Chatbots

Do you want to grow your audience reach and build an effective sales funnel at the lowest cost? If you haven’t worked with chatbots yet, then it’s time to do it. This tool will help you boost the number of leads by keeping in touch with existing and potential customers 24/7.

Chatbots respond instantly, provide hundreds of different communication scenarios, and give relevant responses. They allow you to reach a fundamentally new level of virtual communication with prospects.

What is a chatbot?

A chatbot is a program that simulates a human-like conversation with a user. It lets you communicate using text or audio messages on websites, messengers (Facebook, Slack, Telegram, etc.), mobile applications, or by phone.

Chatbots can be as simple as rudimentary programs that give a one-line response to a simple request. Or they can be as complex as digital assistants that learn and evolve as they collect and process information, thereby increasing their level of personalization.

You’ll definitely find something that suits your needs!

What are chatbots used for?

• Chatbots for customer service: Many companies use chatbots as the first point of contact when customers need help, e.g., to show how to navigate their websites easily, answer simple questions, and direct people to the right contacts.
• E-commerce chatbots: Retailers and telecom providers use chatbots as an additional channel to interact with their customers. A bot is needed to guide clients through a linear process flow to execute requests or transactions.
• Virtual chat assistants: Personal assistants such as Siri, Cortana, and Alice have become popular because their benefits are readily available for customers to use in their everyday lives. With their help, people can quickly get information, plan their schedule, and interact with smart home features.

Benefits of chatbots in sales

What is a business chatbot in simple terms? It’s a powerful CRO tool that will bring you new customers, help you retain old ones, and create a good sales environment.

High engagement takes place due to the fact that chatbots don’t spam. This is a confidential dialogue between the client and the company with the consent of the former. Moreover, many brands support an informal chatbot style, which makes it even more comfortable to use.

The main advantages of chatbots:

1. Quality interaction. The program allows you to personalize content for each user. They receive only the information they’ve requested.
2. Low budget. A chatbot is a one-time investment with no further staff costs.
3. Measurability of data. It’s easy to track content delivery and user involvement in the program. The bot also allows you to segment the audience and collect customer feedback to improve services.
4. Lead generation and warming up of leads. Chatbots can work with the audience at all stages of the sales funnel. Even at night when real managers are asleep. They also help cut ties with difficult, time-consuming clients.
5. Additional features. By gradually expanding the functionality, the company can attract a new audience. For example, an additional interface language provides access to international markets.

How to improve the efficiency of a chatbot?

• Come up with a name for the chatbot and put a logo to attract users to the program.
• Pause between messages. This simulates human typing.
• Suggest buttons with answer choices to make it easier for the user to conduct a dialogue.
• Use polite opt-out options.
• At the end of the conversation, use phrases that will encourage your clients to turn to chatbots in case they need help.

7 best chat widgets for website

Before proceeding to the list of the best chat widgets for a website or social networks, pay attention to these selection criteria:

• Free trial period (to choose the tool that will be the right fit for you),
• Connection to CRM to save and organize customer information,
• Functionality,
• Ability to set up a robot that will replace the consultant for some time,
• Smartphone version,
• Possibility to connect instant messengers and social networks,
• Price and variety of interface languages.

#1. 13chats

13chats is an all-in-one online service you can use to create your own chat widget on your website and Facebook page.

With its live chat, you will not only make sure you stay connected with your leads 24/7 but also receive precious information about the source where your visitors came from. You can then analyze the audience’s on-site behavior, integrate your live chat with Facebook Messenger, and take your communication there if needed.

Besides, when it comes to social networks, 13chats allows you to set up a Facebook chatbot that will reply to visitors’ FAQs and broadcast information about new products.

Pricing: Free basic plan. Paid plans start at $/13 per month.

#2. Appy Pie Chatbot

Appy Pie’s no-code chatbot builder empowers businesses of all sizes to design and deploy intuitive chatbots, on their websites, mobile apps, or social media channels. It is equipped with a plethora of pre-built templates, which can be easily customized and reworked to suit their needs. 

Being an AI-powered chatbot builder, it enables users to develop conversational bots for a global audience. Moreover, its in-built analytics dashboards lets users keep track of their bot’s performance, and monitor several other parameters essential to your business objectives.

It can be easily synced with third-party applications, which further expands its capabilities.

Pricing: 7-day free trial available. Paid plan starts at $8 per month.

#3. Chatfuel

Chatfuel is one of the top platforms for creating chatbots on Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger. 

The platform has a built-in speech recognition tool that can respond to queries in a situational way. The service also has pre-made templates for chatbots, for example, for FAQs, lead gen, Facebook ads, online stores, local businesses, etc.

Pricing: Forever free plan (up to a thousand users). Paid plans start at $15 per month.

#4. REVE Chat

REVE Chat is a free chat platform designed for online customer support. It offers efficient and customizable software for your website, allowing your customer service managers to manage complex chats while bots assist visitors with their common queries. 

REVE Chat chatbot requires no coding experience, boasts an intuitive visual flow builder, and provides analysis of all the chat conversations handled.

Pricing: 14-day free trial available. Paid plans start at $15 per month.

#5. Hubspot Free Live Chat

There are two online chat options in HubSpot: live chat, where you can connect visitors to the right people on your team, and chatbots that will help you qualify leads by sending out template responses.

Also, you can create a chat widget for your Facebook Messenger account and easily customize it to suit your brand image and vibe. Besides, with this tool, you can create targeted welcome messages for different web pages or audience segments. This way, you’ll be able to communicate with site visitors when they are most interested in your solution.

By the way, every conversation is automatically saved, so you will have complete information about every interaction.

Pricing: Free plan available. Paid plans start at $40 per month.

#6. Zendesk

Zendesk Chat is a simple chat widget that is not only suitable for websites but also optimized for mobile devices. In addition to the fact that you can communicate with each person on your own, the use of triggers is available to automatically reach each visitor.

Zendesk also boasts advanced analytics that tracks visitor flow, usage patterns and intervenes when a customer might need help.

Pricing: Free trial available, Paid plans start at $89 per month.

Other popular chatbot builders include Botsify, Dexter, Aimologyc, Meya, Morph.ai.

If you want to add chatbots not only to your website and Facebook Messenger but also to Slack, Telegram, and even SMS, then we recommend trying Flow XO.

#7. Landbot

Landbot is an intuitive no-code chatbot builder for the web (as chat widget, popup, website embed, or conversational landing page), WhatsApp, Messenger, and other channels. 

The platform allows you to build rule-based conversational flows, implement NLP functions via Dialogflow integration or offer live chat support. You can create bots from scratch or use one of the many chatbot templates ranging from lead gen to product recommendation and customer support.

Pricing: Free trial and Free Sandbox plan available. Paid plans start at $35 per month.

Wrapping up

Due to technological advances in communication, clients expect to find information or contact support quickly and easily.

A long response is usually frustrating to users, which can cost you some precious leads. Chatbots are the solution — they can provide real-time assistance exactly when customers need it.

Personally, we, Snov.io, understand the importance of having them for us and our clients, so we have a chat bot on our official website and on Facebook messenger. Come on in, evaluate as an example, and try to practice.