In this digital age, most of us have interacted with chatbots online at one point or another, sometimes without even realising. AI-powered chatbots can have full-fledged conversations that make people feel like they're talking with real people.

According to Google Trends, interest in AI chatbots has grown four times over ten years. As the world moves toward Conversational AI, businesses are becoming increasingly susceptible to our need to be treated like humans in the service experience.

AI chatbots can increase sales by an average of 67%. It is a significant number as the same report also stated that customers are willing to pay 17% more to do business with companies with great reputations regarding customer experience.

That's why SME owners should invest in customer service to ensure that they offer memorable experiences to engage and keep the customers. However, many small businesses can't afford a reliable customer service team or have the time to train staff to answer customer inquiries. Even when your business has a dedicated customer service team, providing the 24/7 support that customers expect may not always be possible.

For example, when a retail shop needs to respond to a customer's frequently asked questions on delivery charge or product pricing on social messaging apps like Whatsapp or Facebook Messenger, the chatbot can manage this quickly without the need to invest in a customer service team. With its capability to drive high quality and timely engagement at scale, conversational AI will be the SMEs’ solution to generate more leads, increase conversion rates and sales while building a loyal customer base.

AI chatbots can be defined as virtual agents powered by conversational AI and are capable of interacting with customers in human-like manners through voice and text messages without human supervision. AI chatbots can understand and respond to customer inquiries from sales to support or achieve set objectives like collecting customer data and lead information for remarketing purposes.

The more conversational AI is trained with diverse data sets, the more effective and authentic their communication abilities become. As a result, businesses worldwide are using AI chatbots to deliver reliable personalised customer service. Using chatbots could result in 80-90% response rates, and as they're always available online, they can reduce the query resolution time by 60%, resulting in better customer experience and sales ROI.

Image: AI Chatbot Solution

AI chatbots are the future of sales, with its ability to capture leads, guide the prospects and close the sales while having human-like conversations. Everytime a potential customer lands on your website or social media channels, the AI chatbots can be the personal assistant who greets and offers personalised assistance much like your best sales consultant on the shop floor - albeit a lot less intrusive.

Imagine when the visitors are looking at a specific category of product, the AI chatbots will be able to capture the preference data and display relevant product recommendations or time-limited discount code to entice the customers to complete the purchase.

To further understand how AI chatbots boost sales, let's explore 5 key functionalities and use cases.

Most small businesses run on tight budgets and limited human resources so it’s absolutely essential to focus on generating high quality leads. With an AI chatbot, communication with your customers and their datas on multiple social channels including WhatsApp for Business, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, website and so on.. can be centralised on one unified platform. Moreover, the process of engaging, qualifying and segmenting your leads can be automated with high efficiency.

For example, when a conversation with an AI chatbot is initiated, the prospect can be prompted to leave their contact information like email address and mobile number, etc. Once the prospects’ email addresses are collected, you can import these warm leads in your email marketing campaign and eventually, convert them into regular customers.

If a customer has a complex inquiry, the customer service agent can step in and take over anytime while the chatbot plays a supporting role by providing AI suggested answers drawn from the brand knowledge base. This human + AI collaboration ensures a steady lead generation 24/7.

Image: Human + AI Collaboration

As SME owners and managers tend to juggle multiple roles, having a sales process automated not only saves time and resources for the business but also delivers excellent customer experience and retention.

Websites and eCommerce sites bounce rate is around 45% on average, with bounce rates lower than 20% being regarded as exceptional. As mentioned earlier, with an AI chatbot, the prospects can get 24/7 live support and comprehensive service throughout the customer shopping journey.

An AI chatbot supports and sells for your business beyond the office hours. Even when your customer service team is unreachable at night, the AI chatbot will continue to work round the clock without leaving the customers hanging and leaving for a competitor. This results in improvement in site engagement and leads conversion.

One of the most valuable marketing strategies to drive sales and appointments to your site is digital coupons and vouchers. According to Uberall, 38% of customers think brands should use chatbots for deals, coupons, and promotions, whereas the number of customers using digital coupons reached approximately 145.3 million in 2021.

Unlike the traditional customer support agents who are limited in time and resources to consistently pursue the customers to use coupons and digital vouchers, an AI chatbot excels at this task. It can send notifications and reminders to targeted groups of customers about coupon codes, loyalty points, trial and discount vouchers. On top of that, you can highlight and upsell the latest promotional campaigns to attract and convert new customers.

Image: Capture leads by automating digital coupon distribution

For eCommerce business owners, cart abandonment no doubt is one of the biggest concerns. Customers abandon their online shopping carts as they have last-minute queries and doubts about the product offering. Studies have found that 69.8% of customers abandon products in their carts worldwide, which can lead to significant revenue losses for your business.

Beside being able to send automated real-time cart reminders, AI chatbots can also assist customers in getting instant answers to the queries, thus addressing any doubts they may have and motivating them to complete the purchase.

In fact, smart AI chatbots can recover up to 7x more abandoned-cart revenue for eCommerce stores, helping to generate 10 times more revenue.

Website engagement plays a critical role in all digital marketing campaigns. When potential customers land on your site from any channels: be it from a search ad, social post or email, you will likely need support and guidance from an AI chatbot to navigate around. Especially for new users visiting an eCommerce shop with a wide array of products, it is easy to feel lost and information overloaded.

Implementing an AI chatbot smoothens this onboarding experience in 3 ways:

-First, AI chatbots ask questions to understand customer preferences and bring them on a guided shopping journey to find what they want.

-Next, AI chatbots ease the decision-making process and conversion of the lead by providing customers with the bottom of the funnel FAQs such as pricing details, delivery information etc.

-Finally, AI chatbots are able to send targeted messages tailored to the customers’ needs with data collected from each interaction.

Image: Acquire leads from comments, mentions on social posts or stories

Bespoke AI Chatbot Solution such as AiChat can help you stay ahead of the competition and grow by generating more leads and driving higher sales.

With the new AiChat Lite designed for small businesses, you can get your intelligent AI chatbot up and running in 5 weeks. Furthermore, AiChat Lite offers over six years of AI training data and FAQ templates that you can plug and play with without wasting time and resource investment on learning the software and building the FAQ database and user flows from scratch.

Don't think of us as just another chatbot service, but think of us as a new and transformative way to satisfy your consumers and save time and hassle. Automate your business with an AiChat and grow your business today.