Chatbots vs Phone support for your business

I never think of the future — it comes soon enough.
Albert Einstein
Most of the company pages we know of today have phone numbers or community support hubs. Having a phone number present on a page is a great means of humanizing the company. According to Tony Hseih, an emotional relationship is created when there is someone present to listen to your concerns. In the language of sales, a face/ voice behind the brand results in greater conversion rates.

On many websites the contact information is buried at least five links deep, because the company doesn’t really want to hear from you. And when you find it, it’s a form or an e-mail address.
Tony Hseih, CEO and founder of Zappos
Reaching out to the customer and making it easier to make the call was possible with the cross-platform “tel:” link. While looking at the page on a mobile device, a customer can click the link and be taken right into the phone app, dialing the number automatically.
<a href="tel:+6494461709">61709</a>
show image on how href links phone num improved call responce rates
Other companies have a different take on the phone numbers. Jeff Bezos of Amazon thinks that having a phone number is a sign of poor thought-out User Experience of the company’s site.

“The best customer service is if the customer doesn’t need to call you, doesn’t need to talk to you. It just works.”
Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon
How does Amazon deal with customers who’ve still got questions then? We know that there would always be someone who have either missed a FAQ topic or just does not want to look through them?

They have support chat, and an integral part of that is chatbots. They help sort out commonly asked questions by providing quick answers immediately and only in uncommon cases do they pass on the request to customer service rep.
In fact, chatbots are much bigger than this now. They understand natural language and produce unique replies, based on all previous human support conversations gathered and analysed.

Chatbots are getting increasingly incorporated by other tech companies- Microsoft, Facebook and Google are incorporating different variants of assistants and automated support staff. These get incorporated in their client’s services (aka the biggest businesses in the industry). According to Juniper Research, they save on call center expenditures and provide better customer experience through less wait time. They are also pushed into everyday life by popular demand.

According to the 2014 US survey by OneReach, 64% of the consumers would choose text over voice support and 77% would have a positive perception of the company if chat support is offered. Student numbers (97%) are even higher.
With the increasing popularity of social channels, businesses use incorporated messengers as chatbot platforms to assist their customers. According to the OneReach survey, these are the most popular use cases of the chatbot services in customer support:
38% Check order status
32% Schedule or change appointments
31% Make or confirm reservations
30% Ask a question
30% Find a store location
30% Check balances or due dates
29% Refill orders
27% Reset password
With Facebook and Facebook Messenger being the top social platforms, incorporating an around-the-clock virtual customer assistant may be what differentiates your business from the rest and brings in fresh leads.

At RoarTheWeb, we can help you incorporate a chatbot on your facebook page and perform in the ever-changing landscape of digital commerce. Contact us for all your Web Development, Design, SEO and marketing needs. RoarTheWeb with us!