How Chatbots Can Boost Customer Experience and SEO

Chatbots have the potential to become the ultimate secret weapon to help you improve your business in quite many ways.

They can boost ad performance, offer all-around-the-clock customer service with an efficient user experience, attract and retain customers, keep your customers interested on your website, and they can help grow your business by building a strong brand proud of delivering customer satisfaction. However, all this is only possible if your chatbot has been well-trained.

Chatbots: How did we get here?

While some believe chatbots are a recent invention, this technology — pretty much like many others that fall into the “emerging technologies’ category, was created by German-American Computer Scientist and Professor Joseph Weizenbaum at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Artificial Intelligence Laboratory from 1964 to 1966.

The first chatbot, called ELIZA, used pattern matching and substitution methodology to simulate conversation. In other words, the first chatbot was a program designed to mimic human conversation. The question is, what kind of human conversation?

Since the 1960s, chatbots have come a long way; and this is just the beginning. Market research and industry experts assure that chatbots will be everywhere.

Fast forward 57 years into the present; the estimated growth for the chatbot market is $4.2 billion by 2032, according to market research firm Future Market Insights, with North America remaining the leading region with an anticipated CARG of 26.8 percent during 2023.

Will all chatbots be well-trained in order to provide an excellent customer experience, leading to customer satisfaction and business growth? Not really. What can a well-trained chatbot bring to the business? Definitely a lot!

Enterprises that have adopted or are planning on adopting a well-trained chatbot can expect to enjoy a bright future. There are quite a few ways chatbots can boost your business — if and only if they have been well-trained, that is. User experience, customer service, and SEO are just a few of them.

User Experience

A chatbot can facilitate searches by providing users with relevant information quickly, helping them to find what they are looking for easily; think of a chatbot as a knowledgeable Website guide that will efficiently assist customers.

A chatbot can help navigate your Website making it easy for the customer to find the product, service, or information they are looking for. A customer who has a great user experience is more likely to stay on your Website for longer, complete a purchase, and become a recurrent customer.

Customer Service

A well-trained chatbot can be an excellent first point of contact. An AI-powered conversational chatbot that can provide information, answer common questions, and provide links and/or answers to further relevant information proves useful and valuable to both customers and the company.

Moreover, a chatbot can be the best help for human agents who can use their time to help other customers who require more specific help.

What a Well-Trained Chatbot Looks Like

One example of a well-trained multilingual chatbot for customer service is called Sisu, Finnair’s chatbot. Sisu is a Finnish word that is equivalent to the strength of will, determination, and perseverance, although it does not have a specific translation into English.

Sisu is an important word in Finland that notoriously was used during the Winter War to describe the character of the Finnish soldiers. Today, it is used to describe someone with courage. And back to Finnair’s chatbot …

Sisu the chatbot is able to answer anything about the Finnish national airline’s service from reservations to luggage restrictions and even traveling with small pets. The chatbot provides an excellent, smooth user experience.

Sisu also knows about security and makes a point of alerting customers to stay safe online. At the beginning of the conversation, the chatbot starts by telling the customer to not share any sensitive information and details like credit card information in the chat.

Sisu explains that in case of the customer is transferred to one of its human colleagues they will get a transcript of the chat so the customer does not have to repeat everything all over again which can be tedious and a waste of time. Sisu provides the customer with different relevant options as the conversation progresses.

In just three exchanges, the customer walks satisfied with the accurate and relevant information received. According to research, if a customer cannot get what they need in the conversation, they will abandon the chatbot; this accounts for 81 percent of customers.

Here is an example of a conversation exchange with Sisu: “Can I take my pet rabbit in the cabin with me?”

Sisu is a responsive, well-articulated chatbot that is actually helpful. No need to call human colleagues. Sisu is a good asset for the Finnish national airline.

After choosing one of the options the chatbot suggested, it provides a complete and clear answer. The chatbot adds an additional question which is, indeed, useful and relevant, something the user had not initially considered mentioning or including in the original question: “Do you have a flight within Europe or intercontinental?”

Benefits of a Chatbot for SEO Success

A well-trained chatbot can help inform, shape, and amplify a company’s SEO and social media marketing building brand awareness and improving sales. A chatbot can increase session length for SEO. A longer Website session shows the algorithm that the customer found relevant information to their search.

The more time a visitor spends on your Website before returning to the search engine results page (SERP) the better. 39 percent of B2B marketers say that conversational marketing tools such as chatbots will increase the time visitors spend on their Website.

A chatbot can provide personalized responses guiding the user to the correct information. If the information required is not too specific, the chatbot can help increase the visitor’s session length by asking a few related questions and recommending other relevant content all while maintaining the main golden goal: To provide excellent customer service and superb customer experience. And this is what the ultimate chatbot goal must be all about.