as I’d love to help ”¦

It’s hard to say no but sometimes the situation is not in your control. It does more good than bad when you are stringing customers along with more than it’s required. But along a firm no is also rude, in that case, you should stay firm and tell them you are there for you but it’s not possible in this situation. You can say something along the lines of:

As much as I’d love to help, this would not be possible in this case.  

You can follow your statement with a couple of helpful resources. 

I completely understand why you’d want that.

Many of the users point out the features that they would like in your product but it might be not possible to fit every request in your list. At those times, you have to say ‘no’– nicely and firmly. You can tell them that your product can be used in many different ways.

Nice to meet you!

Customers get wary of robotic, impersonal tone very quickly. This makes them feel like you are not paying towards them and you don’t care for them. Exchanging a few pleasantries goes a long distance. Instead of a boring response, a friendly tone puts your customers at ease and makes them happy too.

Phrases to use and Phrases to avoid

Here are a couple of phrases that you should avoid and some alternatives that you should use instead. 

Phrases to Avoid	Phrases to Use
It’s company policy	In this situation, I would
Can you hold for a moment?	If it’s OK with you, I’m just going to put you on hold while I get your details
Thank you for your time today	I’m glad that I was able to help [Customer Name], is there anything else I can help you with?
If you check our website	I’ll send you a link to a useful web page, and I can take you through it as well
I don’t know	Let me find out for you

Understanding these phrases create warm feelings and also not come off as impersonal. Be authentic and avoid using robotic language wherever you can.

What is demand generation?

Demand generation is a method that is used to create awareness and demand for your company’s product and service. The aim of demand generation is to target and bring new visitors to your website or business in order to theme them with your brand. The end result is to build your target audience, engage with them, establish trust, and make them interested in your company. The demand generation content includes:

• Blog posts or articles
• Resource pages
• Infographics
• YouTube videos
• Social media posts
• Press releases
• Slideshare
• Podcasts and interviews
• Free tools
• Case studies

Mostly, the demand generation content is provided for “free” in order to attract new potential customers. At this stage, they don’t have to provide any info to you to get access to the content.

What is lead generation?

Lead generation is the process of converting potential customers into qualifying leads. It is a way to funnel in the potential buyers of your product or service in the buyer journey. The aim is to find qualified leads for your brand so that they can be added to the lead nurturing process and so that a salesperson can follow up. Lead generation involves providing them gated content in exchange for contact information. The key generation products include:

• EBooks, PDFs, checklists, cheat sheets, whitepapers, etc.
• Courses
• Free-Trials
• Product Demos
• Viral Contests (where someone needs to enter their email or other contact information to enter)
• Email Subscriptions
• Events

The key differences in demand gen & lead gen

Demand generation:

Demand generation is used to create awareness and attract new people to your company. It uses free content to create awareness and attract potential customers. The person doesn’t have to give anything in exchange for the information. The goal of demand generation is to identify new prospects and create demand for the product. Demand generation increases trust, raises awareness, solves a problem, generates interest, and puts confidence in the things that the product can do. It can include sharing thought leadership articles that demonstrate your expertise, spans attention in understanding the product features, publishing free resources and tools that tell how useful your services can be, or sharing influencer posts that tell the brand values.

Lead generation:

Lead generation is a subset of demand generation. It is used to qualify the potential buyers into leads and make them move into the next stage of the buyer journey. Mostly, the gated content is used in the lead generation process. The person has to provide the information in order to get access to the content. The goal of lead generation is to find qualified leads and take them a step further into the customer journey. Lead generation summarizes the gathered interest from demand generation into an actionable activity.

What are the examples for demand generation campaigns?

1) Create SEO-Driven Content

Creating content that your user searches frequently and solving some of their burning questions helps them get attracted to and be aware of your product. The SEO-Driven Content can be prepared by conducting keyword research and identifying the keyword opportunities. For example, checking google search by searching the keyword and scrolling to the bottom to find more related keywords. You can also check out Quora and Reddit and take a look at the type of questions your potential buyers are asking.

2) Guest Posts

Getting published in reputable publications in your industry helps your brand become visible to the target audience who is still not aware of your product.

3) Create Industry Expert Roundups

Expert Roundups are blog posts where you collect quotes from experts on a particular topic that your target audience wants to read. This is one of the most shareable contents that is taken well by the users.

4) Advertise on Industry Blogs

Using paid promotion methods like ads, sponsored posts, or buying a sponsored email slot from an industry blog that your target audience already visits are some of the ways to showcase your brand to a large number of people.

What are the examples for lead generation campaigns?

1) Distributing an EBook

EBooks are a good way to tackle a broad topic and showcase your expertise to your target audience. They can be provided across multiple blog posts on your website.

2) Repurposing Your Content

Upgrading your content or repurposing it into different formats is another form of gated content. This helps increase the conversion rate as these types of content focus on specific topics to a particular blog post. Examples are:

• A PDF version of that same blog post
• A checklist
• Step-by-step instructions
• A cheat sheet

3) Host a Webinar

Hosting a webinar with experts is another way to capture leads as the event requires users to register using a sign-up form in order to attend the event.

4) Using a Lead Analytics Platform

Some target audiences don’t want to provide their contact information due to various reasons. That’s the time you have to take matters into your own hands. These persons can still be qualified leads but they are hesitating or have questions that aren’t answered yet. You can use a lead analytics platform like LeadBoxer to identify their contact info and reach out to them.

In the B2B space, customer retention is very important. However, many companies don’t focus on building a customer retention strategy and in most cases, the customer success team doesn’t get rewarded in the same way a salesperson would get compensated for closing a new customer. Customer retention doesn’t have the same broad appeal as other closed deals. Somehow, it doesn’t make sense. And on the other side, it’s important for the growth of any business as the cost of accumulating a new user is much greater than maintaining and growing an existing account. It has been seen that growing companies prioritize customer success more than stagnating ones and that retention increases by 5% giving the profits anywhere from 25% to 95%.

What is customer retention management?

Customer retention management refers to the steps that are taken to discover and record them well on how a business is retaining the customers and their revenue. The process is done by looking at key customer retention metrics like churn rate and customer lifetime value. 

The companies track their success in this area to see how well they are fulfilling their customer needs and if they are continuing to earn their business over time. 

Some of the customer retention metrics are:

• Customer Churn
• Revenue Churn
• Existing Customer Growth Rate
• Repeat Purchase Ratio
• Product Return Rate
• Days Sales Outstanding
• Net Promoter Score
• Time Between Purchases
• Loyal Customer Rate
• Customer Lifetime Value

What is customer churn?

Customer churn is one of the most straightforward customer retention metrics. The customer churn rate refers to the rate at which the customers stop doing business with you. The customer churn can be because your customer has ended the subscription or opted out of renewing a subscription. 

A churned customer is a customer that your company unsuccessfully retained. The churn rate at a certain level is natural in your customer base. The reason could be anything when they no longer need your service like they are acquired or go out of business, they have hired an internal resource, or no longer needs your product/service, etc., 

In case, your churn rate is more than 5-7%, then you should evaluate your customer retention strategy and find out why there may be a problem. The high churn rate shows that your service or product is failing to satisfy your client’s needs or wants.

Sometimes, churn rate is referred to as retention rate but both are entirely different metrics.  

How to calculate customer churn?

The volume of business your company conducts tells how often you should calculate and examine your company’s churn rate. Like, if you have hundreds or thousands of customers, it may be safe for your sales, marketing, or customer success team to track churn daily. If you have a small user base or customer signed onto longer contracts, a semi-annual or annual checking will work well. You should keep in mind that new customers you boarded in whatever period should not be factored into the churn rate. 

Annual Churn Rate = (Number of Customers at Start of Year – Number of Customers at End of Year) / Number of Customers at Start of Year

Example of Customer Churn

We can use the following example metrics to calculate the churn rate.

Churn Rate

Let’s say our company started December with 10K customers. At the end of the month, we found that 500 left our business. This would mean our churn rate is five percent ((10,000 customers – 9,500 customers ) / 10,000 customers = 5%). 

Now, let’s say we gained 275 customers during August and lost 500 more during March. Our churn rate for March would then be 5.11% ((9,775 customers – 9,225 customers) / 9,755 customers = 5.11%).

What is the revenue churn rate?

The revenue churn rate is the percentage of revenue you’ve lost from existing customers in a given period. The revenue churn can result from an order cancellation, a plan downgrade, or an end to a business relationship. Particularly for SaaS (Software as a Service) companies, the revenue churn rate indicates the customer’s health and satisfaction. The broad revenue churn rate provides an overall view of customer’s health, it must be tracked on an individual basis. The main objective of your customer’s support team is to proactively ensure customers aren’t having any problems while using your product or service, before even approaching the point where they downgrade their subscription. 

Whenever revenue churn happens, it simply means that your customer is on the verge of leaving, and at that time your management team should quickly take action to prevent this from happening.

How to calculate revenue churn?

The revenue churn rate should be calculated every month. To calculate the revenue churn rate start with subtracting the monthly recurring revenue (MRR) at the end of the month from the MRR you had at the beginning of the month. 

Subtract any revenue you accrued from up-selling or cross-selling to existing customers. Lastly, divide the number by the MRR you had at the beginning of the month. The answer you will get will be a negative percentage, which will mean your revenue gains from existing customer gains surpassed any losses. You should keep in mind that revenue from new customers should not be included in this calculation. 

Monthly Revenue Churn Rate = [(MRR at Start of Month – MRR at End of Month) – MRR in Upgrades during Month] / MRR at Start of Month

Example of Revenue Churn Rate

Let’s use a related example to the one we used above to calculate the revenue churn rate

Let’s assume that our company began in October with an MRR of $50K. In that month, we lost $5K to churn and gained $2.5K from upgrades. For this month, our revenue churn rate would be five percent. ([($50,000 – $45,000) – $2,500] / $50,000 = 5%).

For November, since we’ve gained $2.5K in upgrades as well as $10K in new MRR our starting MRR is going to be $57,500. If we lose $7K to churn and gain $3K to upgrades, our churn rate would be 6.95% ([($57,500 – $50,500) – $3,000] / $57,500 = 6.95%).

Churn rate vs retention rate

Retention rate is the ratio of customers that return to do business at your company. The retention rate is different from the churn rate as the churn rate implies the number of customers you have lost over some time. A company with a high churn rate will have a lower retention rate. 

Retention rate is the number of customers you’ve retained over a specific period. User churn rate is also referred to as Attrition Rate and is defined as the percentage of customers who have canceled or unsubscribed from your service during a specific period. 

And if your retention rate for a certain period is 90%, your churn rate for that same period is 10%.

What is a chatbot?

A chatbot is a computer program that automates selected tasks by conversing with a user through a conversational interface. 

The highly advanced chatbots are powered by AI, and they are constantly learning from user requests and are improving their knowledge base with each conversation. 

Today, most of the chatbots in use follow a simple phone like simulation: A+B = C, based on if/then logic, or by offering choices through which users can make a choice. 

7 chatbot conversation examples for business

1) Emirates Vacations

Photo from: LifeData.AI

Emirates Vacations created their conversation chat or within their display rates. They deployed the chatbot in 2018, and they target different bot sequences and visuals depending upon the page that is getting browsed. Since the deployment, the engagement rates rose to 87%. The average CTR rates remain at an all-time low of 0.35% for display rates. 

What can we learn from Emirates Display Ad chatbot:

a) Be relevant to the user journey

Instead of using the same message throughout the customer journey, use a different message for your website, product pages, and Facebook business page. 

b) Keep users goal in mind

The Emirates Vacations Chatbot is designed to achieve a particular goal, it’s more than just an ad. Whenever your users browse your website or Facebook page they have a task in mind that they’re looking to do, that’s the time where your chatbot should come in action mode and help them complete their task as quickly as they can. 

c) Flatter users with frictionless experiences

Provide your users with a mind-blowing user experience. Like, helping them sign up or book a particular product in the ad itself, without leaving the ad or page. It’s the most convenient way for the users to choose your product again and again.

2) Hipmunk

Photo credit: Hackernoon.com

Hipmunk was able to make a special place of their own in the travel niche. They used a location-based approach to book a flight, hotel, cars, and more straight from their website. They used a conversational and engaging way to book travel. Consider that an average person visits over 38 sites before booking

Few niches are more competitive and saturated than travel, but Hipmunk was able to cut through the noise with their location-based approach to booking flights, hotels, cars, and more. Considering the average person visits over 38 sites before booking, Hipmunk is an engaging and convenient way to book travel, Hipmunk is achieving new records in the field.

Here’s what we can learn from Hipmunk Chatbot:

Hipmunk has crafted its sequence by the intricacies of how their users search. 

a) Send deals or promotions based on user preferences

Sending details or promotions based on user preference is a simple, elegant, and powerful feature that helps the users extract information from multiple websites all in one place which is the messenger. It’s a relief for those who use the “million tab search method” during their exploration.

b) Use conversational language to personalize experiences

The interaction between a chatbot and the users builds trust between them. As each conversation happens and feels like a human agent is talking with them, making it easy for users to connect and understand them. Making them feel like they are talking to their friend for an acquaintance.

c) Create content that is rich and useful

Due to Hipmunk’s two significant features, proactive outreach and simplifying an exhaustive process for users, one can easily get there if they want to go without going through a million deals or sites. Usually, with ‘HipTips’ apps the user’s wait time turns into exploring new deals. 

3) Kia

Photo credit: Chatbotguide.org

KIA is a car maker industry that uses a chat or that turns messenger into a viable platform for interaction.  The chatbot is known as “Kian” which has generated 3x more interactions than the corporate sites and talks to 115,000 users per week. It has an average of 21% conversion rate. 

What we can learn from the KIA chatbot:

Kia chatbot provide amazing metrics based on the expecting user objective this helps Kia to personalize services at different levels.

a) Collect user data to improve retargeting

Collecting customer’s details and other needs should be captured by the Chabot instead of letting them disappear. This should be one job of a chatbot which they shouldn’t miss. The collected leads can help to power your future sales and re-marketing efforts. 

b) Offer different services in one place

Along with capturing lead information, the chatbot should also provide other assistance like providing bill payment options or connecting with a live agent. 

c) Replicate human interactions to connect

The chatbot should be capable of answering any questions related to your products and services. Like solving queries about payments, services, return policy, etc., 

4) Madison Reed

Photo credit: madisonreed.com

Madison Reed’s chatbot is called Meet Madi. It’s a hair color bot that is obsessed with finding its customers’ most flattering shade. The most awesome feature of Meet Madi is the selfie submission. Users can submit a selfie-and Madi will point them towards the best color product recommendations.  

What can we learn from Meet Madi:

Madison Reed’s Chatbot teaches us a few valuable things on how one can build the best chatbot conversations.

a) Speak your audience’s natural language

Madi uses “x’s and o’s” as well as flattering comments to build a connection with their audience. Just speaking the style of your audience can do wonders, try it yourself and see the numbers soaring high. 

b) Solve an actual problem

Similar to other lead generation tactics, your chatbot should help solve a real problem for your customers. Like, how Madi acts as a personal colorist for their users and is available 24×7, this way people don’t have to wait to take a colorist appointment which can take months.

c) Ask relevant questions

Meet Madi asks relevant questions from their customers. The bot asks questions such as “Is your hair chemically treated?” or “What color is your hair (not including gray)?” Madi has a unique personality, she makes their customers feel like they are talking to a friend, she’s funny and witty. Just because of this personality of hers, Madi was able to boost engagement by 400% with a 21% click-through rate to the company’s website. 

5) Civilized Caveman

Photo credit: manychats.com

Civilized Caveman was one of the first companies to use a Facebook Messenger bot quiz. Any users who took their 1-minute “sugar quiz” were given a 7-day detox as a result. After that, Civilized Caveman was able to build a relationship with its now subscribers through offerings and content. 

What Civilized Caveman teaches us: 

a) Along with a conversational tone, the Civilized Caveman quiz provokes an emotion

The sugar quiz by Civilized Caveman prompted different types of people to become subscribers whether they are curious or are struggling with sugar addiction. 

b) Use a quiz to start your chatbot funnel

Through quizzes, users can automatically become a subscriber as soon as they Get Started. It’s the best way to engage your target audience.

c) Take advantage of images to boost engagement

Images and GIFs are a great way to boost engagement. They immediately catch the user’s attention and prompt them to take the required action. 

6) Amtrak

Check out this youtube video From Amtrak

Chatbots are known for their speed and convenience. Due to this reason, the travel industry quickly adopted chatbots for business purposes. Amtrak is one of those companies that use a chatbot to help their visitors plan a vacation, book reservations, navigate their site– Amtrak.com, get route information, and much more. Amtrak’s chatbot is a company’s powerhouse that generates 30% more revenue per booking, 8X ROI, and answers over 5 million questions a year. 

What can we learn from Amtrak Chatbot:

Amtrak is one of the best customer service chatbots in the industry. Here are few things that you can learn from Amtrak.

a) Leverage post-sales support as a revenue channel

It has been seen that the users who are satisfied with your service, ten to return and spend 67% more on average. In any industry, quick and convenient customer support leads to more profit and happier customers. 

b) Have Live Chat ready for back-up: 

It’s not possible that a chatbot can answer any questions. To solve this problem, you should design your chatbot in such a way that your bot can get connected with live support for queries that need human help. 

c) Create a chatbot around customer problems:

Amtrak makes it easy for their customers by booking tickets straight from the chatbot without leaving the page. Because of Julie’s chatbot, about 375,000 daily visitors easily booked their tickets or completed other tasks without any problems.

7) Ovarian Cancer Canada

Photo credit: manychat.com

Ovarian Cancer Canada partnered up with UK-based social listening company Maybe* to create the first non-profit chatbot. The chatbot helped to overcome the outdated part of charity fundraising– which usually involves a bulky email list, face-to-face sign-up, non-credible data. The non-profit chatbot successfully secured a $10 million grant for research, boosted donation rates by 250â„… , and created a repeatable and cost-effective donation channel for the organization’s future. 

What can we learn from Ovarian Cancer Canada:

a) Learn more about users in your bot with a quiz

Ovarian Cancer Canada and Maybe* created a quiz to learn more about their subscriber’s emotional state, ovarian cancer awareness level, and craft messaging accordingly to boost conversion rates. 

b) Use dynamic content to build closer ties with your audience:

Ovarian Cancer Canada distributed the woman’s story of surviving cancer through GIFs, videos, and images to improve engagement in the bot. 

c) Accept payments inside your chatbot:

The chatbot allowed people to sign petitions and make donations through the Facebook Messenger Window that helped to increase the engagement rate.