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How Can Chatbots Improve Lead Qualification

The majority of customer interactions occur over the internet these days, particularly on websites. Enterprise heads, marketers, and e-commerce business owners all know that the traffic on your website could become a lead. Chatbots are one of the latest trends in shaping the customer journey and converting online visitors into qualified leads. Virtual sales representatives that are available around the clock can do wonders for a business looking to nurture clients and make sales.  

Artificial Intelligence based chatbots are undoubtedly the future of online interactions and not just a passing fad. Especially with the advancements in AI technology and the development of virtual assistants such as Google Assistant, Bixby, and Siri, new avenues have opened up for automated customer interaction. 

How do Chatbots Qualify Leads to help Businesses? 

Chatbots serve the purpose of greeting customers, assisting them in online purchases or inquiries, and providing a significant boost in lead qualification. Automated chatbots offer a cost-effective alternative to live chat agents. Real people on live chats cannot be available 24/7 and are prone to human shortcomings such as late replies and errors. Chatbots also reduce training costs, although chatbots themselves need to be trained with customer interactions, but only once. Some advanced chatbots can even learn as they interact with customers to improve their responses by incorporating Machine Learning techniques. 

Organizations can undertake popular strategies to make your chatbot a systemized lead qualification engine. This blog will share these strategies you can implement and ensure that chatbots usher in new leads for your business. 

Set Parameters for Lead Qualification 

It’s pertinent to figure out the hints customers give while exploring your website to show interest in your products or services. These hints can be confirmed to qualify their purchase intention. Chatbots come in by asking questions designed to gauge the purchase intention of a customer who has landed on your website. The more a potential customer interacts with the bot and answers these questions, the better your prospects of getting a qualified lead are. Therefore, it is important to phrase the questions in a way that visitors are inclined to answer. Here are a few examples of questions for qualifying leads? 

“Are you a [Title]?” 

The first thing organizations need to check for is if the person visiting their website is a part of their target market. By asking them if they’re a business owner, marketer, or technical person, organizations can connect them with the relevant service or product they might be looking for. 

“What can I help you with today?” 

This question is open-ended and generic. It is invitational so site visitors can respond, and the chatbot can be of good use at this stage. If the chatbot gets a response, your sales agents will know what product or service the customer is interested in. That’s an excellent place to start and gives feedback about any business’s popular offers. 

“What do you know about [Product or Service]?” 

By engaging customers in these sorts of conversations, organizations can find out how sophisticated visitors are. Chatbots can provide answers using or avoiding technical jargon and detailed features based on sophistication. Organizations can use these questions as an opportunity to share the benefits of their offering. If the customer is interested, the actual sales agent can jump in and get the customer’s details.  

Make Chatbots Readily Available 

An obvious advantage of chatbots that must be leveraged is that they are always online. Responses from the chatbot should be optimized. Faster replies help keep the customer’s attention. Organizations can teach chatbots the relevant answers and even offer customers suggested replies to make the entire process of seeking help quick and convenient.  

A Chatbot can cater to customers around the clock and keep your lead referral generation process active despite time zone differences and the unavailability of sales staff. They can organize customer information and send it straight to the sales team to attend as soon as they are available. 

Study Conversations for Better Prospect-Planning 

Since chatbots are AI-powered tools, they can analyze the conversations customers have. Each exchange provides insights into how customers behave while browsing a product. AI Chatbots can recognize patterns when prospective customers are about to make purchase decisions. They can be programmed to give customers more suitable suggestions as per the query’s nature. 

Businesses can use this information to alter the chatbot’s replies to ensure that customers stay interested. Sales teams can benefit significantly from conversational insights to learn when to convince customers to buy their product or service. 

Collect Information Automatically 

Chatbots aren’t just popping up on the business’s homepage. They are also replacing contact forms. Customers find it tedious to fill out their information on every website just to wait for the sales team to reach out to them. Instead, chatbots make it feel natural, and customers are more inclined to share their information while they are already interacting.  

Additionally, chatbots can inquire about the relevant information while the customer gets help. In this way, chatbots are always actively hunting for new leads. Any customer willing to share their data is partially interested in the product. Chatbots can procure and log the detail for sales staff, all without any effort from active sales agents. Organizations can thus facilitate their sales teams by incorporating chatbots on their websites. 

Case Study: Improving Remote Elderly Care with Chatbots

Schedule Meetings Directly 

Customers interested in purchasing products or services prefer scheduling their meetings through a chatbot. Since the bot is pre-programmed to sort lead information, it can be equipped to schedule meetings between the sales team and the customer as well.  

Since chatbots are meant to facilitate, customers need to be educated that the chatbot can help them find the relevant details or forward queries to technical staff or the sales team. The hassle-free process of scheduling meetings through the chatbot can significantly increase the number of meetings or trials, thus providing leads to the sales team and convenience to the customers. 

Reduce Cost of Online Interactions 

As mentioned earlier, chatbots are pretty cost-efficient. One fully functional chatbot can do the work of an entire sales staff without making human errors or getting tired. Chatbots need to be set up only once, after which they continue to provide leads and other valuable information.  

Chatbots do not replace the sales staff. Instead, sales personnel are assisted in the menial tasks that otherwise slow them down. Relevant sales representatives jump in when the lead is hot or when the question is too complicated for the chatbot. However, Chatbots are a good option for 24/7 assistance. Businesses can cover their bases by deploying intelligent chatbots and negating the cost of hiring multiple people to answer basic queries online. 

Troubleshoot Problems Instantly 

Chatbots can guide customers through troubleshooting if there are any frequently occurring issues that they often revert to you for. Chatbots can reduce the number of complaint calls received by the sales staff or technical teams by creating step-by-step guides to resolve common issues. 

Customers also show a higher satisfaction rate if they can get quick and reliable fixes to their problems. Therefore, businesses can equip their chatbots with answers to FAQs and easy-fix guides that customers can perform themselves and enjoy top-quality after-sales services. 

Conclusion:

By applying the strategies shared in this blog, businesses can create a robust lead generation engine for their sales infrastructure. Chatbots are a cost-efficient and readily evolving sales tool that shapes the customer journey. Organizations will see a boost in business if they ensure their chatbots can handle these tasks and satisfy customers. 

Xavor Corporation is a technology solutions company that has helped Fortune 500 companies and industry leaders optimize their AI/ML services and CRM tools. If you are looking to deploy a customized chatbot to help cater to your sales and marketing needs, contact Xavor here to schedule a meeting. 

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