Chatbots play a critical role in digital communication across all social media networks. Empowered by artificial intelligence (AI), they initiate personalized conversations, build brand trust, acquire more leads, close more deals, and get more precise customer feedback.

Additionally, almost half of consumers prefer to get support and buy different products through social media platforms because they are able to get faster answers and solutions to their questions. This makes AI chatbots an important part of a localized marketing strategy.

In a nutshell, a chatbot is a piece of a program that mimics human conversations and performs a set of actions. To name a few, Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant are well-known voice bots. AI and natural language processing allow businesses to design chatbots to do the job depending on their goals.

In this article, we’ll walk through the ways chatbots and artificial intelligence boost sales and increase brand trust. If you want to explore how chatbots can empower your business, let’s dive right in!

Chatbots offer always-available customer support

Customer service is the most important factor in multi-location business success.  Injecting chatbots into your social media marketing strategy allows you to offer a 24/7 customer service. Chatbots can give automated answers to the most repetitive questions immediately, or forward the request to a real customer support specialist. The automation chatbots provide will help you save time on simple time-consuming tasks, eliminate the number of waiting customers, and boost your customer satisfaction rate.

Chatbots strengthen a sales funnel

Multi-location businesses integrate chatbots into their sales funnel, thus widening the top of the sales funnel. In other words, with the help of chatbots, you can acquire more prospects and close more deals through a much faster sales cycle. It’s especially crucial to incorporate chatbots into your localized marketing strategy nowadays when prospects want to complete their shopping immediately. And chatbots are doing their job: the chatbot conversion rate on social media is more than 250 percent higher than the average social advertising.

Using chatbots equipped with AI and text messaging, people are able to order products instantly.  Chatbots also offer customers different sophisticated and convenient features like tracking their orders in real-time. 

Chatbots can collect customer data

In addition, chatbots provide the perfect opportunity to gather feedback and valuable information from customers. They soften the process of collecting data by naturally introducing short questions into conversations. This tactic allows you to get more insight into who your buyer persona is and what your audience wants. 

Through analyzing this data, you can revamp your overall localized marketing strategy and tailor it to your customers’ needs. Additionally, you can improve your services and products. Chatbots also have the ability to track purchasing patterns and customer behaviors and suggest more relevant products or services based on the data tracked.

Chatbots build trust around a company

Strategic implementation of chatbots builds credibility and trust around your business. Chatbots evoke a feeling that you are always here to assist your customers. They are usually the first interaction a prospect has with your brand, so it’s crucial for chatbots to make a positive impression that can lead to a trusted relationship between the customer and your business. Think about what tone of voice would be best when communicating with consumers for the first time, and what message you would like to give them. Use chatbots as an opportunity to educate the prospects about your services and what you can do for them. 

Chatbots generate, qualify, and nurture leads 

In addition to generating more prospects, chatbots help you qualify leads through identified metrics (budget, timeline, country, etc.). That will prevent you from wasting time on low-quality or irrelevant leads. 

Based on the analysis they collect, chatbots also recommend valuable content, relevant products, and initiate the conversation with prospects. In other words, chatbots can nurture your leads. Lead nurturing is a crucial and time-consuming part of any marketing strategy. Luckily, chatbots and AI tailor your localized marketing efforts to each and every lead. They can give personalized recommendations, suggesting combination offers, and offer local discounts or coupons to improve sales conversions.

Chatbots eliminate the need for mobile-friendly applications

Due to consumers’ digital behaviors,  almost every business is offering (or considering) a mobile application. However, let’s face the truth: a vast majority of recently released business apps are not utilized to their full potential. People are tired of downloading apps that will eventually end up being uninstalled.

Luckily, chatbots offer comprehensive functionality and 24/7 customer support without any app installation. Consumers never have to leave their social media pages to interact with a chatbot – they can be used natively on every social media messenger app and are available in a single click. 

Chatbots give users quicker access to the information they need

After landing on your social media accounts or websites, prospects can easily search for any piece of information they need and get it within a few seconds with the help of chatbots. Why is it so crucial to provide users with information in such a way? If prospects have unanswered questions or problems, they will simply go to your competition. 

Chatbots boost social media engagement 

Chatbots help you keep your prospects and customers entertained and engaged. Through AI, they learn from their interaction with users, catch your audience’s attention, and return prospects. Chatbots send users relevant content regarding your products and services and don’t bore them with unnecessary information. 

Chatbots engage with your audience longer than other marketing techniques because their personalized messages are based on the input the customer provides. Today, consumers crave personalized, localized content from multi-location businesses, and chatbots provide exactly that. Utilizing chatbots in your communication strategy leads to almost endless possibilities to upsell and cross-sell your products in an engaging way – you’re able to deliver the right message, with the right product, at the right time to your consumer. 

Get Started With Chatbots

In the era of the increasing role of AI and chatbot communication, multi-location businesses have a huge opportunity to revamp their localized marketing strategy, strengthen their brand, and increase revenue.

This opportunity is based on the main trend of the modern market: consumers require fast and easy access to the information they are looking for, as well as a seamless and no-brainer shopping experience. If your multi-location business can’t provide such an experience, you will lose potential customers.

Chatbots and AI simplify workflows for your local teams and raise customer satisfaction by providing the real-time, on-demand communication that people actually need and want. The top benefits of chatbots include the following:

• 24/7 customer service
• More acquired leads 
• Quick and instant answers to simple questions
• Time and cost-savings
• Increased number of closed deals
• Increased customer satisfaction
• Reduced churn rate
• Trust and credibility around a brand
• Lead qualification and nurturing
• Increased social media engagement
• More personalized communication

Chatbots are a great way to have real-time conversations with users on social media and create a more human user experience which will lead to increased sales and brand credibility.

Author bio: Julia Samoilenko is a marketing specialist who writes about digital marketing trends and strategies for Chanty blog. This powerful and free Slack alternative is aimed to increase team productivity and improve communication at work. Feel free to connect with Julia on LinkedIn.