Founder of Chatwith
7 best practices for business website chatbot in 2024
A website chatbot is not just for customer support anymore: it’s a proven engagement and revenue booster. These statistics show just how powerful website chat can be when it comes to engagement and conversion:
Statistics from SEO specialist Neil Patel indicate that having a chat feature can engage 10-50% of your website visitors, and if done right, about a third of these engaged visitors can become buyers. This translates to a conversion rate of around 3.3%, which is significant, especially for high-traffic websites.
This article aims to provide a detailed guide on the best practices for building a successful website chatbot.
1. Define the objectives for your custom chatbot
Chatbots can serve different functions based on who's using them. For example, if you own a bakery and want a chatbot to handle customer orders, the chatbot should have a friendly tone and also include an option for order cancellations.
On the other hand, in healthcare settings, chatbots can be programmed to book doctor appointments and even provide initial medical advice. This highlights the adaptability of chatbots across various sectors.
To figure out what your chatbot should do, consider asking yourself the following questions:
- What issues are my customers commonly facing?
- What specific tasks should the chatbot handle?
- Who am I aiming to serve with this chatbot?
Answering these questions will make it easier to set clear goals for your chatbot. It will also guide you in deciding what features and functions your chatbot needs to have. By doing this, you'll have a clearer idea of how to design your custom chatbot to meet both your business needs and customer expectations.
2. Understand your audience
Every brand targets a unique blend of customers, each with their own distinct characteristics. Your communication should align with the customer's profile. For example, you wouldn't interact with a senior citizen the same way you would with a teenager. This same approach should frame the tone of your chatbot. Here are some aspects to note when designing dialogue interfaces:
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Brand voice: Ensure the tone used through all channels aligns with your brand image, thereby creating a strong association between your communications and your brand. Think of your brand as an individual, having a specific dressing style and manner of speech. This distinct style should emulate through your tone.
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Demographics: Key elements such as the age, gender, and other demographic factors of your audience must be taken into account when crafting messages. For instance, if your business appeals to an older demographic but your chat interface is youthful and trendy, it could lead to miscommunication.
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Social profile: Know the activities that your customers participate in and their occupations. This allows you to incorporate elements relevant to their interests into the chat interaction. Ignoring this aspect could potentially lose you valuable customers.
It is often beneficial to lightly sprinkle some humor into your conversations to maintain engagement. Nevertheless, if you're a high-end boutique and formality is expected from your clientele, moderate the use of humor.
3. Consider chatbot UI design
The user interface (UI) of a chatbot plays a substantial role in simplifying interactions between users and machines. The effectiveness of a chatbot's communication largely hinges on the quality of its UI design.
Some chatbots can take the user on a journey, providing customizable interface with options for each step of the script. For example, if users need to book appointments, the chatbot requires a distinct script. If users wish to subscribe to your newsletter, the chatbot needs to employ a different script. It's also beneficial to add features that allow customers to return to the homepage, such as a "back to start" option.
Such functional features are fundamental to good chatbot user experience (UX) design. The chatbot should facilitate easy navigation, thereby complementing your website's navigation feature.
The purpose of your buttons should be clear and specific, enabling users to swiftly understand their functions. Furthermore, limiting the number of options can encourage more user engagement. As per studies, sales-focused chatbots with numerous options tend to generate 266% fewer leads compared to those with more streamlined choices.
4. Stay true to human interaction
There are two main categories of chatbots: rules-based chatbots and AI chatbots. Rules-based chatbots construct their conversations based on previous customer interactions while AI chatbots utilize Natural Language Processing (NLP) or Large Language Models (LLM) to achieve a more human-like quality in their language.
So, should you conceal the fact that the responses are coming from a bot? It is generally considered positive practice to be clear that it's a bot handling customer service. When a chatbot is designed to mimic human interaction it can often mislead a customer into assuming they're interacting with a living person.
Whereas live chats and chatbots are both useful tools in delivering immediate assistance, chatbots cannot replicate the emotional understanding that a human agent possesses. This lack of empathy remains a key distinction between chatbots and live chat. Hence, it's crucial to clarify to the user that they are interacting with a bot to help manage expectations.
Are you looking for an easy to start with and powerful chatbot for your business? Sign up for free to try Chatwith today.
5. Admit to chatbot limitations
Thinking that a machine can match human comprehension is a challenging expectation, particularly in customer service where the absence of empathy is highly noticeable. Therefore, it's important to recognize that your chatbot won't be able to perfectly manage every interaction.
If your chatbot is unable to resolve a customer's issue, it's not advisable to prevent access to other forms of customer support. Instead, you should expect situations in which the customer may wish to speak with a human representative.
In such instances, honor this request and guide the chat accordingly. You can predefine a response such as, "I'm unable to provide an answer for this. But I'll connect you with one of our representatives right away."
This approach is aligned with standard live chat procedures, where the conversation might be transferred to a more experienced team member if the issue isn't satisfactorily resolved.
6. Tips for website chatbot customization
The first step in tailoring your chatbot is to critically consider how you want the conversation to take place. Different chatbot creators offer various tools for this purpose. For instance, Chatwith allows you to train a custom AI chatbot on your sources of information and intelligently answer questions from this acquired knowledge.
In terms of chatbot customization, there are some recommended practices. Here are some insights:
- Incorporate emojis and smileys to add a touch of humor and naturalness into the dialogue.
- Provide rich media elements in your knowledge sources so the chatbot can bring them up when applicable.
- Specify your chatbot's features by tailoring messages to clearly communicate its capabilities.
- Adjust the chatbot to match your brand's visual style and feel.
- Aim for a grammatically correct language, make sure the instructions and resources in training material or script are of good quality.
Tip: on Chatwith, use the "system prompt" to give the chatbot additional instructions for brand voice, usage of emojis etc. No need for complicated configuration - the chatbot will understand a natural language description from you.
7. Choosing the right kind of custom chatbot
Chatbots come in two primary types: rule-based and AI bots, each with its unique advantages and disadvantages. Rule-based chatbots, also identified as decision tree bots, provide responses that are limited their pre-designed interaction scripts, known as conversational flows.
Here's what you can expect from rule-based chatbots:
- They're generally more complex to set up and configure.
- They allow definining very specific interactions scripts.
- They have the ability to engage with media elements, not just text, enhancing user interactivity.
Benefits of AI chatbots include:
- They can continuously learn from new information and sources of knowledge.
- They have the flexibility and can be configured mostly using descriptions in natural language.
- They're capable of autonomous decision-making.
- They have the capacity to understand and converse in multiple languages.
Conclusion
Chatbots are emerging as an effective tool for increasing conversions, attracting leads, and enhancing customer service. The primary step is to select an appropriate chatbot that aligns well with your customer service goals. Following this, understanding your target audience is crucial as it helps in setting the appropriate tone of voice for your chatbot.
Additionally, personalizing your chatbot can make it more visually appealing. Paying attention to the user interface (UI) of your chatbot can significantly enhance the customer's experience. We have outlined several best practices for chatbot design and conversation that will assist you in creating an effective customer experience.
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