Delighting Clients: The Evolution of Chatbots in B2B Marketing
Let’s be clear: Chatbots are nothing new. In fact, we’ve been talking about chatbots in terms of AI and natural language processing/generation (NLP and NLG) since at least 2015. What’s relatively new is the volume of B2B service providers adopting chatbots to expand their market.
B2B buying journeys are lengthy, with decision-makers taking up to a year to make a final commitment. Handling every query, objection, or follow-up during that process is essential —but challenging when you’re doing it all manually. Chatbots are the B2B marketing equivalent of a helpful team working to your specifications — a team that’s available 24/7 and never needs to sleep.
Lead Conversion
Ever gone on a website and had that little window pop up asking if you need help? That’s a type of chatbot. While some of these messenger apps can connect to a human, the initial interaction is almost always AI-generated.
An AI-powered chatbot can ensure that only qualified leads get routed to a salesperson or company representative. They’ll ask a series of questions and compare answers against goals set by the marketing team.
A chatbot can guide leads further along their buying journey by answering questions about products, services, and even company values.
Chatbots also promote lead generation and conversion by working across multiple devices from desktop computers to smartphones. Catch your potential clients wherever you are by becoming the helpful voice in their pocket.
Improve Client Relationships
Clients want answers now and if they can’t get them, they’re likely to try and find them from one of your competitors. A chatbot that can answer more than just basic queries can make the difference between your brand’s obscurity or legend status.
Chatbots improve relationships with leads and clients by:
Answering most queries quickly
Freeing up marketing and sales employees for necessary follow-ups
Dealing with queries that come from multiple channels, simultaneously
Handling huge volumes of questions or comments
One thing that’s almost impossible for startup marketers to do is reply to every comment on social media. Yet it’s an instant win in terms of solidifying engagement. Chatbots take care of this, analyzing user language and previous interactions to produce the most appropriate, on-brand responses.
The Future of Chatbots
Currently, businesses utilize existing chatbot technology like ChatGPT (although many businesses have now upgraded to GPT-4), IBM’s watsonx, or CRM-integrated solutions like Salesforce Einstein. As startups grow, they may implement their own proprietary chatbot solutions or take advantage of the many low-code/no-code solutions available for digital asset creation.
Expect future chatbots to focus more intently on gathering first-party data and gaining consent to use it. Asking a few key questions on company size, budget, and the authority of the person in the conversation can help circumvent potential issues caused by the upcoming lack of third-party data.
This data can also help startups understand their audience better. If you expect small businesses to be most interested in your app or platform, but your chatbot tells you that medium-to-large enterprises are showing interest, you can tweak your marketing and pricing accordingly.
Final Word
At least 58% of B2B marketing teams have already implemented chatbots into their strategies. If you’re still on the fence, you could get left behind. Talk to Arch Collective about what other aspects of startup marketing you could enhance — book a free 15-minute discovery call with a member of our team to find out more.
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