The 5 Best Chatbots for Business
In an age of instant communication, chatbots can give your business an upper hand when it comes to providing stimulating, instantaneous responses to current and potential customers.
With AI technology advancing at an ever-increasing rate, chatbots can provide realistic and engaging responses to customers without the need for live human input.
Why use a Chatbot?
One of the major benefits of chatbots for businesses; it can drive down costs and time-spent down drastically. After the initial set-up, which is becoming easier and easier, the chatbot will engage with customers automatically.
Chatbots can answer as many questions as possible that come your businesses way, all at the same time. This means scaling is not an issue – where you may have had to hire an extra customer service rep. – your chatbot can do it all!
Chatbots can extract user information in a natural, conversational way. You can collect this data (with appropriate GDPR compliance) and use the chatbot to grow your customer base organically and with no resistance from customers.
Increased engagement is a huge win for chatbots – “Chatbots can have CTRs ranging from 15%-60%, and even the lower end of that spectrum well surpasses the average email marketing CTR (which is only about 4%)”.
With this level of click-through in comparison to emails, it’s a no-brainer that chatbots are the future of customer service.
Finally, businesses can use chatbots on multiple sites. Having a chatbot pop-up on your site can remove customer indecisiveness and funnel them into a purchase. Alternatively, hosting a chatbot on a popular messaging service like Facebook Messenger or WeChat means your business will have a huge number of possible customers ready to be engaged by your chatbot.
Which Chatbot to use?
With the increasing popularity of chatbots and their variety of uses in business, it can be hard to work out which one will best equip you with the tools you need to increase engagement and drive sales.
Read on for the best of the best, with a handy pros and cons list to help you decide upon your ideal chatbot.
BotMyWork Chatbot Builder
Pros
- Has built-in lead generation tools. Integration with Zapier.
- Create-your-own chatbot which gives you more control over the functions and reduces costs.
- Free plan for small businesses, only costs when dealing with over 2000 subscribers.
Cons
- Only usable on Facebook messenger.
- Advanced features require a monthly subscription.
Ebi.ai Lobster
Pros
- Can integrate with virtually any business system.
- Fully managed service so creation, management, and upkeep are handled.
- Deployable on almost any web, chat service, or beyond.
- Uses IBM Watson NLP (Natural Language Processing), which provides industry-leading human responses.
Cons
- Created with enterprise in mind, so may be less viable cost-wise for smaller businesses.
- It may be harder to scale for a small business with such a feature-rich platform
Botscrew
Pros
- Multi-language solutions for worldwide businesses.
- Bespoke creation of chatbot for individual business needs.
- Takes POC (Proof of Concept) and turns it into a chatbot.
Cons
- Targeted at enterprise and multinationals so less viable for low-cost smaller businesses.
- Longer lead time with bespoke creation.
Instabot
Pros
- Booking integration with Google calendar and Office 365.
- Build your chatbot on their innovative SaaS platform.
- Provides transparent analytical feedback to iterate your chatbot.
- Can automatically create segments prospects, automatically sending to specific mailing or drip campaigns.
Cons
- No free version, with a base plan of $49 p/m.
- A limited number of active chatbots in cheaper plans.
LiveChat Chatbot
Pros
- One-click integration with CRM software Keap (Want to learn more about using Keap to engage with customers organically? Have a read of our set-up guide here!).
- Easily switch between the chatbot and live chat to provide the best service.
- Has a myriad of features in-chat such as carousels, buttons, and quick-replies
- Can be used over a vast number of systems such as Facebook Messenger, direct on a website, or through email.
Cons
- No free version (14-day free trial available), cheapest version is $16 p/m.
- Some features locked behind more expensive subscriptions.
In Conclusion...
Finding the best chatbot to use for your business or venture can be a confusing process, especially with little to no knowledge of the chatbot landscape.
Using this blog as a guide, you can now better understand the pros and cons of these 5 chatbots. What they can bring to your business, how they can help you improve your organic relationships with customers, and if setting up a chatbot is worth your time and investment.
If you are looking to increase your leads, need help with your e-learning solutions, CRM, or website management;
