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How chatbots can optimize customer experience (CX)
Imagine a customer service experience where the business representative is always available, friendly and equipped to handle any inquiry you send their way. While this might seem too good to be true, today it’s a reality for many businesses.

Chatbots are an artificial intelligence-powered technology designed to engage in conversation with human users over the internet. They have quickly taken over customer service functions for a growing number of businesses. In fact, analysts from Gartner predict that by 2020, 85 percent of all customer interactions will be handled without a human. Chatbots are used for a number of different functions in today’s consumer experiences– they can act as your personal shopper, update your bank account, serve as your hotel concierge, and can even send notifications about your pizza delivery.

Whether your business is B2B or B2C, there are many ways in which chatbots can improve your total customer experience. From answering customer questions, to recommending products, to improving efficiencies in the sales funnel, chatbots are a growing tech trend that will soon become a staple in business operations.

The B2C Experience

Thanks to the proliferation of smartphones and mobile search features, today’s consumers are accustomed to immediate answers and instantaneous access to the web. That means your sales and service processes should interact with customers in the same way. However, while consumer research reports estimate that your customers are willing to wait up to 4 hours for a response to their online inquiry, almost 90 percent of these inquiries go unanswered by brands. Lack of response can inevitably become detrimental to sales conversions, revenue, and brand sustainability.

This is where chatbots can have a proactive impact on the B2C experience. They can step in as a virtual assistant, guiding customers through your sales process. When you’re unable to answer customer questions on behalf of your site, during nighttime hours for example, chatbots can provide an instantaneous response that is often more timely, efficient, and accurate than the response of a human customer service representative.

One of the most recent brands to adapt the technology into their customer experience is TD Bank, who announced their chatbot, TD Clari, in January. The bank’s chief digital and payments officer stated that, “Customer expectations are constantly evolving, and we believe AI is key to creating exceptional, personalized experiences and adding real value to our customers across our digital properties.” Integrated with TD Bank’s mobile app, Clari offers deeper insights into a customer’s financial decisions, using AI to provide spending insights, information on TD credit cards, help with everyday transactions and also answers commonly asked customer service questions.

Source: The Message

The B2B Experience

For B2B organizations, the benefit of chatbots lies in their ability to improve sales efficiency. In B2B operations, it can be difficult to envision a sales process where chatbots are the sole point of contact when engaging in sales discussions. A skilled sales professional is able to garner trust, be persuasive, and ultimately, utilize their communication skills to lead prospects through the sales funnel. However, a chatbot can act as a supplementary tool that actually allows your sales team to become more efficient. As Rob Tarkoff, executive vice president representing Oracle applications in a recent news article attests, “We’ve invested a lot in chatbot technology… and a lot of things that help optimize the automation in a rep’s experience working with sales planning tools.”

In a B2B sales scenario, chatbots can automate parts of the sales process to improve productivity levels by enabling sales teams to grow leads, reduce administrative tasks, and shorten sales cycles. In fact, research from the McKinsey Global Instituteindicated that up to 40 percent of time spent on sales work activities can now be automated, thanks to AI-powered technologies like chatbots. As a result, sales professionals can spend more time engaging directly with leads instead of dealing with the behind-the-scenes work of acquiring, organizing and analyzing data.

According to a 2016 study from AYTM Market Research,89 percent of users prefer information discovery through bots to information discovery via websites. By equipping landing pages with chatbots, companies can instantly capture leads from potential customers. This is what Automabots is hoping to achieve in the real estate sector. Their tool guides buyers through the home search process with conversational language, while allowing real estate agents to convert more customer inquiries to appointments, reduce their daily workload, and spend more time focusing on customer service.

Source: Brivity Help

If your business has yet to invest in chatbots, now is the time. More and more companies are beginning to use chatbots to assist their customers in user-friendly ways, promising a great impact on the customer experience. However, there is also plenty for decision makers to look forward to. They offer great potential to benefit your business not only now but will become essential in the future.

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How chatbots can optimize customer experience (CX) Imagine a customer service experience where the business representative is always available, friendly and equipped to handle any inquiry you send their way. While this might seem too good to be true, today it’s a reality for many businesses. Chatbots...

4 ways to create influencer marketing that really works
Gone are the days when marketing campaigns depend solely on traditional advertising and celebrity endorsements—welcome to 2019, the era of influencer marketing. To give you an idea, influencer marketing campaigns involve individuals who work with brands to promote their products among their followers.

In today’s world, people are smart enough to not fall for larger-than-life promotions made by celebrities. They understand the intention and idea behind such advertising. These days, people would rely more on the words of a peer. Clearly, influencers are winning at marketing since their audience connects with them on a whole other level—they’re more inclined to be loyal towards a person who’s influencing them on a daily basis, rather than a celebrity with whom they have no interaction. It is the need of today’s business to create influencer marketing campaignsfor progressive growth and brand promotions.

What is influencer marketing?

Influencer marketing is basically, a meld of traditional and modern marketing techniques. You can’t boost sales and engagement without putting a good amount of energy into creating social media marketing strategies. This is when influencer marketing comes into play.

Did you know? Big brands such as Coca Cola and H&M are using influencer marketing to boost their sales, engagement and overall brand promotions through influencers?

One of Coca Cola’s most significant campaigns about the 2016 Olympic Games. This campaign was designed to attract teens with the help of content produced by athletes, musicians, and influencers. It was one of the highest number of viewsthe brand had with the Facebook Live feature.

Source: Portada

Similarly, fashion giant H&M collaborated with prominent celebrity influencers to produce four video ads which revealed their latest holiday outfits. This strategy helped them reach 12 million consumers.

YouTube stars such as Lilly Singh, Lele Pons, and Rudy Mancuso are clear examples of influencers promoting big brands. By 2020, influencer marketing business is expected to reach $5-10 billion on a global level.

There are two positive sides to promoting your brand or product through influencer marketing. Firstly, influencer marketing costs significantly less than traditional marketing and secondly, you don’t have to rope in a megastar, like Steph Curry to promote your new line of sneakers. You can get an Instagram influencer with a good and loyal following to promote the same.

Here are the most popular influencer marketing ideas:

1. Giveaways

Source: Pinerest

Who doesn’t love free things? This is typically what a giveaway is. You can promote your products by organizing a giveaway on an influencer’s social media handle. An attractive package, free of cost is a good way to give your brand the exposure it deserves. A happy audience is the best way to get your sales going!

A simple yet engaging enough example is Dunkin Donuts. For Halloween, they asked their followers on all social media platforms to decorate their cups and send them a photo of the cup to stand to win a gift card of $100. 4 of the 5 winners were from Instagram. This helps with creating hype and also increasing curiosity amongst other viewers.

2. Influencer Takeovers

An active social media channel with a good following can do wonders for your brand promotion and engagement. The idea is basically to allow an influencer to promote your brand on your handle or your page. The influencer applies their social media knowledge and skills to boost engagement of your page. Content is the king on social media, and you know it.

Model and actress Jaime Kingtook over the Instagram account of Harper’s Bazaarand shared her day and her ‘get ready with me’ routine for the Dior Cruise show.

Source: Peg Fitzpatrick

3. Host an Event

Hosting an event is a great way to grow your relationship with the audience. In today’s world, promoting a brand through an influencer on social media isn’t enough. You have to take it offline too, at times. Make sure you invite influencers who connect well with your target audience. It’s important to focus on every little detail, including the decor and presentation of the entire event.

Source: Brandettes

Tarte Cosmetics’ marketing team is aware of the far-reaching and powerful voice of influencers, so they create influencer events which are designed to maximize exposure. Their mammoth budget allows them to regularly fly Instagram and YouTube vloggers and beauty gurus to exotic destinations like Turks and Caicos, Bora Bora, etc. These campaigns are unified under . The enviable activities along with the beautiful location ensure influencers constantly create content and followers are engaged instantly. Hand-picked influencers and carefully curated content allowed Tarte to reach millions of users with this campaign.

4. Cause Marketing

This is a relatively new yet exceptional norm in the field of social media marketing. This marketing is based on a motive; to support a cause and influence or sensitize the audience about the same. You can collaborate with influencers who support similar causes, which would help you grow your engagement.

After Puerto Rico was struck by Hurricane Irma, Tesla provided relief by working with Ricardo Rossello, the island’s governor, to produce batteries for relief. On October 24th, an enormous solar array was revealed which was said to provide power to hospitals.

Source: Inverse

Based on market research, influencer marketing campaigns aren’t going away anytime soon. Any and every brand is taking that extra step to reach out to and collaborate with influencers. By taking the age-old concept of “word of mouth marketing” and adding in a modern spin, influencer marketing has the potential to reach millions of people effectively.

The post 4 ways to create influencer marketing that really works appeared first on Get Elastic Ecommerce Blog.

4 ways to create influencer marketing that really works Gone are the days when marketing campaigns depend solely on traditional advertising and celebrity endorsements—welcome to 2019, the era of influencer marketing. To give you an idea, influencer marketing campaigns involve individuals who work with brands to promote their products among...