Chatbots are transforming the way businesses engage, understand, and delight their customers. Not only are they convenient for the customer with real-time query responses 24/7, but Chatbots can also deliver personalized experiences through the power of AI. With all these benefits and many more, Chatbots and conversational AI are widely considered the future of marketing. But what could a bot look like for your business, and is it a worthy investment for you?

Lindsay Ojeda, Director of Marketing at Maysteel Industries, joined AMA Madison’s Craft Marketing event on July 25th to answer these questions. In her presentation, she shared use cases and case studies that showed how Chatbots not only enhance the customer experience but create a revenue stream.

How Did We Get Here? Why Chatbots Are On the Rise

From the start, Lindsay emphasized that Chatbots aren’t about technology, they’re about user experience. Today’s buyers demand far more than they used to, desiring highly personalized customer service. They also want to experience each stage of the buying process when, where, and how they want to. 71% of customers expect companies to have real-time communication mechanisms in place to answer their questions without delay (Salesforce.) According to Oracle, over 50% of customers expect a business to be open 24/7. Unfortunately, this isn’t realistic for most businesses if we’re talking human service representatives. 

That’s where Chatbots come to the rescue. And they come with no shortage of perks.

The Real Benefits of Chatbots

• Personalized Experiences
• 24/7 Instant, Real-Time Responses
• The Ability to Engage in Multiple Interactions At Once
• Reduce Friction in the Customer Experience & Sales Cycle
• Validate Your Messaging and Web Content
• The Ability to Transfer Conversations to Human Employees When Needed

Customers are widely on board with the prospects of bot-driven service, too, with 77% of customers reporting that Chatbots will change their expectations from brands in the next five years (Salesforce.) Lindsay pointed out that customers are likely already used to experiencing Chatbots in everyday life. You may ask Google to play a song on your family room speakers, use a chat functionality to contact your veterinarian, or even manage a Chatbot for work. 

Clearly, Chatbots and conversational AI are making all aspects of life faster and more convenient. Now it’s business’ turn to cash in on this golden opportunity. Lindsay then went on to demonstrate how her organization, Maysteel Industries, did just that.

Maysteel Industries’ Chatbot Story & Results

Maysteel Industries had expanded to have multiple locations and a rapidly growing customer and prospect base, with around 85% of their website’s traffic consisting of new users. This meant they had a lot of conversations that needed to be funneled to the right people so that questions could be answered faster. 

With this reality in mind along with the fact that they already had updated web content and a Chatbot-friendly CRM in place, Hubspot, Maysteel Industries decided it was time to add a Chatbot to their team. 

Post-implementation, Maysteel Industries has seen a variety of exciting results. Lindsay shared the top five wins these results have produced:

Maysteel Industries’ Top 5 Chatbot Wins

• Improve Conversions with “Skip the Forms” bots

Goal: To encourage conversations with a faster response time, reduce user experience friction, and reduce qualification timeline for all visitors, all while targeting middle and bottom of the funnel.

The Strategy: Lindsay has seen an improvement in conversions across her bots. Her biggest success, however, has been her “Skip the Form Bot” initiative. This bot tells website visitors they can skip the form when accessing website material like resources, and it has been wildly popular with visitors. As a result of this discovery, Maysteel Industries’ website only has two forms that visitors actually need to fill out.

• Reduce Friction in User Journey with a Homepage Bot

Goal: Get all visitors in the top, middle, and bottom funnels to high intent pages faster, connect them to the right team members, and focus on attention-grabbing statements and routing for fit.

The Strategy: Here, Lindsay implemented a website homepage bot to target all visitors to help web visitors get to the right answers, conversations, and website locations faster and easier.

• Led Generation with Bots on High Intent Pages

Goal: Connect lower and middle funnel return users to the right people faster, improve qualification speed, and improve their user experience.

The Strategy: These bots, located on high intent pages, engage users with encouraging conversation starters, like “Can I ask you a quick question?”

• Account-Based Marketing (ABM) for Personalized, Targeted Service

Goal: Identify high value target accounts as they visit the website and connect them to the right people faster and bring a personalized touch to lead gen.

The Strategy: Here, the idea is to spark better, personable conversations sooner to make a standout early impression.

 

See You at Garth’s Brew Bar for August’s Craft Marketing

Craft Marketing invites you to its next live in-person event at Garth’s Brew Bar in Madison at 5:30 PM on August 29th, 2022, where Tony Veroven, CAE presents “Five Tips for Nonprofit Marketing Success: How to Stretch Your Limited Resources.”

Register here for the in-person event.

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About the Author

Kara Martin, Content Writer at Naviant, specializes in written B2B content, from case studies to blogs and beyond. She transforms complex technical information into compelling, data-driven content.