• by India White , Columnist, January 13, 2017

Chatbots powered by artificial intelligence, natural language processing, and machine learning are 2016’s gift to marketers looking to enhance customer experience in a personalized and relevant way.

Reaching and engaging customers has become increasingly fractured in recent years. With many media channels, apps, and emerging methods to reach your customer, it is increasingly difficult to understand the landscape and the best way to communicate with your customers. However, 2016 brought marketers a new platform to reach and engage their audience in a familiar way.

In Spring 2016, Facebook announced the release of their Messenger Platform, enabling developers to build custom chatbots. This announcement offered a significant advancement in the way marketers reach and engage audiences. According to Business Insider’s Intelligence report, mobile messaging apps have surged past social media apps in popularity as people now prefer private messaging to posting on feeds. With over 900 million people using the Facebook Messenger App, and over 33,000 apps already launched, companies like Domino’s, Kayak, and Uber don't deny the benefits. 

Leveraging Chatbots to Re-engage Moms

Recent technology advancements and significant progress in natural language processing and artificial intelligence mean that chatbots are more useful today than ever before. Chatbots can understand and process massive amounts of information. This allows them to respond more intelligently leaving marketers with a tremendous opportunity to reach and engage customers on a one-on-one basis at scale.

In today’s world of “content shock,” as social media strategist Mark Schaefer puts it, cutting through the noise to reach customers has never been more important and has never been so difficult. And this is just the first challenge. Once you have reached them, marketers need to provide the customer with an experience that demonstrates knowledge of who they are. Customers have grown to want and expect personalized experiences from brands. Chatbots are an excellent way to satisfy this need in a cost effective way.

So, how can chatbots help you re-engage your customers?

Provide a tailored conversation based on previous knowledge

Depending on how the chatbot is built, they can offer enhanced customer service by leveraging natural language processing and machine learning. Connecting data points from past conversation and purchase history, chatbots can converse with customers in a familiar way.

Offer Personalized Promotions

To re-engage customers, chatbots can send coupons and promotions to customers based on previous experiences. This tailors the offer to the customer’s interests creating a sense of loyalty and brand preference increasing the rate of return customers.

Convenience of In-App Purchases

Not only can marketers offer personalized promotions, but the customer can purchase them directly from the Messenger app. With the ability to connect to customer data, chatbots reduce barriers to purchase and can provide a seamless buying experience.

Encourage Quicker Buying Decisions

Because customers are delighted with personalized offerings and an easy purchase method, barriers to purchase are significantly reduced. Knowing what the customer wants and when they want it makes for a quicker decision on the buying side. 

Increase in Customer Loyalty and Recommendation

Providing customers with the enhanced experience that chatbots can offer increases loyalty and promotes recommendations. Delighting customers beyond expectations leaves them with an enhanced brand perception.

Chatbots are offering marketers a way to get creative with quality customer engagements without increasing employee costs. Brands are already reaping the rewards of this innovative technology. Pizza Hut uses Messenger bots to enable customers to order pizza through Facebook and receive relevant promotions. Whole Foods is providing customers with recipes and grocery lists based on food cravings communicated through emojis (seriously). Kayak is taking the anxiety out of travel by booking flights and hotels directly from a conversation on Messenger offering the best deals relevant to customer preferences.

The opportunities for marketers to build loyal relationships with customers are endless. The opportunity to push the limits and offer unique and remarkable experiences is limitless. Have you had a close encounter with a chatbot lately? I’d love to hear about your experience. Comment below or tweet me @IndiaAM.