People are now buying products online more than ever before. Even if they come across a product, they’re interested in at a store. They’re more than likely to look it up online to find reviews or experiences from existing customers before spending their money on it. This has made it imperative for brands to establish an online presence that provides the information their customers might want.
That’s why many brands interact with questions, queries, and concerns about their products through social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. As a result, they set up dedicated support and customer service teams tasked with helping existing and potential customers.
This is a massive endeavor and certainly not one that many small businesses can afford. That’s why many social media automation tools use machine learning and artificial intelligence to streamline customer service tasks that might otherwise require a substantial human team.
What are Instagram chatbots?
Instagram chatbots are a tool used by brands to provide customer service. They can handle queries, questions, and concerns from humans by providing appropriate automated responses by relying on artificial intelligence.
Chatbots have become quite advanced now. They can answer questions, make recommendations and even help connect the customer to an actual human if their query has not been resolved.
It’s clear to the customer that they’re communicating with a bot. The chatbot is integrated into the brand’s official Instagram account, so users don’t have to go out of their way to interact with it. They have now become a legitimate customer service tool used by some of the world’s top brands.
Why Instagram chatbots make sense for brands
Customers widely use Instagram to learn more about the products that they want to buy. They’re more often than not to reach out to the brand on Instagram to get more information about the product.
The social commerce features that have been built into Instagram have also made it a source of revenue for brands. So they must be able to address any questions or concerns the customers might have when interacting with the brand on Instagram.
Chatbots make the entire process very streamlined. Many queries can easily be answered through automated responses. For example, questions about shipping or return policies, product pricing, sizing, and availability can be handled by chatbots.
There’s no limit to the number of customers chatbots can cater to at any time. A human customer service rep can only attend to one person at a time. With chatbots, brands no longer need a massive customer service team. Chatbots will filter out many of the queries that can be handled with automated responses, directly only those that genuinely require human assistance to customer service reps.
How Instagram chatbots can improve your customer service
- Reduce wait times for customers
Customers expect things to move quickly online. They will not appreciate waiting for a long time until a customer service representative gets free to attend to them. When there are many customers requiring support, wait times can increase significantly and lead to a negative user experience.
Chatbots fix this problem as they’re instantly available to attend to all customers. An extra advantage is that while humans take time to type out answers, chatbots deliver automated solutions which means they can reply almost instantly.
2. Leverage data to make informed decisions
Chatbots are also a great source of data to determine exactly what your customers are asking about. Keeping an eye on the type of questions customers are asking can provide valuable insights into your products and let you know if there’s something that needs to be improved.
For instance, if the vast majority of customers ask about sizing for a specific product, it might be because the product page doesn’t feature the sizing guide. This would only require a simple tweak to the page’s design, leading to an improved user experience for customers shopping for products on your website.
3. Lead generation automation
Your lead generation efforts can also be automated using chatbots on Instagram. When interacting with a customer, they can also pitch other products directly to them in the chat. This surfaces additional products to the customer, even those they may not have known about.
Since AI powers them, chatbots can make personalized recommendations based on the products the customer is interested in, leading to a higher chance of conversion.
4. Provide support in multiple languages
If you have customers across the globe, this adds complexity to your customer service operations. In addition, there may be a need to provide customer service in local languages, which would require hiring many more resources, which will be costly.
Instagram chatbots eliminate this hurdle as the technology has evolved enough to support multiple languages. A multilingual chatbot will deliver automated responses in various languages, enabling you to provide improved and personalized service to customers across the globe.
5. Improve brand reputation
Brands that provide customer service better than their competitors gain an inherent advantage through word of mouth. Customers are likely to talk about their positive experiences with others, thereby improving brand reputation.
Deploying chatbots has multiple benefits, and the chief among them is the speed at which queries can get resolved. When customers don’t have to wait to get the answers they’re looking for, they will view the brand favorably and would likely return to purchase products from it in the future.
Don’t fire your customer service team just yet
Given the benefits of chatbots, it might feel tempting to transfer the entire customer service operation over to them, but that would be a mistake. Instead, it would be best if you kept a dedicated team that will handle all the complex queries the chatbot cannot control.
Furthermore, it’s also imperative to keep checking up on the chatbot’s activity. This is to ensure that it’s working within the scope that has been defined to it. The automated answers are being delivered as desired. There are also no technical issues that could negatively impact the user experience.
