So, the chatbot or live chat debate still rages on, and you still don’t know what’s best for your business.
You’ve probably read tonnes of articles, all of them agonising over the most specific (and boring) details. I know because I’ve been there too. I’m sure you’ve looked at cost effectiveness, ease-of-use, accuracy, response time, that human touch and feel etc. etc.
But wait, I hear you. All of those articles are so general and wishy-washy that none of them have actually helped your decision at all.
So, Chatbot or live chat, which is best for the cosmetic industry and why?
It’s really very simple when you get down to it.
Both Live Chat and Chatbot have their positives and their negatives too. The key is figuring out how those positive and negative attributes line up with how you do business.
Live Chat is really great and it definitely wins out over chatbots in one key area.
Live Chat, that is, a human being sitting somewhere responding to queries in real time, is way better than chatbots when it comes to answering complex questions. Humans are just better than machines at the moment when it comes to elaborate, and niche conversations, for example, live support.
Live support, Business to Business, is really where live chat excels. This is when there’s a person being paid to answer customer queries or support questions in real time. Most of the time, Live Chat only functions during normal working hours which suits a Business to Business model
But what does that all mean for you in the Cosmetic Industry?
Firstly, you should keep in mind though, that 55% of sales (or booked appointments!) occur outside of office hours!
Now, you have to think about your customer and your website and what sort of questions and queries you’re going to need to answer—with the cosmetic industry the majority of queries that you’re going to get through your website are simply to book or enquire about treatments.
You’re not doing consultations over a chat feature on your website, so why do you need a live person
And also, you don’t want to be missing out on those 55% percent of potential bookings that happen outside of normal working hours, do you?
So, what does that mean? Well, Live Chat isn’t really for you.
Chatbots win out when it comes to response time (they respond immediately!)
Ditto when it comes to cost effectiveness (You don’t have to pay anyone to respond to messages!)
Oh and chatbots also never take any time off so your customers’ queries don’t go unanswered no matter what time of the day or night it is!
Ok, I can hear you say it. “But our clinic prides itself on being welcoming and caring.” “We want to foster a really positive relationship with our customers from the very start.” “Don’t you miss out on that human touch, that feeling of human contact when you go with a chatbot over live chat?”
And that’s where I remind you… think about your customers and what they want from your website! Quick responses. Easy scheduling. That’s it.
Don’t overburden your team and waste loads of money trying to nurture those new relationships through live chat. Simply convert your website visitors using a chatbot and then start building those relationships in more realistic and feasible ways, through the service you provide with your highly professional clinicians and team members.
That being said, there are chatbot services out there that pride themselves on offering personalised and professional experiences with automated chat. Companies like us have teams of dedicated programmers working around the clock to refine their chatbots and then individualise them for each of their clients, so that their client’s customers get all the benefits of a chatbot (Immediate response, always available etc.) while also feeling like they’re chatting with a real person.
That’s why we developed BlowBot – a dedicated chatbot for clinics – take a look, click here
The best of both worlds.
