How Bots Can Increase Sales.
This article looks at the different kinds of bots. It then goes on to look at how bots can increase sales.
Most business transactions these days happen online. The online platform is unlike the ordinary brick-and-mortar approach in that it is accessible round the clock, seven days a week. It is humanly impossible hence to meet the demands of all the potential clients. To keep pace with the higher number of inputs, you need to enlist the support of artificial intelligence.
Indeed, there are a number of programs and software that are designed to lighten the load and facilitate online transactions. But what kinds of pieces of software are these? In what ways do they lighten the load and how do they ultimately increase sales?
WHAT ARE BOTS AND HOW DO THEY WORK?
These pieces of software programs are technically called ‘bots.’ ‘Bot’ is a short form of a robot. It is a software program that is designed to tackle automated and repetitive pre-defined tasks. They also tend to simulate human activities and hence take the need for too much attention away from the human agent.
Bots, much like the other software programs also work round the clock. They thus ensure the smooth running of transactions regardless of the day or the hour in which the same may be lodged. There are many kinds of bots. Our discussions below shall examine them and how they boost sales.
Let’s look at How Bots Can Increase Sales.
Types Of Bots
Below are the leading kinds of bots we have:
Entertainment Bots
As the name implies, these are bots that facilitate the smooth playing of games and arts activities. They may be used to facilitate the playing of video games chiefly by simulating and replacing human characters. With regards to this, they make the games more enjoyable than would be normally.
Informational Bots
These bots source meaningful pieces of information like push notifications and breaking news. They go ahead to personalize these pieces of information to make them as relevant as possible to the targeted audience. In this way, they lead to a fairer degree of satisfaction on the part of the consumers.
Transactional Bots
Transactional bots exist to greatly facilitate the smooth flow and exchange of money from the buyers to the sellers. They act as agents on behalf of their human counterparts and work in conjunction with the external systems to carry out their mandate. That they operate round the clock makes them more reliable to tap into.
Crawlers
Also called spiders, crawlers run continuously in the background to fetch data from websites and APIs. In return, they display the information they source to the search engines that ultimately display them on the search engine results pages. That is what is used to rank the pages when searched by an end-user.
Chatbots
Chatbots carry out conversations much as human agents would. They mimic the voices of real humans and are largely used to deliver automated responses. Some of these bots are intelligent and may also read out texts into speeches for the ultimate consumption of humans.
Downloadbots
App developers and businesses rely on download apps to source information and resources from the web pages and the internet platform as a whole. They facilitate the task by eliminating the downtimes and the hassles that are involved in the entire process as a result of this.
Videobots
Like the entertainment bots, these are also employed in matters of entertainment. They particularly come in handy in the video and the associated video games. These bots work on the basis of artificial intelligence and are designed to mimic the real characters that humans may play against.
Social Media Bots
Social media bots are the ones you would tap into so that you may communicate and share ideas seamlessly with one another over the social media platforms. They are programmed to deliver responses, respond to certain keywords, and post updates on multiple platforms simultaneously. Thus, they cut the time and the effort you would naturally have to expend.
Text Reading Bots
They resemble the chatbots with the exception that they only read out texts loudly rather than converse with humans. Simply put, these bots convert the text to audio speeches instead of carrying out normal conversations with humans as ordinary chatbots do. They mainly come in handy during transcriptions.
Scaper bots
Scraper bots bear crawl to the websites to read the data therein. In turn, they harvest the said data and then use the same to display the outcomes to the end-users. Generally, web developers, journalists, researchers, and business persons find them quite suited to their roles.
How Bots Can Increase Sales
The bots can increase the sales volumes in the following ways:
They can handle a huge volume of inquiries faster
They handle a higher volume of inquiries faster. Unlike their human agents, these bots do not tire or suffer boredom. They are completely human and automated. Thanks to this arrangement, they are able to process a huge volume without demanding too much time or effort as is the norm.
Reduces the waiting times
In most cases, customers are often too impatient to wait or hold on for too long after placing an order. They simply jump the queue in the event that their inquiries are not given the necessary attention within a realistic timeframe. The bots come in handy to remedy this by cutting down the waiting time.
Works round the clock
Unlike the human sales agents, these bots work on a round-the-clock basis including weekends and public holidays. The benefits they bring forth hence may be accessed even when the times are too odd for the intervention of their human agent counterparts. Of course, this leads to greater client satisfaction.
What Else Can Bots Do?
Suffer limited downtimes
Since they are automated and derive their power from the algorithms, they suffer limited downtimes compared to their human agents. They are hence less likely to let you down in your sales and marketing efforts. This in turn assures the clients of the goods and the services they need when they need them.
Automates the sales processes
Many a time, most clients will often send out more or less similar orders. It is a waste of time to handle each of them separately. The bots are programmed to bundle similar orders and handle them as one comprehensive package. That way, they greatly cut the time needed to have the necessary merchandise.
Unaffected by mood swings and changes
Humans are moody. They change their moods depending on the prevailing external circumstances like deaths, births, accidents, and weather conditions. These changes ultimately impact the way in which they handle the inquiries of their clients. Bots are unaffected by these trends and are hence more reliable in the long run.
Can Bots Improve Performance?
Provide more accurate and consistent performances
Stemming from the above is the fact that they also provide more accurate and consistent performances. Regardless of when you place your order, you may count on the bots to act in the best way possible. Hardly will your clients struggle or suffer unnecessary inconveniences as they source their orders.
Bolsters the conversion rates
A combination of faster response times, limited downtimes, and more consistent responses leads to higher conversion rates. Put differently: you are more likely to accrue higher purchases if you employ the bots than when you opt for the normal human agents to handle the requests and process the transactions.
Reduced incidences of white-collar crimes
Humans are never really that trustworthy. It is not uncommon for human agents to steal the money that accrues from sales. The transaction bots are pretty effective and reliable insofar as the mitigation of white-collar crimes is concerned. They record and keep track of every transaction to minimize any unnecessary losses.
Identifying potential business opportunities
Other than merely assisting the clients to have their ways, the bots may also be used to identify potential future prospects. This, they do, by monitoring the behaviors of the clients within a given geographical region o locale. They help you to narrow your sales activities wisely.
Personalizes the sales efforts
They say the ‘customer is king.’ Indeed, no one client would wish to be treated the same as the other clients. Each client wants to feel unique, outstanding, and individually valued by the firm. No other resource manages this better than the bots. They have a way of studying each customer individually and getting to know their unique tastes and preferences.
How Bots Can Increase Sales In Other Ways?
Shortening the sales cycle
These bots are generally quicker and more prompt. They, unlike human agents, are hardly affected by fatigue and other issues that may compromise their productivity. For this reason, they shorten the sales cycle considerably. Most people are happy with them as they negate the need to wait for too long to have their ways.
Aids with surveying and studying
You may use the bots to survey and study consumer behaviors appropriately. In the course of this, you are more likely to come up with a unique sales strategy to approach each client individually. The benefits of this arrangement are indeed, very many. Not only do the clients get satisfied but also you waste less effort to reach out to them.
May be used for analytics
Analytics simply studies the behavior of the visitors to a web page and by extension the clients that choose to source their products from your store. The tool gives out relevant information like the demographics, distribution gender, and the sales volume of each client. You may subsequently use this piece of information to target your sales efforts strategically.
How Can Bots Help With Sales?
Encouraging repeat sales
Studies have deduced that when clients are properly satisfied with the services they accrue from a firm, they are more likely to seek the same services there a second or even a third time. It hence goes that the use of the bots is a sure way of eliciting repeat sales. That of course ensures a more consistent revenue inflow.
Builds customer loyalty
Obviously, customers are more likely to be loyal to a firm that handles their inquiries more promptly than that which inconveniences them. A firm that uses the bots in its transactions is hence more likely to build a more loyal customer base compared to that which chooses to use human agents. With a more loyal client base comes a greater market share and stable revenue inflows.
Drives in-bound website traffic
We started by stating that most business transactions these days happen on the internet platform. For this reason, it is necessary to experience a higher traffic inflow on your site if there be any hope and enjoying meaningful headway. The bots, especially the crawlers, are able to attract higher traffic to shore up the rankings of the web pages.
Improving brand awareness
Brand awareness is synonymous with greater authority and a higher level of website traffic. It is impossible to boost the awareness of your brand without incorporating bots. The spiders/crawls are particularly great at improving the visibility of the web pages. With improved visibility comes a greater degree of authoritativeness.
Futuristic
Though the use of bots in sales and marketing is largely in its infancy, it is the technology of the future. Indeed, going forward, all businesses will have to adopt them in their attempts to reach out to prospective client mass. If you are a shrewd business person, you have no choice but to start early lest you be left out.
Can Bots Help With Competitors?
Keep an eye on your competitors
At any given time, there are a couple of businesses in your area that handle and deal with more or less similar merchandise as you. They are also highly likely to target your market base. You need to keep an eye on them so that you may ward off the competition and protect your base from unnecessary invasions. The bots come in handy at such times as well!
This is how How Bots Can Increase Sales.
Conclusion
Given the highly competitive nature of modern business transactions, you can never afford to debate whether to or not to incorporate the bots in your sales and marketing strategies. In fact, this is something that should have happened long ago if you have not yet done so.
If possible, you should try and incorporate all the kinds of bots above in one go. That may be expensive and highly technical but is the surest way of standing tall in the marketplace. Of course, you will need the assistance of highly-trained and well-qualified technicians to do this for you.
I hope you enjoyed reading about How Bots Can Increase Sales.
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