Do you want to build your first bot but are not sure what they can actually do? We present you six different ideas for chatbots that can fit right into your customer service team.
How do I know what type of a bot I need?
In this article we show examples of what a bot can look like, but in reality, it can take many different forms. It all depends on the goal you want to achieve. Do you want to free your agents from answering same questions over and over again? Create an FAQ bot. Maybe you need to mix and match bot skills by creating an FAQ-Appointment bot hybrid? Not a problem.
FAQ bot
Goals:
- free agents form answering the same questions over and over again;
- give an answer to repetitive questions within seconds;
- provide basic support 24/7.
A FAQ bot can start a chat with an open-ended question (e.g. “What can I help you with?”). But depending on your customers’ habits it could come with a risk of people not knowing what to say back. If that is the case, you can provide suggestions and show what topics are covered - quick replies and perfect for the job.
If you decide to ask an open-ended question, you need to predict user queries - but people use very different ways to name the same thing. To help you with this challenge ChatBot created a bot training feature. It shows data from all interactions where a bot didn’t understand what the user meant. You can then assign any unmatched query to a specific interaction with just one click. Next time your bot will know what to do!
Appointment bot
Goals:
- put your booking process in a context of a conversation (without overloading your agents);
- automate scheduling while making it more intuitive to a user.
Bots can go beyond handling a simple conversation. They can take care of an entire booking process, from providing available dates, through updating your calendar to sending a confirmation e-mail. All you need to do is show up when your customer comes to see you.
How?
Thanks to webhooks. In a nutshell, webhooks let one app (like Chatbot) send and receive data from other apps and databases. So for example, if you connect your chatbot to an external calendar, it will be able to provide accurate appointment dates for your customers and update the calendar if a booking was confirmed. If you want to know more, read this Chatbot tutorial on webhooks.
Lead generation bot
Goals:
- automitze lead generation;
- filter out customers that are not in your targeted audience;
- get access to information about your leads in real-time.
As we mentioned before, bots can send and receive data from external apps through webhooks. So, for example, information provided by leads can be sent automatically to a Google Sheets file.
Both customer’s answers (like e-mail address) and chosen quick replies/buttons can be passed on to external databases. What is great about this solution is that even people with no technical background can have an immediate access to leads data collected by a bot.
Survey bot
Goals:
- encourage customers to leave feedback;
- find customers who were unhappy/happy with your service.
Feedback is important, but we are all short of time. How to convince customers to share their opinion without giving anything in return? Well, you can try to turn your old boring form into a fun experience. If it matches your brand’s voice, your bot can use gifs, emojis or send a link to a youtube video to make it more interesting.
Instead of storing negative feedback in a database, you can also use bot actions (available only with Livechat + ChatBot integration) like Transfer to an agent - so a disappointed customer has a chance to discuss their problem with a real agent.
After hours bot
Goals:
- collect customers queries 24/7;
- capture leads day or night;
Customers love 24/7 support, yet your agents need to sleep. Unfortunately, a lot of visitors decide to not bother with an old out-of-office form and just leave your website. After Hours bot comes to the rescue! Users become more engaged in a conversation, so you have higher chances that they will leave you a message. And in the end become your customers.
Use Ask a question action when you need to collect specific information from your customers to process their request. It could be an e-mail address and issue description (like in our example above). Chatbot can return this information in chat, e.g. to confirm if saved data is correct. What’s more, collected data can be passed on to external databases - so following our example, your agents can have all these messages stored in one file.
Instead of storing messages received “after hours” in an external database you can use Create a ticket bot action (available only for LiveChat integration with Chatbot). All queries will be saved as tickets - so your communication with customers is stored in one place.
Tickets mentioned in this article refer to the old LiveChat ticketing system available to new customers until June 1, 2023. If you’re using HelpDesk tickets, please refer to the HelpDesk integration tutorial. If you’re not, add the best ticketing system to your ChatBot!
The native Tickets feature will be sunsetted based on the following schedule:
Starter plan: January 6, 2025
Team and Business plans: January 15, 2025
Enterprise and custom deals: January 31, 2025
Tickets mentioned in this article refer to the old LiveChat ticketing system available to new customers until June 1, 2023. If you’re using HelpDesk tickets, please refer to the HelpDesk integration tutorial. If you’re not, add the best ticketing system to your ChatBot!
The native Tickets feature will be sunsetted based on the following schedule:
Starter plan: January 6, 2025
Team and Business plans: January 15, 2025
Enterprise and custom deals: January 31, 2025
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Sales bot
Goals:
- increase sales;
- streamline buying process;
- automatize sales advisory.
Your bot can send personalized product recommendations right in chat. Thanks to rich messages you can mix and match: text, images, cards, buttons and quick replies to facilitate the buying process. Doesn’t matter if you sell books, houses or exotic holidays. Create various stories for different customer needs and add bot responses containing product cards to encourage visitors to take a closer look and shop away.
Your customers like chatting to humans before making a final decision? Not a problem! Use Transfer to agent action, so when your customer needs a human help they can get it right away.
Want to know more about bots? Check out these articles: