Chatbots are great at what they do—making interactions easier and faster. Technological advances bring efficiency and speed to interactions at a level that can’t be replicated by humans. But nothing can quite replace the warm, personable touch that comes with human interaction.
Studies that only 3% of Americans want their experiences to be completely automated; a whopping 71% of American consumers prefer to interact with humans instead of bots. While these statistical differences are staggering, there’s no denying that chatbots are here to stay. And this is true for many reasons. Chatbots are awake 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and speak many different languages. They also guarantee immediate responses and provide greater internal efficiency.
Seeing that chatbots are becoming increasingly important but Americans still prefer to interact with humans, how can the best of both worlds be harnessed? The answer? By making your chatbots more humanlike, you can help bridge the gap between them. While automated chatbots can’t yet mimic the warmth and intelligence of human conversation, making them more human can help to create more meaningful connections with site visitors.
So, how do you make your chatbots more personable? And how do you improve the social component in any human-chatbot interaction, either as a small or large business? Here are some tips on how to increase the “human” aspect of your chatbot and effectively drive sales while maintaining the benefits of your existing chatbot strategy.
5 Ways to Make Chatbots More Humanlike and Improve Chatbot Customer Engagement
What truly makes for a positive and engaging customer experience? Convenience, speed, efficiency, friendliness, and consistency. And then there’s the human touch. Since human touch is important to make a chatbot script genuine, you will need the most human like chatbot to allow for engaging and warm chatbot human interaction.
Bot interaction is cool. And a good bot makes the experience better. But a highly intelligent humanlike chatbot? Nothing can quite beat that. You want your chatbot to respond in a way that feels natural and human. And that’s where the need for chatbot personalization comes in.
But how can you make your response bot sound more human? Here are five ways to increase the “human” aspect of chatbots and allow for chatbot communication that feels more engaging.
Assigning a bot name or face to your chatbot gives visitors the feeling of a personalized chatbot who is more humanlike. Giving your chatbot a name can humanize it, foster stronger bonds, and make communication more natural. And being greeted by a kind and welcoming face can give customers a positive impression of your business.
Customers easily remember a chatbot when they address it by name (think chatbot names like Siri or Alexa). What kind of name should you give your chatbot? Give it a simple and catchy human name for a more personal touch. Names like “Sarah” or “Simon” are good examples.
Resist the temptation to add numbers behind the name if you want it to sound more human (this is not a chipset). Take a moment to think about this: who would you feel more comfortable talking to – Alexa or Apple Bot 2011X?
The best way to start a bot interaction with a customer is to greet them first. The more you personalize your chatbot greeting, the more likely customers are to engage with and respond to your chatbot. Try starting conversations by saying “How are you doing today?” or “I want to help you with your XYZ needs. Want to chat?” Doing this mimics helpful customer service staff and can help grab your customers’ attention.
While you want your bot to be as human as possible, it’s not human! Try to be honest with users about what they’re interacting with. This way, your customers or site visitors can understand the many limitations that still exist when interacting with bots. So, in the event that a bot can’t understand a question or request, users can be given an “honest reminder” of its limitations and possible solutions.
Store personnel who interact with customers are often trained to ensure customers enjoy a positive. Similarly, you can give your chatbot a personality, tone, and behavior that comes through their scripted responses that simulates the type of customer interactions and experiences you desire.
The tone should match your type of business—if it’s a professional company, try using formal language and salutations like “Sir” or “Ma”. For shopping sites, use casual or informal greetings and terms like “Hey there” and “Got it”.
Design the personality and behavior of your chatbot. For instance, your chatbot conversation script should include responses that are courteous and empathetic while handling customer complaints; it should be amiable and engaging when drawing in customers, etc. Empathetic responses and elements like emojis and stickers can help create emotional connections.
Every communication process benefits from a bit of humor. Your chatbot should be able to tell jokes or insert humorous lines that are easy to understand as this can make the interaction and experience more enjoyable overall.
Why Should You Consider Using a Live Chat Service Over a Chatbot?
People talk about chatbots replacing customer service, but this isn’t going to happen anytime soon. Why? Because chatbots are not humans and in many instances cannot completely replace human capabilities.
Although chatbots and live chats share the same objective—to support and expand business people in their interactions with customers—there are several key distinctions between the two that you should be aware of.
So, under what circumstances might a live chat service be better for your business than a chatbot?
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In general, a managed online chat is more effective at resolving difficult issues. In some instances, the nature of a product or service could be too complicated for a robot to handle. This means that there will be times when chatbots will need human help to avoid mistakes.
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Live conversations can help you move customers much more quickly along the sales funnel. The possibility of making a sale can sometimes be hampered with chatbots rather than live chat. When customers tend to ask highly specific questions, it’s possible that your chatbot won’t be able to give a satisfying response, which will increase frustration instead of reducing it.
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Live chat interactions give you more intelligence of how customers feel about your products and services, which is necessary feedback that can help you improve the quality of your products and services.
So, while chatbots can augment your customer service and make it more efficient, chatbots may not always be the best fit for your company. Don’t be in a hurry to completely replace your customer service representatives with chatbots!
Chat With Humans Live Chat Services: A Fully-Human Solution That Works!
We’ve all been there: you had a bot interaction that was less than satisfying when the chatbot didn’t seem to be able to figure out what you wanted. You asked a specific or follow-on question and articulated it very clearly, but instead of getting an intelligent helpful reply, all you got was silence or information that was way off mark.
Why did this happen? It’s because chatbots aren’t humans; they’re just computers. And as much as we try to bridge the gap by programming a bot to act more humanlike, there is only so far this can go.
Here’s where Chat With Humans comes in!
With Chat With Humans, a live chat support service provider, you can get the best online managed live chat online services that will help you grow your business. Our managed live chat services are structured in a way that maximizes the benefits of chatbots, providing efficiency, speed, and consistency without having to mimic humans; this is a managed live chat customer service model that is truly fully human, sparing prospects and customers the frustrations and limitations of a chatbot!
Chat With Humans managed live chat services offer real human-to-human communication, adds empathy to support conversations, fostering connection, and generating leads. With our managed webchat, your customers and prospects will feel like they’re getting personalized attention from your team, increasing customer loyalty and return rates. This is one of the reasons why our managed live chat support services can help you dramatically increase conversion rates quickly without any conversation breakdown.
But how do we manage to combine the best of both worlds so effectively? At Chat With Humans, we assign only a few clients per several agents so they can respond quickly and generate quality leads. Our agents also have access to technology that facilitates easy communication and makes it possible to offer 24/7 live chat service and 24/7 support services. In addition, our agents are smart, friendly, courteous, competent, and well-trained!
With a managed live chat pricing of only $15 per valid lead and a one-time setup fee of $500, you can get started without any stress or worry—no monthly fees, no hidden costs, no minimums or maximums! And yes, no worries about weird bot interaction! This is a simple, inexpensive method of getting more valid leads and happier customers. Contact us to get started!
