Agencies pitching chatbots without AI are leaving 5X revenue on the table
So you’ve pitched the benefits of a chatbot to a prospective client and they invite you in for a meeting. Your prospect is excited about putting their lead generation and customer service on auto-pilot, but they are skeptical about chatbots because they checked out a few bots and want to understand why this happens. A lot.
You could tell them “We can add keywords!”, but that would give them false hope that their chatbot will be responsive to messages. Let’s look at a basic example.
One message is an intent to make a reservation, while the other is a question waiting to be answered. Rule-based bots (i.e. Keyword rules) are based on conditions and people don’t like communicating within rules. You know when you call a business on the phone and a voice bot tells you to press 1 for this, and press 2 for that, and you keep pressing zero to bi-pass the prompts until you speak to a human? Interactive voice response (IVR) is the most hated technology. ever.
Pitch the future
Conversational AI enables chatbots to extract keywords from inside of messages and understand the intent of a user. If your bot can understand messages, not just keywords, and buttons, then you’re going to make a good impression on a client, because you’ll demonstrate an understanding of how people actually communicate with a business through chat. Businesses will also appreciate that by using modern technology, you’re positioning their business for the future, today.
Pitch validation
Both Chatfuel and Manychat are great companies with great products because they make it easy for you, the bot maker. Any prospective client you’re targeting though most definitely has never heard of either of those companies. Everyone knows who Google is though, and these are just some of the companies that are powered by Dialogflow, Google’s conversational AI product.
Your own pitch becomes especially compelling when you can tell a small, family-owned pizza shop that their customer experiences will be powered by the same AI as Dominos Pizza!
Dialogflow already integrates with agency-friendly platforms like Chatfuel and Manychat but you can leverage the Google brand and its client portfolio to pitch a client of your own. You’ll instill confidence in your target customer when you can name massive brands, whether it’s Dominos, Ticketmaster, The Wallstreet Journal, and Google itself.
Pitch with a template
You can easily create a Dialogflow template, or use one of our templates, so you have a demo that can instantly respond to small-talk (common things users say to bots), emoji (common user input), and customer service FAQ (common use-case for AI chatbots) and you can delight prospects, regardless of their niche.
Your prospect already knows the types of messages their customers send their business, so in advance of a meeting with your prospect, you could ask them if they have a shortlist of 5 frequently asked questions they could share with you.
Duplicate your template for different niches you’re targeting and plug-in 5 FAQ (or update existing FAQ) in your template.
Bring along the list of FAQ they provided to you to your meeting so you can show them how the bot can respond based on what they provided you with.
Worst Case Scenario: Your client doesn’t move forward, but at least they provided you with real-world data you can use to enhance your template for the next meeting.
Best Case Scenario: Your client will be delighted that you understood their needs, provided value by training a bot to respond to just a few FAQ and you’ll get them hooked on what’s possible, begging for more.
Keep clients out of the kitchen
If Facebook were a restaurant, tools like Manychat, Chatfuel, and Dialogflow are like the kitchen. You don’t want to let your customers into the kitchen.
Manychat and Chatfuel keep making it easier for anyone to use and benefit from their tools, which makes your role as an agency fragile. If you let your customers into the dashboard of these applications, then they can start to question what they are paying you for because they can see how easy it is to build and maintain a bot. Small businesses, in particular, don’t have the budgets large companies do, so they will always be looking to save money, adopting a DIY attitude where possible. On the other hand, if you let your customers login to Dialogflow, they will see how complicated it is, and you don’t want to overwhelm your customer and scare them away.
With Janis.ai, a bot building agency can use Slack to collaborate with their clients. Slack serves as a middle ground. An agency, you can monitor all of their client bot projects and fix problems fast, while their clients can monitor their bot and take over live to retain customers when their bot struggles to communicate.
When you use tools like Slack for managing AI, your clients are never “in the kitchen”, yet they can be active participants in their own conversational experience. If your target customer would never use a tool like Slack, that’s OK too, they can pause AI working directly from the Facebook Inbox, and Janis will automatically resume AI after 10 minutes of messaging inactivity. If you want to invite your client into your own Slack workspace and collaborate with them on training, watch this video. The point is that there are different ways you can collaborate with your clients on AI-enhanced customer experiences.
Let’s do the math
Now that you can see how an AI-enhanced bot and tools like Slack can enhance help your pitch, let’s look at the numbers.
Setup
You would probably charge your clients a bot building/setup fee. You might charge $5,000 for a basic bot and the cost would increase depending on the scope of the project and what the bot is capable of doing. With an AI-enhanced bot, you can charge significantly more because you’re going to deliver significantly more value:
✅ If the non-AI bot will cost them $5,000 then the AI-enhanced bot should cost at least $4,000 more and the value will “speak for itself” when the bot is more responsive to user input in your demonstration.
✅ You can leverage the Google brand which adds credibility to your pitch. Some clients may be willing to pay more just because the bot you build will leverage technology used by the biggest brands in the world, so there is perceived value in what you’re selling.
✅ You can empower your clients to be active participants in training AI, being able to pause AI, get alerts to take over live and retain users when the bot can’t, even if the business has team members that are not Facebook page admins. You can easily charge your client for setting them up on Slack and train them on how to use Slack. Add $1,000 to your pitch and you’ll keep your clients “out of the kitchen” too.
I’ve now shown you how you can double your revenue potential to $10,000 pitching a basic, AI-enhanced chatbot.
Retainer Fees
Without AI, what is your retainer fee for? To make copy adjustments? Manage some Facebook ads? Add some promotions to keep users engaged? You can probably get away with charging $500 / month for general maintenance and you would charge additional development fees if the scope of what your client needs is beyond what you define as general maintenance.
You need to train AI to learn how to respond and that takes time.
A template can help you jumpstart the AI training process, so your client can benefit immediately while providing you with a framework you can build on. AI needs to learn on a use-case basis and you need to train it to learn. If you start from scratch and don’t work with a template, you’ll be more hands-on at first, but over time, the money your client invests will pay off. Your client’s bot will be more responsive and delightful, while your template will only become more valuable for future clients.
You’ll want to charge a retainer fee to monitor conversations and train AI to learn from conversations. It’s an ongoing process, so you can justify a retainer fee, and you can quantify and demonstrate results over time.
Pricing AI Training
I’d recommend charging your clients in buckets of AI training time. If you set an hourly rate for your time, for example, $50 USD per hour, then you can sell your time in buckets like this:
10 hours = $500
25 hours = $1,250
You may even want to give your clients a discount if they opt into bigger AI training packages from you.
50 hours = $2,250 (10% discount)
100 hours = $4,000 (20% discount)
You can incentivize your client to opt-in to larger packages but that will only accelerate their path to delightful automation. This is all in addition to standard “maintenance” fees that you would normally charge for a non-AI enhanced bot.
Let’s break it down
Total customer price over 6 months without AI = $8,000
Total customer price over 6 months with AI = $26,500
While the initial price is only 2X, if you can get your client to commit to 6 months of AI training at 50 hours per month, you’ll generate 5X the monthly revenue and deliver significantly more value in the process.
At the end of the 6 months if you’re able to quantify the impact of their investment, then you can get your client to commit to another 6 months.
Your Pitch Strategy
I’d present a prospective client with just two options. If you use a tool like Manychat or Chatfuel, present them one demo without AI, and the exact same demo enhanced with AI. Present a cost scenario for building a bot without the AI and present the scenario with AI and let the client choose. Your client may not have the budget initially for the higher-priced option, but by giving them the option at least you’re setting client expectations upfront and that’s a good strategy or building trust and a long term relationship. I personally think if your client opts into your lower-priced package initially, they will quickly understand the value of the higher-priced package. Not to worry though, you can always add AI later, and make sure to tell that to your client too!
Before you go…
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- Join the Janis.ai Facebook group and meet other agencies building AI-enhanced bots.
- If you’re new to conversational AI try Janis free at www.Janis.ai and start integrating leading AI from companies like Google in a few simple steps.
