The reality is different: cost and competitive pressures mean that most companies can’t afford to employ armies of customer service agents. Economic imperatives imply the use of effective tools such as chatbots. But customers can get frustrated entering text responses and receiving text replies – most people don’t like typing all that much.

Thankfully, voice chatbots promise to be a happy medium.

But that’s not the whole story.

Voice chatbots are set to become an essential customer service channel, simply because customers love interacting with their devices using voice.

Keep reading to see how voice chatbots deliver both cost-effective customer support, and highly personalized customer experience.

What exactly is a voice chatbot?

OK, to understand what a voice chatbot is we first have to understand what a chatbot is.

In the context of customer service, a chatbot is an online service that interacts with customers, while referencing business data – order history, available products, etc. Chatbots can be delivered over a range of channels: one chatbot could be a pop-up box on a website, another chatbot could message a customer directly on WhatsApp.

Furthermore, chatbots make use of artificial intelligence and its branches – natural language processing and machine learning.

As you may have guessed, the key difference with a voice chatbot is the “voice” element.

Both text chatbots and voice chatbots exist to help customers accomplish day to day tasks without the need to interact with a tired (and expensive!) human agent.

How a text chatbot differs from a voice chatbot

Voice chatbots and text chatbots are, to be honest, not all that different – particularly from a technological perspective. The key difference is the voice component, but in practice voice chatbots merely add an additional computational layer: the ability to process voice.

Behind the scenes, both bots rely on the same AI, and the same enterprise data to serve your customers.

However, that doesn’t mean that voice chatbots are the same as text chatbots. The difference lies in the user experience. And, as leading companies know, user experience is key.

There is a growing trend where users prefer to interact with technology using speech. Think Amazon Alexa, Google’s voice assistant and for Apple fans – Siri. In many situations, it’s just easier to interact with a computing platform using your voice.

After all, voice is hands-free, user-friendly and overall just a more natural way to interact with technology.

So, even though voice chatbots essentially uses the same back-end tech as ordinary text chatbots, the user experience is vastly different.

Why voice chatbots are a game-changer

It’s the improved user experience that makes voice chatbots such as an appealing choice for businesses who care about their customers. It’s not hard to see why voice interaction delivers big customer service benefits:

Voice is simply more human

Automated text-based chatbots can come across as disconcertingly robotic – it’s very hard to communicate emotional cues in a text box. The best voice chatbots make a much better effort at sounding human: from emotional interjections during the conversation through to the unique personality voice can communicate.

Voice chatbots offer your company the chance to communicate a warmer, more human experience compared to text chatbots. In a world where automated experiences can leave a very impersonal aftertaste, voice chatbots allow businesses to combine the cost-saving effects of automation without sacrificing the human element of customer support.

Voice is hands-free

We live in a fast-paced society where multi-tasking is common. Why glue a customer to a keyboard during a support interaction when there’s a voice alternative? In fact, modern-day businesses will increasingly face customers that are used to hands-free interaction thanks to personal assistants like Alexa and Siri.

Furthermore, while customers will wait until they have access to a keyboard to solve a customer support issue, they might not wait if what they intended to do was place an order. Offering your customers the option to order hands-free will give your business a real advantage.

Voice is a fun experience

Your customer may simply want to get their business done when interacting with your support platform, but adding a fun factor is an aspect of voice that supports your brand in the long run. With countless boring, stale companies to deal with consumers will be instantly struck by your more personal, quirky approach.

Indeed, do voice the right way and your voice assistant can be a real ambassador to your company. Quirky and fun, or resolutely professional – it’s your choice. Either way, a voice assistant will leave a real impression.

Voice covers more channels

We all know just how important the omni-channel approach has become. In-store, phone, web, text message and social media – these all matter. However, new channels are emerging – think powerful home assistant embedded in everything from fridges to speakers, and of course the assistants present on almost every smartphone.

Your voice-enabled chatbot allows your company to reach customers over these new channels.  At the moment at least, it gives your company a competitive advantage. In future, not using a voice-enabled chatbot will mean your competitors get more comprehensive access to your customers than you do.

Voice is easy to implement

Finally, voice chatbots pivot off existing chatbot infrastructure including the logic behind it, alongside your existing enterprise data. In other words, harnessing the game-changing benefits of a voice chatbot does not imply huge costs or countless man-hours.

Any company can step up its customer experience game by adding voice functionality to chatbots – if its chatbot platform allows it, of course.

Getting voice chatbots right

Understanding your customer environment and the expectations of your customers is key to getting your voice chatbot implementation right.

Next, you also need to ensure you think carefully through your voice chatbot implementation: just like ordinary chatbots, planning is a key aspect to getting voice interaction just right. Here are our top tips.

Put in place a voice chatbot strategy

We hinted earlier at how voice chatbots can provide a more personal experience, while giving customers more – and more fun – opportunities to interact with your company. Indeed, a voice chatbot can make your company a leader.

Yet, you must decide which of these aspects are most important. Is it achieving ultimate operational efficiency, streamlining as many processes as possible thanks to use of a voice chatbot? Do you want to create a more intimate relationship with your customers? Or do you want to stand out as a leader in your field? Give this some thought before jumping in.

Figure out where customer experience suffers most

Voice chatbots can be great at solving particular customer pain points – just like normal chatbots can solve many common customer service difficulties. So, first, do an analysis of the typical customer pain points – find out where the customer experience in your company really lags behind.

In doing so, look at regular processes – changing a shipping destination, modifying an order, etc – and find out which of these causes a degree of frustration for your customer. Next, rely on the fact that voice chatbots are conversational – and the way this more personal, emotive interaction can ease some of the more difficult processes.

Set your voice chatbot’s attitude and work on conversations

It’s difficult to give text chatbots a unique personality – you can try, but without the personal feel of voice text can often come across as tacky. However, a voice chatbot can have a unique personality. Your company needs to give a fair bit of thought as to what exactly this personality is – is it reactive, or proactive? More focused on functionality, or on being entertaining?

These decisions will factor into a lot of on-the-ground voice chatbot factors. Tone of voice, for example. And indeed, the conversation flow of your chatbot. In fact, one could argue that conversation flow is one of the most important factors of getting a voice chatbot just right. The aim should be conversations that are incredibly natural.

Platform choice is key to voice chatbots success

We leave our final tip for this section. Platform choice can make or break your voice chatbot. Remember: your voice chatbot relies on much of the same technology as an ordinary, text chatbot.

Yes, the voice features of your chatbot are crucial: you need a voice that sounds naturally synthesized, and a platform that uses top-end language processing to understand what your users are saying.

Yet platform choice goes so much further. Getting a voice chatbot to say the right stuff at the right time depends on getting the chatbot mechanics perfectly right.

We think you should look out for the following features:

• Comprehensive compatibility: Your platform of choice should allow you to build a voice chatbot across as many channels as possible. There’s no point in getting voice just right only to be restricted by your choice of platforms – don’t settle for a platform restricted to just a few vendors.

• Pivot off existing chatbot infrastructure. Choose a platform that allows you to link up your existing automation with a voice layer. Or, that acts as an integrated platform that can help you set up a powerful, new automated chatbot platform that stretches across channels – including voice.
  
• Powerful chatbot flows. Yes, voice sounds natural to begin with, but matters will soon unravel if you’re unable to get your chatbot flow right. Solid tools are a key element – tools that make it easy to create complex chat flows that feel incredibly natural to your users, while at the same time serving to improve efficiency. Designing chatbot flows must be easy too: a visual designer is essential.
  
• Capable AI. While designing intelligent chat flows is a key aspect of setting up a great voice chatbot, humans can only do so much. Why? Well, human behavior is unpredictable and your chat flow cannot take account of every possible human response. Artificial intelligence help: it allows your chatbot to understand customer intent, learning through experience.
  
• Natural language processing. Of course, your voice chatbot can only respond sensibly if it understands what is being said. Humans can use complex forms of language – complex to a computer at least. Your platform of choice should have the ability to interpret this language, no matter how unique it is.
  
• Integration. In this respect, voice chatbots are just like ordinary chatbots: your chatbot platform must integrate smoothly with your company systems. Even the smoothest voice assistant will be of little help if it does not have deep and comprehensive access to the customer data your company already holds.

In essence, the platform you choose for your voice chatbot must get both the voice aspect right, and the chatbot aspect – excellence in just one of the two respects is not enough.

What is the future of voice chatbots?

One can argue that voice chatbots have their roots in a growing trend towards voice search: rooted, in turn, in personal assistants like Alexa-enabled devices or smartphone services such as Siri. It’s not just a trend in search – overall, consumers are showing signs that they like to interact with their devices using voice, not text.

There are many reasons for this, whether it’s a matter of convenience (a user’s hands are not free at the time, or the physical device is not within reach) or simply a matter of preference (the user finds typing too tedious).

Voice interaction will become more commonplace

However, it’s indisputable that voice interaction is here to stay. We think that voice chatbots will become increasingly important. For now, consumers accept that there is a limited number of businesses that they can interact with using voice.

But we’ve seen this picture before: in the technology arena, it starts with a few first movers – and before you know it, consumer expectation is that every business has that capability. That’s likely going to be the case for voice interaction too.

Early movers have an advantage

There’s something else we know about technological change: early movers have an advantage. Adopt voice chatbots before your competitors and you stand to have happier customers that interact with your business across more channels – so, more opportunities to sell, and a better customer experience.

Countless companies are already adopting chatbots simply out of necessity.

Simply put, there is little reason to delay adopting a voice chatbot – simply because doing so can be part and parcel of your existing chatbot infrastructure.

And, of course, because a voice chatbot gives you a head start over your competitors.

Why Xenioo delivers a top voice chatbots experience

With Xenioo, your business can enjoy all the benefits of a voice chatbot. You can create a skill for Amazon Alexa as well as an action for Google Assistant devices.

What’s more, you can publish your voice chatbot across to a range of other platforms too, with minimal adjustment.

It’s easy to get started with Xenioo – try out Xenioo for free, check out our tutorials or read up on what’s possible with Xenioo.

Want to know more? Just get in touch.

The post ultimate guide to voice chatbots: why your business needs one appeared first on Xenioo.

What’s more, in the right environment, chatbots can go a long way to building and growing your business: driving sales and generating brand loyalty.

WhatsApp is one of the best places for chatbot activity – for customers, WhatsApp is a trusted and very personal channel that’s conveniently available on the device they’re likely to be using all day long: their phone.

In this article, we outline how WhatsApp chatbots can keep your customers happy and directly drive sales. What’s more, WhatsApp bots also boost brand loyalty while saving costs too.

Let’s take a look.

What is a WhatsApp chatbot?

Most of us are already familiar with website chatbots – those convenient helpers that assist us with essential customer service questions right on a company’s website. Using a mix of pre-programmed routines and AI, website chatbots deal with typical queries quickly and efficiently.

WhatsApp bots are similar in nature but instead of hiding away on a website, a WhatsApp chatbot sits right on the device we all love – our mobile phone. This brings several advantages: WhatsApp chatbots are more personal, more accessible and more present.

This proximity to your customer brings a whole range of benefits – some common to chatbot use in the broad, some specific to WhatsApp chatbots.

How WhatsApp chatbot can benefit your business

The benefits of using WhatsApp chatbots are broad and deep, so we’ll divide these into four broad categories: direct sales growth, brand building, cost reductions, and customer satisfaction.

Grow revenue

A chatbot on your client’s mobile device is a great way to boost your sales revenue and there are plenty of strategies you can take to help you make the most of your WhatsApp chatbot.

1. WhatsApp for sales incentives

You can offer customers the option to buy throughout WhatsApp chats – whether they’re resolving a product query, answering a quiz or looking for some product information.

WhatsApp sales incentives could include a special discount that depends on a quick buy, or perhaps the opportunity to get some free goodies if your customer answers a quiz fully.

It could also include regular promotions sent straight to a customer’s WhatsApp, automated and closely targeted using your chatbot platform.

It’s a low-cost, effective way to reach customers on their device and you can fully track your promotions, just as you can do with email or online advertising.

2. Recover abandoned carts

It’s frustrating for businesses, but customers frequently drop off when shopping – abandoning a carefully picked shopping cart because they were distracted, couldn’t complete payment or for anyone of a host of other reasons.

With WhatsApp chatbots you can give your customers an easy way to resume their cart, keeping the items they need or even topping it up. Just send a quick WhatsApp message once it’s clear a shopping cart is abandoned.

The immediacy of WhatsApp provides an excellent opportunity to ensure customers successfully complete a shopping task.

3. Offers across the product lifecycle

Many products warrant additional purchases over time, whether it’s an upgrade or an important accessory. You already have the data on what your customer purchased, why not harness this data to prompt your customers to continue shopping based on a product they already purchased?

Yes, you can launch offers through the product lifecycle by sending cleverly timed emails, but with email so easily ignored, you’re much better off using WhatsApp to exploit the lifecycle of a product.

It works for consumable products too – just ping your customer on WhatsApp to ask them if they need a top-up, all utilizing affordable and scalable automated chatbot technology.

4. Acquire new customers

WhatsApp is great for picking up new customers too.

Instead of directing prospects to your website or Facebook page, consider sending them straight to your WhatsApp chatbot. It gives you the opportunity to use interactive, cleverly timed WhatsApp conversations to build awareness with your customers.

In many ways, WhatsApp is a very personal method of engaging with prospective customers, certainly far more personal than Google Ads or relentless inboxing.

Your highly intelligent chatbot can interact with prospective customers, starting a conversation based on browsing history – all in the convenient location of your user’s handset.

Brand building

Clever marketers will know how growing a business is not just about a hard focus on new sales. Strong brands attract customers and brand loyalty retains customers.

The personal nature of WhatsApp chatbots makes these a great fit for brand building exercises.

5. Introduce your brand

So, when connecting with your customer on WhatsApp, remember: it’s not always about trying to make a hard and fast sale. Instead, use the conversational abilities of your WhatsApp chatbot to build a relationship with a potential customer.

Think of it as a different way to do content marketing – instead of publishing long blog pieces, use interactive chat to give away useful bits like recipes or travel advice, or to publish a fun quiz.

In essence, WhatsApp is a great way to drip-feed information about your brand.

6. Foster brand culture

You’ll know who your loyal customers are. WhatsApp can help you build very deep relationships with existing customers, encouraging ongoing sales and loyalty to your brand.

How? Your WhatsApp chatbot taps into the deep knowledge of your customers that already reside on your business systems to automatically initiate conversations are highly personalized: whether it’s offering a pertinent and timely tip or a complementary product offer.

7. Give loyalty programs a lift

Customers love loyalty programs – who doesn’t like getting free stuff, right? But there is one issue with loyalty programs: membership can quickly collect dust and be swiftly forgotten.

WhatsApp interactions are a great way to brush away the cobwebs.

For example, your WhatsApp chatbot can immediately notify a customer when they’ve earned loyalty points, or when their points are enough for a reward. Or, use your clever chatbot’s gamification capabilities to drum up interest in your loyalty program.

8. Utilize user-generated content

If you’re a user of WhatsApp you’ll know how easy it is to share content with other WhatsApp users.

Marketers will also know how powerful user-generated content can be. Why not use your WhatsApp chatbot to encourage user-generated content that you can use to build your brand?

Your chatty WhatsApp bot can encourage your customers to take a snap or upload a video that involves your product – or your experience. Next, review the content and share it with your other customers.

It’s a fantastic way to build your brand.

Save money

Chatbots are universally terrific at driving efficiency and cost savings. That goes for WhatsApp chatbots too, but in the case of WhatsApp, you can rely on even greater chatbot engagement delivering even bigger savings.

9. Reduce support costs

Dealing with routine queries such as “where is my shipment” or “why is an item missing” can easily soak up a significant chunk of time in the contact center. These questions are repetitive and predictable – and the answers often lie in existing business data.

Chatbots can automatically answer many of these questions and at an extremely low cost. It’s simple really: chatbots can be multiplied infinitely, so you can run countless concurrent chatbot sessions – and there’s no need to pay chatbots by the hour.

The cost savings are significant.

10. Increase employee productivity

Chances are you have many highly experienced support agents who are often caught up trying to answer really simple queries.

The result: customers with complex queries that need an experienced agent end up waiting in long queues before they get the help they need.

Your WhatsApp chatbot can help make your support staff more productive by taking care of the more routine queries.

Result: less expenditure on staffing, a boost in employee morale and less waiting time for customers.

Happier customers

Chatbots and WhatsApp chatbots, in particular, are also an excellent way to drive customer happiness. Personal, immediate and convenient: all qualities of WhatsApp chatbots, and popular customer service qualities too.

11. Notifications where they matter

Need to reach out to a customer via email? Good luck with that. In contrast, a WhatsApp notification is far more direct, and far more likely to get seen by your customer. Why? Because WhatsApp notifications are displayed in a place that matters a lot – your customer’s mobile device.

In practice, this means that it’s less likely that a customer will miss an important notification – it’s easy for a “delayed order” notification to get binned in junk mail.

In contrast, your WhatsApp notification will stick until dismissed, so customers won’t sit up waiting for an order that won’t arrive.

12. Customer service 24/7

Particularly for smaller businesses, running a 24/7 customer support operation can be prohibitively expensive, while extended support hours will be costly too.

Chatbots can’t deal with all customer service requests, but your WhatsApp chatbot can easily extend your customer support hours.

Chatbots don’t need sleep so you can use your WhatsApp chatbot to serve customer care requirements on a host of typical issues such as new orders, questions about shipment or basic product support.

It’s a great opportunity to improve your customer experience, at a low cost.

13. WhatsApp live agents

Don’t forget, using WhatsApp chatbots does not mean that automated conversations are the beginning and the end of your customer’s WhatsApp interaction. In fact, you can hand over a WhatsApp chatbot conversation to a life support agent.

It’s an important distinction because it gives your customers incredibly easy access to qualified live agents who can take care of even the most complex of issues – right on the customer’s mobile device.

14. Collect feedback and reviews

Understanding what your customers think is key to delivering improved products and services, and to stop growing problems from spiraling out of control.

However, collecting this feedback is tough – customers can be reluctant to fill out website forms.

The immediacy of WhatsApp makes it far easier to collect feedback.

A friendly chatbot can pose a few cheeky questions that encourage high response rates, reducing the effort to give feedback to the absolute minimum. Minimum effort means maximum feedback.

Why Xenioo delivers a top WhatsApp chatbot experience

Chatbot’s success is highly dependent on the software you’re using. It’s about the features and capabilities available to you and, of course, how well these features are implemented.

Xenioo’s chatbot platform reaches across chat channels – from your website, through to Amazon Alexa and of course WhatsApp. We think Xenioo does a top job on WhatsApp, thanks to our outstanding features including:

• Conversation handover. Every good chatbot knows there’s a time to hand over chats to a live operator. Xenioo makes this as seamless as possible so your human operators can easily dive straight into a WhatsApp exchange on your customer’s mobile phone.
  
• Support and supervision. Keeping customer service top-notch around the clock can be tough, but Xenioo’s built-in team supervision features solve this tricky issue. Xenioo makes it incredibly easy to ensure consistently good chatbot support day in, day out.
  
• AI technology. Chatbots work better when they can understand natural language. Xenioo chatbots harness artificial intelligence technology including natural language processing (NLP) to interpret typed inputs, delivering a far better chatbot experience compared to rigid menus and structures.
  
• Broadcast features. Reach a targeted audience right on their phone thanks to Xenioo’s Broadcast Behaviour. Send the latest news and offers straight into your customer’s WhatsApp client and comprehensively track the response metrics on your Xenioo console.

So, with Xenioo, your business can enjoy all the benefits of a WhatsApp chatbot. What’s more, you can publish your WhatsApp chatbot across to a range of other platforms too, with minimal adjustment.

It’s easy to get started with Xenioo – try out Xenioo for free, check out our tutorials or read up on what’s possible with Xenioo.

Want to know more? Just get in touch.

The post 14 Ways A WhatsApp CHATBot Boosts Growth and Customer Service – And Reduces Costs appeared first on Xenioo.