U.S. ecommerce sales were up 44% in 2020 after COVID-19 hit. Being able to drive more conversions--be it a sale or sign up--is critical as more and more people shop and spend time online. 

Chatbots are a great way to do this and advances in technology have made chatbots more intuitive and accessible for businesses. Let’s look closer at how designing a chatbot experience can make or break your conversions.

What Is a Chatbot?

A chatbot is a computer program that simulates human conversation with your potential or current customers across different messaging platforms. It can act as a customer service agent in absence of a live person.

When people search, they want the fastest, most complete solution. A recent study by Hubspot found ”71% of people willing to use messaging apps to get customer assistance, do it because they want their problem solved, fast.” 

SmallBizGenius found that chatbots can handle 80% of routine inquiries, leaving agents to deal with more complex issues. 

Chatbots don’t take vacation, they can operate 24/7/365 and according to SmallBizGenius, 64% of internet users said the 24-hour availability was one of the best features of a chatbot, while 37% used a chatbot to solve an emergency.

Chatbots aren’t new—the first chatbot was invented in 1966—but artificial intelligence and natural language processing are combining to provide a better overall user experience. NLP can deliver faster results by analyzing both the keyword and the intention of the user’s response. 

Plus, working with chatbots used to require all sorts of specialized programming skills. Today, they can be installed and set up with a third-party platform that provides simple, guided instructions on how to design them.

How Can Chatbots Drive Conversions?

People arrive at a website looking for a solution for a problem, an answer to a question or to make some kind of purchase. They may know exactly what they want, or only have a vague idea of what they need. 

Either way, if signing up or making a purchase is too complicated, they will likely abandon the process and may move on to your competition. 

Now, imagine if you have a chatbot waiting to greet your customer at 3 a.m. on a long weekend. The customer can ask questions, the chatbot can quickly narrow down the search for the customer and then point them in the direction of a solution. 

A customer who finds what they are looking for is more likely to purchase that product on that visit. In 2020, 41% of consumers said they used a chatbot to make a purchase. 

Building Your Chatbot

The type of chatbot you build depends on your goals, your customers’ goals and how advanced or simple you want the chatbot to be. If you’re new to chatbots, here are some basic concepts to consider:

Inbound versus Outbound

Inbound chatbots respond to a customer-initiated contact, whether through your website, an affiliate link, clicking on an ad on a social media platform or responding to an email. 

Inbound chatbots can direct customers to the right department, collect information for a callback or email, or they can act as a concierge to assist customers find the information they are looking for. 

Outbound technology, on the other hand, initiates contact with the customer. A good example is an SMS-based text from a company to the customer’s cell phone. Businesses use outbound chatbots to tell customers about a promotion, for instance.

Simple (Dumb) Chatbot versus Smart Chatbot

A simple chatbot is based on yes/no answers—think “press 1 for furniture, press 2 for electronics.” Its goal is to help a customer navigate quickly, without much interaction. 

You can set up a simple chatbot using dialogue trees—your customer can answer four to five simple questions, and the answers drive the next steps. If the answer is yes, go here. If the answer is no, go there. 

Simple bots follow “exact match rules”—it supports only the exact match to the keywords the user types.

A smart chatbot, on the other hand, can create a more personalized customer experience. The advantage of NLP in a smartbot is the ability to pick up the nuances and intentions of your customers. 

It can suggest other things that would enhance the user experience, and it can be trained to extrapolate meaning. As it learns, the bot will return better results, faster. 

Designing Your Chatbot Conversation

With the right platform it’s easy to design your chatbot conversations. The goal is to always engage the user in a conversation that removes obstacles so they can reach their goals of completing a conversion. 

Here are four things to consider as you get started:

1. Know Your Customer

Who is your typical customer? Understand basic demographics, such as age, geographic location, gender, occupation and values. 

Why does this matter? Tone matters. The more you know about your target market, the better an experience you can create through a chatbot. 

When your conversations match your customer base, it leads to a more satisfying overall experience for your customers.

2. Personalize It

We’ve found that people really enjoy the personalized aspect of the question-and-answer approach, so long as it’s not overkill--about five questions is the max.

As you are designing the chatbot conversation, make it as conversational as possible so it feels like the user is talking with a real person. Instead of just firing off question after question, try to have good transitions. 

For example, instead of “What is your hair color?” then immediately after, you ask: “What is your hair’s texture?” think about how a customer service representative might talk instead. 

Here’s an example:

[chatbot] “First, let’s get personal. How would you best describe your hair color right now?”

[user answers]

[chatbot] “That’s helpful, thank you!”

[chatbot] “And tell me, would you say you like the texture of your hair?

Another way to execute a personalized experience is through quizzes or product discovery, which our customers have found a lot of success with. Rather than just clicking on buttons in a quiz-type list, the chatbot asks questions and the customer responds, either by text or voice to text. 

For example, a “Find your skincare” quiz can be great for creating personalized product recommendations.

3. Always Give Users a Way Back

Always give people an option to return to the main menu or reach a live person. Something as simple as type “0” to get help to get help at any time (on SMS) can ensure users are never left feeling abandoned or confused. 

4. Give Visual Cues

To further help guide the user or just make the conversation friendlier, you can use visual cues. For example, you might use emojis in an SMS conversation, or have links pop up in the chat box when a user is faced with multiple options or needs to view a product.

Bonus: Save the Data for Later

The data you collect from those interactions can be used for other marketing efforts. If you capture customer information, you can then contact them about promotions, remind them to purchase products or refills, nudge them to renew memberships and more. 

Remember, a chatbot is just as much a reflection of your business and your brand as your employees, so it’s worth taking the time to build a bot that provides a positive overall experience for your customers and drives more conversions.