How to Plan Dialogue with a Client via a Chatbot

admin 28.07.2020 0 3476

Communication with a client via a chatbot is a simplified automated dialogue that could be recreated in real life (with a consultant, manager or shop assistant). Therefore, just like in everyday situations, it is necessary to properly plan the functionality and phrases of the virtual representative of your company in order to persuade the users in your offer purposefulness.

How to do that? What to begin the dialogue planning with? How to attract the maximum number of people to be your audience? In order to answer these questions, we offer to review chatbot planning for your business step by step.

Step 1. Identifying chatbot targets

In order to develop a dialogue with the client correctly, you need to understand your target – or, more specifically, the communication targets. While the main target is quite clear (to make a purchase, order a service, visit an enterprise), the chatbot customers often neglect the additional options.

Why is this so important? It is necessary to understand that not all the users will arrive at the end of the sales pipeline – even under the most favourable conditions. That is why one should take care to ensure that the leads stay connected and benefit from the interaction with the bot. To do that, you can offer useful content (mailout via a bot or an email), information about promotions and campaigns, discounts for using a chatbot and other benefits.

Learn more about the process of target setting through an example of catering business in the article ‘Why a Restaurant Needs a Chatbot’.

Step 2. Forming a simplified chatbot scheme

Once the targets have been thought through, we can proceed to the schematic scenario. Each target should have its conversation loop with logical and simple milestones.

Why does this scheme work? We can adjust, expand and simplify the chart, but the scheme in this form incorporates the major factors of work with the clients at various stages of personal interest. When entering a chat with a chatbot, the visitor obtains the basic information about the company and simple variants of further interaction:

• Choose and order fabric;
• Choose and order the garment accessories required;
• Get in touch with a consultant if one needs to get a piece of advice or find out information missing from the catalogue.

These variants are perfect for the most interested visitors who are ready to make a purchase. However, it won’t hurt to keep other visitors’ attention for further sale. There are some options available for them:

• Visiting a website;
• Subscribing to the mailout, interesting articles, ideas, etc.

In the future, the bot functionality can be expanded with a FAQ section (after analysing the requests to a consultant), YouTube subscription, etc.

Stages of personal interest in more detail

Chatbot visitors are on different stages of personal interest in products or services. In general, we have three main stages:

1. Getting acquainted.
2. Consideration.
3. Readiness to act.

We will take a closer look at each of these stages and the corresponding methods of interaction with the visitors.

1. Getting acquainted

The more expensive the purchase is, the longer it takes to get acquainted with the proposal. At this stage, it is necessary to reduce the distance between you and the client, and to attract attention to the offer. In order to do that:

• Offer your customer some brief but useful information about the company and provide an opportunity to obtain detailed data (who you are, how you may help, what is the feedback about you, the results of your activities, etc.);
• Get acquainted with the visitor (what he/she is interested in, what is the task he/she is solving, what is the most important for him/her, and, if necessary, you may find out his/her age, location, etc.). This section is not always necessary.

In order to proceed with the interaction and establishing trust, in addition to your own services or products, offer your visitor some useful materials for free. These can be:

• Expert articles;
• Useful literature;
• Check-lists;
• Mailout with tips;
• Videos on your YouTube channel.

For such visitors, the scheme includes the planned links to the website and subscription to the useful information. The interaction ideas can and should be expanded.

2. Consideration

At this stage, those who stay are motivated users who are actually ready to make a purchase but have some doubts about their choice. You should provide for them:

• Convenient and articulate catalogue of goods/services;
• Feedbacks of other users;
• Successful cases;
• Opportunity to contact a consultant.

In addition, it is during the consideration phase that the users opt for micro-conversions most often (following the link to a website, a YouTube channel, social media subscriptions, etc.).

3. Readiness for the target action

This category involves people who are ready to make use of your offer. Our task is to ensure an easy and comfortable process of making an order and leading the visitor to this target action. Here, the following may come in handy:

• Simple and clear ordering procedure;
• Call to action (to make a purchase, subscribe to the page, etc.);
• Convenient connection (a phone call, a Google form or other methods).

Adapt these stages to your business and define which sections and links are required for your particular chatbot. Start from what is the simplest and the most necessary. When the chatbot performs its functions well, you can expand the functionality.

Step 3. Planning a chatbot operating scenario

The targets are set. The structure is ready. It’s time to implement everything in practice. To do that, you need to think over the bot lines, its manner of speech, presentation of information, the potential answers of the user, discuss everything planned with the developer and, possibly, correct some nuances.

This step is made with the consideration of all the peculiarities of products/services, the target audience, price policy and other details of your proposal. We offer some general advice:

• Leave the last word in each conversation for a chatbot. It can be a routine ‘Goodbye’ or ‘Thank you for your order’. Of course, if that is necessary.
• Write short and clear lines. Even if you develop a bot for mailout of expert information directly into the messenger, split the message into several blocks, for the customer to be able to choose the buttons like: ‘It’s interesting’, ‘What’s next?’ and similar answers. If these are some long articles, it’s better to publish them on another resource, and post the preview and the link to the material in the messenger.
• You can use emoji if this is relevant. They add simplicity and friendly tone to the communication.
• Customise phrases for your target audience. How do your potential clients communicate? What are they interested in? How can they be influenced? Please note, however, that sometimes it’s better to maintain a neutral working tone than to go over the top with jokes.

When forming the scenario, speak out the phrases and simplify the lines as much as possible.

Step 4. Testing the ready bot

Before implementing the chatbot in your business processes, offer your friends to try using it. It would be best of all if they represent your target audience. If everything is clear and convenient, the target is achieved easily, and the cost of obtaining a client suits you, the project can be considered successful.

Conclusions

1. For creating an effective chatbot, it is necessary to pass the following stages:
   • Define the main target and the additional targets of creating a bot;
   • Arrange the bot structure;
   • Create the communication scenario;
   • Create the software code (the developer’s task);
   • Run a test drive.
2. When planning a chatbot functionality, it is necessary to consider the users at various stages of interest:
   • Getting acquainted (greeting, introduction, link to the website, free materials which may be interesting for the target audience);
   • Getting interested (a convenient catalogue, feedback, cases, expert materials, contacting the consultant);
   • Readiness to act (call to action, simple ordering procedure, feedback).
3. All the stages of work need to be done following your own requirements and the peculiarities of your target audience. A chatbot is the same type of communication that takes place in real life, but it is simpler and more casual.
4. If you are not sure what is the best way to adapt the chatbot to your business, we recommend consulting the developers in advance, in order not to overpay for numerous amendments.

We wish you successful projects and good sales.