Chatbots are ruling the realm of internet interactions like never before. Be it talking to your friends on Facebook or engaging in a lively IM conversation─chatbots are gaining more importance by the day.
We all know that maintaining a Chabot and retaining its engagement factor is far more difficult than creating it. According to Botanalytics, over 40% of chatbots get disengaged after the initial conversation.
As a matter of fact, companies leverage thousands of bots each month, but only a few of them get noticed. To that end, Facebook Messenger is the biggest hub, nestling more than 11,000 bots.
To maximize the impact and success of your bot, consider these 7 points.
1. Leverage Other Brands’ Customers
Chatbot platforms, such as Poncho and 1-800-Flowers, are well-known for the fact that they can be used through Facebook Messenger. It was a great strategy that catapulted them into the global platform.
People who browse the websites of these businesses find their way to a messenger chatbot that is linked to Facebook. It is for these reasons that these platforms are attaining great success.
If you want to make a successful chatbot, don’t rule out the feasibility of cross-promotion, which is a wonderful way of reaching new audiences. Using simple, yet effective promotional strategies, a chatbot can easily add thousands of new users in a short span of time.
2. Choose a Solid Tool
This is a paramount component of making a successful bot. Sure, you can make a fully functional bot for free on your own, but making it impactful in the long term and using it for monetization purposes necessitates a robust tool. Thankfully, there are a number of powerful chatbot building tools that can empower you to make an intuitive, intelligent bot with no coding at all. Yes, tools, such as ChattyPeople, Botsify, ChatFuel, etc., can get you started within minutes, literally. Integration with PayPal, Stripe, and Shopify makes it even better for businesses looking to attract users with easy payment options and sales-enhancing strategies.
3. Evangelize Your Bot
While it is true that chatbots are creating a lot of buzz on the internet, you still need to make the right kind of noise for the right audience. Regarding people who should matter to you, only a few actually know how to interact with them.
Traditional strategies to attract new users have generally not yielded the desired results. During the first few months, chatbots were confusing and prone to errors. The scenario has changed, but not drastically, which is why more chatbots fail than those that succeed.
Amidst this ambiguity, one lesser-known bot called Swelly leapfrogged its user base from zilch to 800,000 in merely three months. How did it do that? Well, the only different thing it did was to collaborate with YouTube influencers for the purpose of endorsements. This means that the audience which approached the bot platform was already filtered.
4. Reduce the Number of Options
This may sound weird, but lowering the number of options can actually boost engagement significantly. For instance, the 1-800-Flowers features three delivery date options (today, tomorrow, and choose a date).
After figuring out that many input errors were causing unsuccessful transactions, they quickly did away with the third option─the results were encouraging. Additional options are known to limit user interaction. This suggests that optimizing engagement in chatbots need:
• Buttons instead of free forms for processing user inputs
• Automatic transitions to replace pre-defined actions
• Reducing options to as less as possible
5. Increase Your Customer Engagement
Your bot’s customer engagement is based on the type of service it offers. Bots, such as Poncho and Mitsuku, provide information on a myriad optics like politics, pop culture, and movies, and hence, witness heightened customer interaction. Therefore, while making a chatbot, it is important to find your core competitiveness and focus on it while ensuring that the quality and standard of interactions is right up there.
6. Take Feedbacks Seriously
This is again a crucial point to be taken into consideration to safeguard the credibility of your bot. While users are typically patient in that they know you’re constantly trying out new updates to make their lives easier and more productive, you need to let them know that you’re concerned about things that are important to them.
Bots that are successful typically entail feedbacks from users to ensure a smarter, more user-friendly experience.
7. Knowledge Sharing
Technology is intrinsically about knowledge sharing, collective growth, and discovery. Needless to say, chatbots are no exception. You cannot get favorable results in isolation because even the best of bots sometimes experience troubles in resolving key issues.
There is a growing need for serious and competent contributors within the chatbot community. Lay people need to be educated on what bots are, how they work, and how they can make their lives better.
Vast communities of chat developers exist where ideas are generated, discussed, and shared for free to boost the general user experience. And, that is a good thing that must percolate into other channels, as well.
Final Thoughts
It is not easy to make a successful bot, but it is certainly attainable. Just be more aware, augment your knowledge base, take help when needed, and guard against complacency while preparing your chatbot strategies. Building and maintaining a chatbot are two sides of the same coin. As long as you’re consistent and tactful, you’re on the right path.
