Your Ultimate Guide to AI Chat for Your Home Services Business

A well-designed website is the face of your business and one of the best ways to attract customers. Your website is the first thing that potential customers usually come across when they look up your business on search engines — That's why it should provide your visitors with the right information at the right time to convert them to customers.

Implementing AI Chat on your website can be one of the best ways to get those website visitors to convert. Smart chat ensures that you attend to your web visitors immediately by answering their questions and guiding them through relevant website resources for them to make a purchase decision. A well-implemented AI chat system can also help you grow your business by generating the right leads.

Chatbots: An Overview

Chatbots or chatterbots are indispensable tools for online business administration and marketing success. A chatbot is an Artificial Intelligence (AI) feature that simulates text or voice chats or both, between people. This software program is handy when you cannot afford to hire employees to attend to your customers 24/7 because a chatbot costs almost nothing to operate. Talkbots attend to customers 24/7 and have no location limits. You can also have a bot on your applications and social media messaging channels including WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, or Twitter.

Most of your customers will first interact with your company via a chatbot. Your bot's personality will determine how potential clients will perceive your brand in terms of user experience and brand identity. The choice of your chatbot's profile picture, language, and spellings brings out your personality and level of creativity, which can influence a potential client's decision to choose your brand.

5 Characteristics to Distinguish Between a Good and Bad Chatbot

Not every chatbot will serve your needs. The best AI Chat should:

1. Serve a clear purpose and be easy to use

A good chatbot should fulfill your specific goals. The more specific a bot's purpose is to your business purpose, the more likely it will benefit your business. Very close to chatbot functionality is the ease of use. The easier an AI Chat solution is easy to use, the more likely that your web visitors will want to use it — Be on the lookout for aspects such as simple design and interface.

2. Be human-like

Your chatbot needs to carry out an intelligent exchange to increase customer satisfaction and, at the same time, deliver relevant information to increase your bottom line. It should also motivate the user to continue to talk by, for instance, maintaining short and easy-to-understand messages, having short answering periods, and maintaining an authentic conversation flow. The best AI Chat solution should understand user intent no matter how complex. A good bot should also have memory to reuse key pieces of information that your lead has already provided throughout your conversation.

3. Be personalized and customizable

A good AI chat solution should personalize your interactions, for example, by using past information that the client had provided and also be able to source user data from other sources such as purchase history, time, and geo-location for further personalization. Modern AI chats should also be customizable in terms of allowing you to include information about multiple providers, locations, and the services you offer.

4. Have cross-platform functionality

A good chatbot should be usable across the different platforms where your leads can be found including social media channels. Investigating how much an AI Chat solution can be reused on different devices will save you lots of resources in the long run. Check whether a bot can support your audience as they move between devices.

5. Be networked within your business

A helpful chatbot should be implemented within your business structure and connected to the Customer Relationship Management system. Such a company-wide implementation enables the bot to filter all relevant customer information from the records and give the user a customized answer.

9 Ways That AI Chat Can Help Your Business

AI Chat may just be the power tool you need to grow your business. Here's how an AI Chat can scale your business:

1. Creates a holistic user experience

The chatbot may be the first touchpoint that a client has with your business. This initial interaction, when it's more personal than what they would get via mail or phone, creates a good customer experience. AI Chats can also allow users to get all the information they need from one place without having to vigorously search through your site. Users can use the various AI functionalities to ask questions, schedule appointments, and also browse desired services from your website which minimizes their browsing frustrations.

2. Immediate availability

Making your customers wait an eternity for replies to their emails will drive prospective customers away. AI Chat ensures that your clients do not have to endure unnecessary waiting by receiving immediate feedback to their questions which leads to higher customer satisfaction. Technical questions can be directed to a human to be answered as soon as possible.

3. 24/7 lead generation

With an AI Chat, you can capture leads 24/7. Missed Call AI captures user information when they call outside of office hours and sends a text message directing them to the AI Chat. The chat answers their questions and collects their contact info and then updates your dashboard with the new lead's contact information for follow-up.

4. Sales increase

Getting the right info to the right customer at the right time will help you close a sale. A bot can provide timely answers and take the user through your website and help in selecting suitable products. An Intercom survey revealed that companies that used bots had a 67% sales increase as these companies reacted an average of 3x faster to customer inquiries and increased customer service satisfaction by 24%. By answering their questions through an AI Chat and allowing them to request an appointment, you can get over 25 new leads every month.

5. Gain customer behavior insights

AI Chat helps you derive customer behavior insights which can inform your business strategy. You can use customer questions, problems, and product mentions from the chats to understand what moves your customers and the problems they face, which will guide your decisions to improve or add to your products or services.

6. Integrating AI chat with relevant sites helps you get ahead of your competition

Patients are going digital, which means your digital presence should be felt. Integrating AI chat into sites such as WebMD and Vitals that get millions of visitors can help you get the leads you need. You can convert patients on these sites using your AI Chat by answering questions on these and allowing patients to request appointments.

Integrating Google Listing with AI Chat also ensures that you have a chat option on your Google My Business listing where you can answer questions from potential clients and let them request an appointment at any time of day. Google gets the highest traffic online, so it can pay off when you take advantage of that to capture leads. AI chat integration on Google Listing differentiates your practice from your competitors. Even when potential clients do not see you directly, the AI Chat will appear on your Google listing and get you some leads there as well.

7. Save support staff time and operational costs

AI Chat lifts some of the burden off of your staff so they can be more efficient, only attending to technical client needs instead of spending hours answering repetitive phone calls. You may also be able to do fewer hires which saves your business operational costs while increasing the number of your clients.

8. Convert more leads with AI Auto Dialer

According to a Harvard Business Review research leads have a short life, and a 1-minute response time can lead to a conversion speed of 391%. When you use an AI autodialer together with your AI Chat, you can call your leads within 1 minute of receiving their AI Chats which increases your chances of landing more business.

9. A review-generator helps you get free and easy reviews from your traffic

Since an AI chatbot will help generate leads for your business, you should take advantage of those leads by fetching from them the all-important reviews for your website. A Local Customer Review Survey by BrightLocal revealed that 88% of people trust reviews as much as they do personal recommendations to make their decisions about a product or service. A review generator is an easy way to get reviews from your traffic. The tool sends text messages and emails asking for reviews which also integrates with Google reviews and gives your practice more visibility.

Gain the Full Benefits of an AI Chat on Your Website

Constantly generating leads is important for your business to thrive. Placing an AI Chat on your website helps you to engage with potential customers by answering their questions while collecting important data such as their names, email addresses, and phone numbers that will aid your marketing efforts. Artificial intelligence also modernizes user experiences with more people going digital. Your business can be available to new and return users 24/7, which helps create a good user experience. With our AI Chat solution, you can drive traffic to your site to capture leads and convert sales. Get a demo of the DearPro AI Smartchat solution today.