How can you make sure that both the marketing and the sales department reach their goals and thus...
You’ve recently implemented your bot onto HubSpot and are happy with the strategy in place. The next step is figuring out how you can get people using your chatbot as quickly as possible.
There’s quite a lot to take into consideration, including the wording of your welcome message, the navigation of your bot and which members of your team will be in charge of manning it.
Not to worry though. I’ll walk you through this and offer advice on each of the different elements mentioned above - all in the name of helping you to see improved results in your conversational marketing strategy.
- How should you word your bot’s welcome message?
- How should your bot navigate?
- Who should be in charge of your bot’s conversations?
How should you word your bot’s welcome message?
According to HubSpot, the ultimate mission of a bot is to provide a service people actually want to use. If your welcome message isn’t right, you’re already going to struggle to achieve this.
This is why the wording of your bot’s welcome message is extremely important. It creates a strong first impression, sets the tone of your company’s personality and allows you to outline the expectations of what the bot can and can’t do.
There’s a fine line between being friendly and annoying, so you need to think carefully about how you word your message and whether it’s going to sit well with your different customers.
Be sure to refer to your buyer personas and the different journeys they’re on. Think about how you’d want your team to speak to a new customer and write the bot in the same way.
If a user feels comfortable from the moment they land on your site, there’s an increased chance that they will perform some kind of positive action during that same session.
How should your bot navigate?
Another factor which you need to think about carefully is the navigation of your bot. The best bots are less intrusive and easy to use. Creating a positive website experience for your users is crucial and your bot has a big role to play.
Remember, the core aim of a chatbot is to reduce friction in your sales process. If your bot is asking too many questions and trying to do too much at once, it’s more likely to aggravate your users than please them.
Buttons with predetermined answers are a great feature to have on your chatbot. They tend to keep the conversation on track and help the user communicate what they want more effectively.
In addition to this, buttons also speed up interactions and allow the customer to be helped out in a timely fashion. They’re a crucial part of having a chatbot which navigates in the right manner.
For example, a chatbot’s welcoming message could be something like “Hi Jack. Thanks for checking out our site. Is there anything in particular that I can help you out with today?”.
Four different buttons could then appear after the message:
- I’m getting in touch to chat about one of your products
- I’m not happy with one of your products and would like to return it
- I’d like to arrange a phone call with one of your sales reps
- None of the above
These different options will allow the chatbot to respond instantly as it will already have a predetermined answer depending on which button the user clicks on. The conversation between the user and the bot can then flow much more smoothly from there onwards.
Even though buttons are there to smoothen your chatbot’s process, there will be occurrences where the conversation won’t move linearly. Users may want to change the topic of conversation or use abbreviations which your bot doesn’t understand.
Always be prepared for these ambiguities to avoid user frustration and an overall negative experience on your website. This can be done by giving people the responsibility of manning your bot’s conversations on a daily basis.
Here’s more information about having someone man your chatbot and the benefits it can bring…
Who should be in charge of your bot’s conversations?
The worst thing you can do is leave your user hanging. One of the critical roles of a chatbot is to make customer service easier for both you and your users. If your user is left in the dark with no response or an inadequate answer to their question, it’s most likely that they will look elsewhere.
So, always make sure that someone is proactively manning the conversations taking place inside your chatbot.
Although many of your conversations will be automated through buttons and messages, there will be times where a member of staff will need to take the wheel and lead the discussion.
Whether it’s one member of staff or a selection of people, always be sure to make someone responsible for the monitoring of your chatbot. It should be a key part of their job role.
Find out more about HubSpot chatbots and conversational marketing in our playbook...
The value of having an effective conversational marketing strategy in place can be huge for your business. It allows you to put the customer at the heart of all your business operations and create the added value which will ultimately make you stand out from the competition.
We’ve put together a playbook which covers everything you need to know about the concept, from how to get started to the best practices to keep in mind. Download your free copy now using the link below.
