Have you wondered why Your Customers Want to Chat and How it Can Change Your Business? The internet is a whirlwind of information. Your prospects and customers are surfing for information online but have short attention spans. Their buying impulse can disappear instantly. Capturing their attention, answering their questions and developing a relationship at every stage of their buyers journey or sales funnel can be challenging in this information overload environment.
Fortunately, new innovative tools are available to help your business navigate the process.
According to Forrester, consumers are 66 percent to 90 percent of the way through their buying decision before they ever speak to a salesperson because they have completed the majority of their research online.
This gives you the opportunity to guide prospects and customers through their purchasing journey. First you need to stand out and demonstrate why your solution is the best fit for their problem. And the key is to engage at the right time, with the right message. Your business needs to focus on how you can help the consumers, not what you can sell immediately.
Solve Problems
86 percent of American adults want to be able to ask questions about what they are buying, according to a Pew Research Center study.
“Which product/model is best for me?”
“What color does it come in?”
“When can I see it or make an appointment?”
For interested customers, the beauty of the internet is that they can conduct research when it’s convenient for them. But, it may not be the most convenient time for your business.
The highest point of interest in your business or product is immediately after a prospect asks for information. Removing any lag time in responding to their question results in an increased probability of a sale. Of course, this is easier said than done. How can you be available 24/7 for any question posed?
The solution is an intelligent messaging platform. Intelligent messaging combines artificial intelligence (AI) and human intelligence to streamline the sales process from a multi-step approach, with missed calls and unanswered emails, to just two steps. The prospect finds your business online, the intelligent messaging platform greets them, asks qualifying questions, provides information, converts them to a hot sales lead, and directs them to the right sales representative.
Intelligent messaging platforms can help capture leads, qualify interest, book appointments, check inventory, and serve consumers 24/7, without taking a sick day. For example, Accenture reported that chatbots could solve 80 percent of customer queries.
Make Their Lives Easier
89 percent of consumers prefer messaging versus phone or email, as discovered by Twilio.
By adding this intelligent messaging you can proactively nurture your online leads in a communication method that is better suited to their style and you can provide more detail. By leveraging the power of chatbots, you’ll have their attention at the right time during the buying journey and be able to highlight value.
Intelligent messaging technology uses AI to engage your prospects in conversations on your website, Facebook Messenger or text messaging – – including those that find your business on search engines such as Google. Consumers hate filling out web forms and don’t have time for phone tag so opening your business to the channels prospects prefer, instantly improves the customer experience.
As chatbots answer customers’ questions quickly, customer satisfaction scores increase and salespeople gain efficiency. Opening the right communication channels and providing instant response can be the difference between closing a sale and losing a prospect to a competitor.
Add the Human Touch
Across all generations, people prefer messaging three times more than face-to-face or phone communication. U.S. adults spent an average of 10 minutes a day on mobile messaging apps in 2017, according to Statista.
Chatbots empower and assist people to provide online service to consumers. Once a chatbot gives your online prospects the quick answers they need, it’s time to involve a salesperson to close out the deal.
In the landscape of the impersonal internet, it’s necessary to give prospective customers a personal experience through human contact. By jumping in at the right moment and taking over from the chatbot, salespeople can create a more personal message and respond with complex details about the product or service that provides that extra push the customer needs to complete a purchase.
No more annoying contact forms, missed phone calls, or unreturned emails.
What do you think? Reach out to us to discuss how this can help your business generate more leads and communicate with your prospects. Contact Maryn to learn more.
This blog was revised from the original written by Erica Sietsma for WSI and published on www.wsiworld.com.
Erica Sietsma is the senior vice president, Consumer Engagement & Product Strategy, at Digital Air Strike. With 16+ years of retail technology experience, her product and industry knowledge position her as a subject matter expert on the topics of social media, reputation management and digital consumer engagement.