User experience is very precious, especially on today’s competitive market. Those who satisfy the user’s expectation, provide services easily and fast become the leaders. Those who don’t, wouldn’t attract new clients – but would see their current ones moving toward your more advanced competitors.
A chatbot is a new tool at online stores disposal. Many companies have created amazing chatbots that bring benefits to their owners.
But some companies’ chatbots are not that successful. Want to know what they did wrong and escape their mistakes? Then read the list of the most common chatbot mistakes to avoid!
PERPLEXED EVERYTHING
“Hi, I’m a chatbot”
This is quite a common mistake related to native on-site bots. Site visitors become confused by a pop up window, if it doesn’t specify who would read their message. (And if a user picks up a bot from a bot store, he knows that it’s a bot).
For a long time, the place of a page right bottom has been reserved for a customer-support operator pop-up window. However, now chatbots are replacing them.
You have to clarify from the very beginning, whether a user talks to a real person or a bot. When you directly point this out, it sets up user expectations and guides the user how to behave.
And uncertainty is not the emotion you want your clients to experience, is it?
Explicitly point out Chatbot’s Purpose
Choose the chatbot strategy you need. In e-commerce, chatbots could be great tools for customer support, product discovery and product purchase.
It’s still an open question whether it’s better to build a chatbot with only 1-2 functions or add more. But undoubtedly, it’s vital to make users aware of what your chatbot’s functions – so that they make use of them!
Ease Navigation
Remember to provide a prompt to connect the user to a live person. From any place a user must feel confident they can turn to a human operator on demand.
Advice: Make it all clear for users. Clarify that a user is not speaking to a human, but to a bot; point out what they can do and provide necessary guidance.
NEGLECTING ADDITIONAL FEATURES
For some unknown reason, online shops still rarely use cool and available features for e-commerce chatbots. A good example is that the majority neglects the Facebook Messenger’s feature of seamless payment for chatbots.
If you have enough resources, you should seriously think over adding extra features.
Here are some chatbot features for your online shop:
Comparison & Discount and Special Offers Analyser
A study by Ubisend revealed that 40% of consumers want offers and deals from chatbots. So, why not add the feature to your chatbot? A bot can notify about current promotions and encourage new users to buy at a special price.
Offer goods similar to the user uploaded photo or description
A chatbot can improve the shopping experience beyond what a regular site offers! Thanks to profound advancements in image recognition, sophisticated AI-based chatbot can serve as a personal assistant:
Advice: Have a look at specific features – they could help you get most of your chatbot.
MAKING A SPINELESS BOT
But some companies introduced chatbot without any functions, and were successful at conveying the meaningful message. Why is it so?
Returning to the discussion about chatbot purposes.
Properly functioning software is not enough for today’s discerning audience. Chatbots move beyond utility
In fact, the answer is quite simple. Since they interact with people through language, a chatbot should be viewed not only as a software, but as a translator of your brand image as well. Therefore…
The engaging conversations you have with her make you come back again and again
Think of your target audience, their needs, slang. Don’t make “robotic answers”. After all, conversing with a chatbot is some sort of an entertainment, so why not add a little splash of fun here?
Advice: Think thoroughly over your chatbot image.
NOT SUBMITTING YOUR CHATBOT TO BOT LISTS
Help potential users find your bot! Here is a list of major bot directories:
Advice: Do not forget to get listed on top bot directories and stores!
AMATEUR CHATBOT DEVELOPMENT WITHOUT PROFESSIONAL SUPPORT
Most would find building a chatbot on a platform with drag-and-drop interface fun and entertaining.
At least, to a certain degree.
Everyone can develop a chatbot. But what about developing a fully-functional, robust one? There are many issues in the way needed to be resolved: developing quality interaction strategy, integration issues, maintenance etc.
Is it worth your time and energy to learn so much on the subject, whereas there is an option to turn to professionals?
Advice: If you want your ecommerce chatbot to be really successful – attract new clients, sell products, gather info on your client base – it’s better to delegate the development process to the team of experienced professionals.
TAKEAWAYS:
The common mistakes made while developing a chatbot for online shop are:
- Making user feel perplexed
- Neglecting Additional Features
- Making a spineless bot
- Not submitting your bot to bot lists
- Amateur development without professional support
Remember, that avoiding all of them wouldn’t make your bot successful right away. But making these mistakes would definitely jeopardise the success.
By the way our company created cutting-edge conversational AI platform. If you want to learn more, follow the link: https://azati.ai/services/product-engineering/conversational-ai-platform/.
