4 Tips to Build Customer Relationships with a Chatbot

Getting a customer is only the beginning. The act of building that customer relationship needs to be prioritized in that conversation. Here we are going to share four ways you can do build that relationship and how it will benefit your customers and your business in the long term.

You may have what your customer needs, but having a customer that is excited to buy from you vs buying out of convenience from you is a different story. Customer experience (CX) applies through the whole customer journey, from engagement to acquisition and aftersales. The initial purchase is an important first impression. This is where you set your expectations and show how proactive and helpful you can be to the customer.

If you want to improve customer retention, create a transparent relationship. Make it clear for customers to know what to do next and how to get information. Did you know that repeat customers spend a higher average cart size than net-new customers? Don’t focus solely on acquisition, keep customer retention up too.

For example, help your customer by keeping them updated on when their package is coming in. Remind them the day it’s out for delivery with a text update. Then, if they signed up for a subscription – help them keep track of the next payment so they can decide easily if they should skip or move up their purchase date.

These are only a few examples of what proactive help you can provide customers. Keep your engagement going during and after the sale and make it easy for your team with tools like A.I. chatbots.

There are many tools out there helping drive customer value in an ever-growing digital age. However, we have to keep those personal connections part of the conversation.

Customers have options in how they contact brands. Now brands are on multiple platforms for customer convenience. Keeping track of all those conversations in a scalable, yet personal, way is of the most importance. Many brands see the new advance technology as the way to improve their processes, and while that is true, the “little things” like personalization cannot be ignored.

CX strategy requires personalization. Every brand may approach this differently, but the customer expectation is the same. Get customers information they need, without having to repeat themselves, and quickly.

Bonus points for brands that take personal to another level and include more casual elements like emojis to their friendly conversation style. It isn’t appropriate for every brand, but it can be part of your surprise and delight. Send the right message to the right person and know how your customers want to be spoken to. Ask them what kinds of messages they want to opt-in to and involve them as part of the conversation, so they can choose what is helpful to them.

Kia Motors Automated Personalized Message

Also read our article on how to deliver a personalized customer experience with data.

A large amount of customer service and initial questions and answers can be fueled by intelligent systems. However, not all conversations should be handled by a chatbot. With an automated system on your side, your business can set up rules to funnel high priority or human-touch needed conversations directly to the correct agent for the customer’s needs.

Many brands choose to either automate 100% or use humans 100%. You may think that makes it easier, but only a tool that shows both together helps meet your efficiency and personalization goals.

Switching between human and bot is primarily done in two ways:

• 1) Decide by Topic Type: When a customer engages in conversation, they choose between a group of different topics to discuss with their chatbot. Based on what the business setup for their conversation tree, certain topics go to the bot and others go to a human hand. If a conversation becomes more complex, it is re-routed to a human.

• 2) Seamless Switching: Depending on what the customer needs, they can decide who to have the conversation with. In the example below, the customer is able to initiate talking to a person on command. A bot and a human can work together, where the bot takes in customer information to be recorded safely and then hands it back to the human to continue the conversation.

A handover between bot and agent

Customers do not like to repeat themselves. It makes them feel unheard and unsupported in the customer journey and leads to lower customer retention. Forrester reported that 67% of people will drop a brand or abandon their conversation and purchase with a brand if they have to repeat themselves. Don’t use a product that cannot provide this value for your customers.

All conversations are considered equal to customers, whether someone chatted in or made a phone call, they want the information they shared saved for future use. To connect those conversations in one place, you need tools like AiChat Conversational Service Suite.

The AiChat Conversational Service Suite empowers your service team to deliver an exceptional and personalized brand experience driven by unified data and customer insights. Get a full view of the customer, providing them a personalized and convenient experience wherever they initiate it.

In conclusion, it’s important to prioritize these overlooked items. When it comes to efficiency, you can’t skimp on personalization. Take the time to build loyal customer relationships.

Conversational messaging offers customer marketing and acquisition at scale, for a cost-effective price. To begin automating this valuable lifecycle marketing strategy, discover our AI-powered Conversational Customer Experience platform by requesting a demo today.