Importance of Chatbots for Small Business Owners

Importance of Chatbots for Small BusinessOwners

Every time we hear the term chatbots, it comes from majortech companies like Google and Amazon. This notion makes us believe thatchatbots can only be used by big corporations. Therefore, many small businessesend up postponing the implementation of this revolutionary technology.

What if we tell you that it is more beneficial to smallbusiness owners than to huge corporations? It might be hard for you tounderstand as most of the definitions about chatbots on the web are biasedtoward the huge companies. Therefore, it's time to understand what is chatbots?

What are chatbots?

It is a form of service which is governed by the rules ofartificial intelligence that anyone can interact with, through a chat interface.These computer programs are designed to respond like human beings for exampleFacebook Messenger and Whatsapp Business.

Types of chatbots

1. Chatbotspowered by AI – In this, they learn from various conversations, buildconnections and respond to them. All this with the help of advanced AItechnology and they are designed to respond like a human being.
2. Chatbotsbased on scripts – These chatbots have a specific flow. Theyfollow a predefined script and are used for a specific purpose, for example, customerservice.

Why small and medium businesses needchatbots?

Being an entrepreneur is tough because there is a lot ofpressure to yield maximum results with limited resources. They need quickresults and anything that can be automated is an asset for them. Therefore,here are some crucial reasons why small and medium businesses shouldn't avoidadopting this technology:

1. Customerresource – Chatbots are a lot smarter than most people think. Forexample, they record the user information and learn about them for betterassistance. You can use it as a basic customer service like questions andconcerns.
2. Easysales – After recording information chatbots can also help inassisting sales. They can make the sales process easy from beginning to end foryour customers
3. Influencedecisions – One problem that is faced by every entrepreneur is to giveone-on-one attention to every customer. This issue can be solved byimplementing a chatbot. These bots can make recommendations for users based ona variety of data gathered from simple questions and previous interactions.Chatbots free up company time while providing a dynamic new form of 24/7 salessupport.
4. Enhanceengagement – Facebook messenger is a useful chatbot platform. Thechanges allow businesses to use chatbots within this service. This way, it willnot only improve user experience and boost sales but with the help of Facebook,messenger user can also interact with your business socially. It will driveusers to your social media platform.
5. StreamlinePayments – The latest and greatest chatbots use features that allowthem to act as a streamlined payment system. Users can now directly pay withoutleaving the chat interface as bots can store user payment information thatallows the user to make a quick purchase.
6. Answerqueries– This might be the simplest and most effective use of achatbot for any small and medium business. Using chatbot to answer customer'squeries can be effective because a user does not doubt your product or serviceis most likely to be your long term customer.

Things to keep in mind while developing a chatbot

1. Main purpose of having a chatbot is to giveuser a personalised experience. A user will feel more at home with your serviceif the bot is using his name for greeting and interaction.
2. The design of your chatbot is crucial as auser will trust a well-designed chatbot over a roughly designed bot.
3. Content structure should be proper,pictures should be of high-quality and the use of high-quality links is a must.
4. Skip repeated questions; take all theinformation in the beginning instead of asking everything during the chatprocess.
5. Link your chatbot with a neuro-linguisticprogram to avoid grammatical errors.

Chatbot platform that every entrepreneur can use

1. ChattyPeople– One of the most popular chatbot platforms on the internet, ChattyPeople alsoallows Facebook commerce. It's free for basic users and requires no coding toset things up.
2. FlowXO– This platform allows users to build a fully automatedchatbot.
3. BotKit – It's an open-source toolkit forchatbots and it supports Twilio, Facebook messenger and Slack.
4. Chatfuel– This platform is for professionals to develop their chatbots. It has a verysimple user interface which makes it easy for its users to build a bot. 
5. MEOKAY– Ideal for use by both developers and novice users, MEOKAY offers flexible andreliable chatbot integration. It also has advanced functions for advancedusers.
6. Recast– It's a simple yet effective chatbot which is used in various platforms.
7. Morph.ai– The USP of this platform is that it allows you to build a chatbot withinthree simple steps.

Bottom line

Implementation of AI can look extra for a small and mediumbusiness owner but integrating chatbots can boost up your ROI. Everyentrepreneur should start small and focus on automating a few tasks that can bedone and then validate it internally.

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