4 reasons why Student Accommodation Websites should have a chatbot
Have a website that speaks to Millennials!
Every year millions of students are looking for a new place to call home. Looking for mid to long-term stays and great landlords! Where? In student accommodation websites, of course! But in an era of social media and instant gratification, having a mere website is not enough! These younger generations are digitally active and hyper-connected. In fact, they are a new breed of clients! Messaging apps like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger or WeChat have transformed the way they communicate with each other and consequently, the way they want to communicate with brands! Students no longer look for your email or your toll-free number when they have a query, messaging is the chosen way to interact!
So, can you guess what’s missing from your website?
That’s right! A chatbot!
On today’s post, we are going to point 4 reasons why student housing websites should have a chatbot!
1. Your target is digitally native
These modern generations (Millennials and Gen Z) are in a constant state of communication. When they are not messaging one another or sharing new insta stories, they are tweeting. If not, they are checking and reading the news. Chatbots not only engage with millennials in a casual and conversational-way but they are also located on familiar platforms. Did you know that 60% of millennials have used them and 70% report positive experiences and of those millennials who have not test them yet, more than half say they are interested in using a chatbot? Consequently, it only makes sense that brands and services to have chatbots to meet their target audience in the place they are spending a significant amount of time. This makes bots the ideal formula for creating a great customer care service and an experience they wouldn’t forget.
2. Chatbots help you with better queries qualification
Incorporating a Chatbot into your website can lead to more efficient operations. In addition, it facilitates the work of customer care agents, in the way that it promptly asks all the necessary information so that, if necessary, the intervention is as efficient as possible and without repetitions. By labelling the queries, the customer care team will know beforehand what’s the problem and therefore provide a more optimized customer care.
Besides, one cannot forget to mention the fact that chatbots are great at providing important data and metrics! For example, the volume of the most asked questions (FAQs) is the number of times a chatbot answered a certain type of question asked by a user. This performance indicator provides a great insight for student housing providers because it can measure users’ intention when using the chatbot. Furthermore, you can see what is not being clearly perceived on your website, what you are failing to communicate and users’ pain points that you might not even have a clue that existed.
3. Finding the perfect place is not always easy, but a chatbot is always there to help
A chatbot never sleeps! And as we already know, customer service is all about convenience, which includes 24/7 customer support! A cost-efficient, yet powerful way to provide basic support is through a never-sleeping bot. In reality, students prefer to chat with it because they know that earns them an immediate response and their queries are solved within a blink of an eye! Indeed, the importance of a fast response can never be taken too lightly because it directly affects the chances of getting the booking completed. Moreover, your team won’t spend time with simple queries, the AI-assistant will provide quick answers and solutions to students. Allowing your staff to focus on more complex and important tasks!
4. Retargeting
It’s very likely that students are using your chatbot in the process of deciding the best room to stay when they are still comparing prices and houses. This way, it’s very unlikely they will book right away. One of the beauties of chatbots is that you have the possibility to re-engage with the user some hours or even days after the first search — without any costs. Therefore, you can do individual targeting and reach mass amounts of people at the individual level. As you collect more information in your chatbot about your potential clients, it is possible to use that information to re-engage with users and build a stronger relationship that will ultimately lead to a booking.
It is really important to re-engage with your “cart abandoners” at the right time, on the right channel to convert them into paying and returning customers. For instance, with HiJiffy’s solution: if it is not the best time to book or the user is still indecisive, we re-engage with them in the next day. Our smart notification system diminishes the probability of abandonment because it will remind the user of what they were searching and even ask why they decided not to book.
We work with student housing providers like Uniplaces and Spotahome! You can test our solution on their websites.
Curious about our solution?
Just go to our website and fill in the contact form: https://hijiffy.com/contact/
NB: This is a viewpoint by Mariana Marques from HiJiffy. HiJiffy brings chat to the hospitality and travel industry, enabling customers to effectively connect with you through instant messaging apps.
