Chatbots are a marketer’s secret weapon. Here’s how you harness their power.

One day – in the not too distant future – your company’s chatbot may help you close a six-figure deal.

That might sound far-fetched, but the data shows your prospects have never been this excited to talk to a bot. (Really.)

The recent advances in natural language processing and generative AI’s creative capabilities are making it possible for chatbots focused on sales and marketing to deliver the self-service experiences today’s customers want when they visit your site. Since nearly all B2B buyers say they prefer self-service options when researching and making purchase decisions, these chatbots inherently offer greater opportunities to engage with hard-to-reach customers along their buyer journey.

“Nowadays, customers are interacting with sales reps at much later stages in the journey, if at all,” says Jenalea Howell, Vice President for Applied Intelligence at Informa Tech. “This makes chatbots a vital source of customer intel early in the cycle.”

Chatbots uncover demand and capture intent data

Chatbots’ traditional role was to supplement customer service departments. And while they still serve that important function, today’s chatbots also gather real-time data on how close prospects are to a purchase, what features and information prospects prefer, and how they’re thinking about your brand. This type of first-party data is often both highly accurate and extremely relevant.

“Some sales professionals are noticing that chatbots have uncovered warm leads that they simply didn’t have time to work,” Howell says.

And your audience doesn’t mind talking to chatbots, either. Tidio’s “Future of Chatbots” report found 62% of survey respondents would rather communicate with a chatbot than wait 15 minutes to speak with a human.

Chatbot ROI success stories are starting to pile up, too:

• IBM teamed with Vodafone UK to develop an AI-powered chatbot that resolved over 70% of customer questions and doubled the telecommunication company’s site conversion rates.
• Walmart Canada piloted a chatbot that negotiated terms with suppliers, finding it so successful that it deployed the solution in other countries. Its average savings on chatbot-negotiated deals is 3%.
• Even small brands with big aspirations are getting in on the action: five-person ecommerce brand Ad Hoc Atelier used a chatbot to boost conversion rates by 157% and reduce the average response time by over three hours.

Getting started: How to use chatbots to automate the buyer journey

If your brand doesn’t already have a chatbot, you’ll find no shortage of partners on the open market. And while your IT team will handle technical vetting – making sure the software is quick to train and integrates with the rest of your martech stack – you as a marketer should play a leading role in defining how the chatbot guides the site visitor journey and what messaging it provides.

Here are four considerations as you implement or update your chatbot strategy:

• What will your chatbot’s personality be? This is more important than you think, as chatbots are often a site visitor’s first impression of your brand
• What KPIs will you tie to chatbot performance? And how would you scale those if you achieved significant near-term success?
• What are the most actionable qualifying questions a site visitor could ask your chatbot? And what journey will you design for visitors who ask those key questions?
• Is your chatbot equipped with right-sized offers to optimize the chance of conversion? 

Plan ahead to avoid user and privacy issues

While chatbots are surprisingly powerful tools, they can put your brand in a tricky situation if you don’t plan carefully. 

The AI software that powers today’s chatbots is continuously improving, but it’s still not human — and human traits like empathy, support and honesty are vital for maintaining trust in your brand. A best practice is to disclose that your chatbot is, in fact, a bot, and offer quick escalation options to reach a human when requested. Your site visitors will appreciate the transparency.

Howell says careful attention to data privacy is also key. After all, harvesting and sorting data is crucial for AI chatbots’ learning and evolution. That means staying in compliance with local privacy laws will be table stakes from Day 1. The concern isn’t just that a company’s back-end data handling may veer into unethical or illegal territory, but also that – as chatbots evolve – these AI creations could be prompted into sharing information that other customers or your brand has given them that should never be made public.

“The amount of data that chatbots now capture is a source of growing concern,” Howell said. “Marketers should put guardrails in place to ensure that data has been shared with permission, and that it’s being used appropriately.”

Informa Tech delivers high-performing digital marketing services across the customer journey. Learn how we can help you build your brand, earn trust, and drive demand.