Category: Most Popular

Chatbots deliver results across a variety of industries. From retail to travel, chatbots are there to help improve the customer experience, acting as the always-on, always-ready assistants your customers want.

Consumers are interacting with chatbots more often, even if they don’t know they are engaging with a chatbot. Read our infographic below to discover why 80% of businesses will utilize some form of chatbot automation by 2020.

What Are AI-Powered Chatbots?

AI chatbots are automated systems designed to hold simple conversations with consumers and leads. They’re often used for live chat on websites, ready to help answer questions for shoppers who are browsing.

Chatbots are programmable, meaning that online retailers can rely on them to address questions on specific topics when no representatives are available. They can respond directly to certain keywords and questions, and their speed is ideal for consumers who may be in a hurry to receive an answer before they decide to buy a product. While bots are often less useful for complex or customer-specific queries, they can generate valuable resources and responses to more basic questions within seconds.

Today, chatbots are commonly used to help retailers save time and provide immediate answers to consumers. They can appear as pop-ups on websites, in SMS messages, and more. Thanks to their speed and convenience, they play a major part in enhancing the overall customer experience.

Who Uses AI Chatbots?

Artificial intelligence chat options can benefit a wide range of industries, from retailers to banks to dating websites. Retailers and financial institutions use chatbots as a way to communicate with leads and existing customers without requiring a live representative for every interaction.

One minute can make the difference between a successful transaction and a lost lead. Chatbots are useful for product and service providers who want to increase the likelihood that shoppers will buy. A bot can simulate human conversation, increasing trust between the consumer and retailer in a cost-effective way. This solution can integrate smoothly with any website management strategy, convincing customers to stay on the website longer.

Chatbots have become more mainstream in customer service as retailers start to rely more on mobile solutions and personalized messages. Phone calls and emails can be a hassle, and the wait times can drive away leads. Chatbots eliminate these wait times while making life easier for both agents and consumers.

Why Use Chatbots to Deliver Results?

Chatbots offer an easy, personal way to interact with shoppers. They’re less tedious than using real-life agents for basic questions, and they reduce the time it takes to handle customer demands. Quiq chatbots deliver a variety of results at once and provide many other benefits for retail and financial websites.

1. Chatbots Help Engage Customers

• From the moment someone visits your site, logs onto your app, or connects with your social media page, a chatbot can be there to start the conversation.
• 57% of consumers are interested in getting real-time answers from bots on a company website¹.
• Chatbots can guide customers where they need to go, based on feedback, browsing history, and other personalized variables. Bots continually learn from interactions and use the information to get better at helping agents and consumers.
• Available 24/7 and across a variety of platforms, consumers can connect with your brand whenever they want, using the messaging channels they already know and use.

2. Chatbots Improve Customer Service

• 95% of consumers believe customer service is going to be the major beneficiary of chatbots².
• Chatbots can open support tickets, answer questions, collect feedback, and point customers toward helpful resources quickly and efficiently.
• Bots are only as good as their programming but good bot interactions escalate to human agents if they get stuck in conversations.
• Chatbots can route customers to the right customer service agent, while providing the agent with useful customer information.
• Chatbots are predicted to handle 85% of customer service interactions by 2020³.
• Setting up a chatbot platform is a cost-effective way to relieve human agents of simple, repetitive tasks, and increase efficiency.
• Chatbot automation could save businesses an estimated $8 billion a year⁵.

3. Chatbots Increase Conversions

• Chatbots can monitor conversations in real-time and analyze the available data to suggest products to human agents. 47% of customers would buy items suggested from a chatbot⁴.
• Set rules for your chatbot to recognize keywords such as “buy” or “purchaase” to prioritize customers who may need help with a transaction.
• Chatbots can present dates and times for customers to schedule appointments and reservations that customers can book with a tap of a button.

How Chatbots Can Be Used in Your Business

If an industry leader is looking to reduce agent workload or find ways to increase sales, customer experience chatbots could make a massive difference. AI-powered bots help retailers in all sectors stay competitive by saving time and providing valuable information that consumers can count on.

Automated systems generate responses faster than a human behind a computer or phone screen, and they can serve multiple customers at a time. It’s easy to program chatbots to answer certain types of questions and provide answers on a variety of topics. You can also use them to prioritize shoppers in need and reserve more complex issues for real-life experts. Quiq platforms allow businesses to integrate both chatbots and personalized messaging for the optimal customer experience.

Quiq: Your Messaging and Bot Solution

Customers are knocking. Are you going to answer? Quiq has the leading asynchronous platform to enable customers to connect with companies across today’s most popular business messaging channels. You know them. SMS/Text Messaging, Web Chat, Apple Business Chat, Google Rich Business Messaging, Facebook Messenger, and Twitter Direct Message, to name a few.

Let Quiq help you incorporate native and third-party bots into any part of the customer conversation to streamline your workflow and deliver results. Contact Quiq for a demo today by visiting www.quiq.com.

Why Use Quiq?

Create a personalized experience for your customers across all of the digital channels they already use. Channels like SMS /Text messaging, Live Chat, Facebook, Twitter, and your own app are the places your customers already spend their time. With all of these combined into a single business messaging platform, you can make it easy to engage with your company.

View the short video above to see how Quiq is transforming customer conversations. Then let’s talk so we can show you what this would look like for your business!

Business messaging is the way top brands and today’s customers engage with each other. Quiq’s Conversational Engagement Platform ensures companies provide consistently jaw-dropping customer experiences across SMS/text messaging, rich messaging, web chat, and social channels. With Quiq, brands can easily orchestrate commerce and service conversations involving both bots and humans.

Check out this very short video to see why Quiq is the leading platform powering conversations between companies and customers. See a demo and get started today!

It’s no secret that texting is the preferred channel of communication for most consumers. The ease and convenience of text messaging aren’t lost on any generation. While volume and velocity may differ from the Millennials and Gen Z populations versus Baby Boomers, most would agree that text is best.

Popularity and ubiquitousness aside, there are other reasons that a business should use business text messaging to engage with their customers. In this post, we’ll take a look at 6 of the best reasons companies benefit from a business text messaging service.

Business Text Messaging Benefits

1.Customers expect it

In our post “7 Reasons Why Customers Want to Text You,” we dove into the reasons why customers want to text you, and many of these reasons boil down to one thing: customers want to communicate however they want, whenever they want. More than ever, consumers feel empowered by all of the services at their fingertips, and their patience is dwindling for hold music and restrictive hours of operation.

In other words, customers want to be the ones who call the shots. No one wants to jump through hoops to connect with customer service. Though it may lack the presence of a human voice, text messaging is the perfect channel for users who want instant gratification.

The new world language is instantaneous and emoji-rich, so your business better speak it.

2. It’s easy

Yes, texting is easy for your customers. Most consumers usually have a mobile device within arm’s reach 24/7, and sending and receiving texts doesn’t disrupt their day. “But, what about me? How does it make it easier for me?” a lot of business owners and managers ask. Well, grab a seat and get comfy—this could take awhile.

2. 2. • Easy to engage

Since messaging is so popular, engaging with your customers happens with less friction.   Whether you’re receiving inbound texts from customers who want to buy something or to book an appointment, or sending outbound messages to customers to inform them of their order status or to remind them of a promotion, information exchanged to and from your customers happens on their preferred channel, which means you can build stronger relationships to fuel brand loyalty and higher revenue.

2. 2. • Easy to implement

Quiq’s implementations typically take days, not weeks. Quiq, for example, can be used as a standalone product, but even integrations into CRM platforms like Salesforce.com, Zendesk, and Oracle Service Cloud, can take place with our pre-built integrations, giving employees the ability to send and receive text messages within a company’s existing CRM system.

2. 2. • Easy to train

As easy as it is to implement, it’s just as easy, if not more so, to train employees. Since most employees use messaging on a daily basis, the learning curve looks more like a Nebraska plain versus a Denver mountain. Employees, like the customers they engage with, share texts, emojis, and links on a daily basis, so there’s little disruption to day-to-day operations as they’re learning a system.

2. 2. • Easy to manage

Many companies worry about staffing the messaging channel and fret about managing another point of contact with their customers. A business text messaging platform, like Quiq, alleviates these concerns. Quiq brings all of the SMS/text messages, as well as messages received on web chat and social media platforms, into one intuitive screen. Employees don’t have to hop from system to system rather, employees handle multiple simultaneous messaging conversations all within the Quiq desktop.

3. It will actually save you time

Business text messaging can make your operations more efficient. Features like pre-built responses and chatbots make collecting data and sharing information easier. Chatbots, for example, can guide every step of the customer journey, from initial contact to final feedback. They can also route users to the appropriate agent.

Pre-built responses, also known as snippets, help employees quickly send canned messages like greetings or answers to frequently asked questions. Snippets are also a great way to share information that may be lengthy and cumbersome to type, like a return policy or details about a promotion.

4. You can do more with what you have

One of the primary uses of business text messaging is the instant access customers can have to customer service resources. Whether they text you off-hours or during holidays, chatbots can point them toward articles that might help to answer their questions. If the problem is beyond the scope of what can be solved through a chatbot suggestion, a support ticket can be opened up using the details from the message or chat.

With customer satisfaction being the aim of any good business, providing a channel for consumers to get in touch with you whenever they like goes a long way in keeping them satisfied. This also means being available on all of their preferred channels, whether it be through Facebook Messenger, a chat button on your website, or through a simple SMS text. Let your customers know that you’ll be there when they need you.

5.Get your messages read

While sending out marketing emails can be like walking the razor’s edge between the spam and promotions folders, text messages are almost always read. In fact, some estimates put SMS read rate at 98%. Email, on the other hand, might get you a measly 10%.

This is not to suggest you start spamming every number in your database Instead, when a customer buys something or subscribes to your service, ask them if they would like to receive updates via text. You can communicate order updates and other notifications via text and they can easily reply back with any questions or feedback.

6. Get feedback, fast

At the conclusion of a sale or after a customer has been trying out your product for a while, a business text message is a great way to get feedback from them. It’s fast, convenient, and less of a hassle than filling out a survey. Simply asking a customer to rate a recent purchase via text is more likely to get a response than an email would since the read rate is so much higher (as noted above).

Business text messaging at its best

Not all text messaging platforms are created equal. Quiq has built the leading asynchronous messaging software, allowing customers to connect with companies across today’s most popular business text messaging channels such as SMS, live chat, Facebook and within their own app. When customers can connect with your business how they want and when they want, they will be more satisfied.

To unlock the potential of text messaging for your business, request a demo today.

Customer expectations have grown surrounding the three most important aspects of customer experience: convenience, ease, and speed. Incorporating simple automation into customer conversations that exceed these expectations has proven to be the solution for Quiq’s clients. Quiq is focused on helping brands engage in conversations with their customers over messaging, the preferred channel by, well, everyone. Quiq’s messaging clients have taken advantage of features like “bots” and “snippets” to streamline customer conversations that are repetitive in nature to help save valuable employee time, making them more efficient.

The key to success for the companies deploying automation for employee-to-customer conversations is the calculated use of Quiq’s automation features that not only optimize productivity but subsequently improve the customer’s experience. Now, before you start thinking that automating customer conversations leads to soulless interactions and customer frustration (yes, we’ve sat in one too many phone queues), let’s focus on just one automation feature that is making the customer’s experience better – snippets.

What are “snippets” and how do I use them?

Snippets are pre-built responses to common questions that can be accessed by employees with a few keystrokes. Snippets eliminate the need to retype the same answer to the same questions. and can be fully customized for your unique workflow.

At Quiq, we developed our product with the experience in mind, not just that of your customers, but for agents and employees too. We developed snippets to make it easier for employees to share greetings, ask follow up questions, and address common questions like “What’s your return policy?”. With snippets, employees can create custom responses tied to common questions using shortcut keys, thus reducing the time it takes to look up information and share it with customers.

Snippets can be created at a company level as well, not just by agent. Company-level snippets ensure that information shared across the organization is consistent and accurate. If, for example, you have a promotion running Monday through Friday that you’d like reps to share, a snippet containing details or a link to the promotion will guarantee the same message is shared. Now, let’s say the promotion date is extended to Sunday, the snippet can be quickly updated and then everyone immediately has the same up-to-date information.

Another feature that allows employees to increase efficiency while improving customer service across all channels are Quiq Replies. Quiq Replies are the suggested responses that allow customers to answer common questions with a tap of a button. Quiq Replies are visual presentation of what the customer will see and are created as snippets to keep the conversation moving on both ends.

Share pre-built “rich messages” within snippets

Employees and customer service reps used to save answers to frequently asked questions on a digital notepad that they would pull up and then just copy and paste answers. Quiq has taken these plain text, flat responses and gives you the ability to easily create rich messages.

Rich messages take plain text and add captivating visual elements like images, buttons, and suggested replies to bring context and interaction to every conversation. Quiq allows you to build your own rich messages and to even share those as snippets.

Want to see for yourself? See Snippets in action.

Snippets have been very thoughtfully designed to be easy to use and manage:

• Employees can access snippets with keyboard shortcuts that are easy to customize and search for.
• Snippets can be created as plain text or as rich messages.
• Snippets can be shared across any messaging channel, defaulting to the most visually appealing format supported by the respective channel..
• Managers can easily see what snippets have been created and exactly how they will appear to customers.
• Snippets can be used at any point in the conversation to help the conversation progress more efficiently – beginning, middle, or end.

Ways to use snippets or automated responses to streamline customer conversations

Once implemented, automation features such as snippets can improve agent effectiveness, improve customer satisfaction, and differentiate your company. We’ve found this to be true across all industries and company sizes.

Greeting a customer at the start of a conversation and closing a conversation with a standard sign off are pretty obvious uses for snippets, but here are a few other ways snippets can be used by industry. Skim over these examples and you’ll probably find that many of these use cases are applicable to your company as well:

Retail

• Where is my order (WISMO):Customers checking on order status is a common occurrence that can comprise 70-80% of calls during peak times, like the winter holidays. These types of inquiries may have tighter service level agreements, so the ability to quickly respond quickly is critical. Create a snippet with an embedded link to share and allow customers to track their order.
• Return policy:Even if you have your return policy stated on your website, you may still get questions from customers who need clarification. Common questions include: “Do I need an RMA number?” or “What address should I ship my return to?.” Snippets ensure that answers to these standard questions have consistent answers. What’s more, employees can use snippets to build out questions to dig a little deeper into the customer’s issue such as “What’s the reason for the return?” or “Was there anything wrong with your shipment?”

Service & Subscription Companies

• Password reset:Customers who have to log in to an account will appreciate easy access to help if they ever need to reset their password. Create a snippet with a link to your process or to a page that customers can use to reset their password.
• Save/Cancel:If a customer is inquiring about canceling, you may want to create a snippet that helps the agent gather additional information from the customer to better understand the reasons they would like to cancel and to provide an offer to persuade the customer to stay. For example, if the employee determines price is the main reason for the cancellation, there may be another snippet with a special promotion for the agent to present.

Financial Services

• Payment guidance:Again, snippets can be used at any point in a conversation. Customers engaged in a conversation about say, a late payment, may want to know where they can pay online. Send a link to quickly guide the customer to the right place.
• Routing to the right department:Create rich snippets, such as the example shown below, to determine the nature of the customer inquiry. Quiq’s intelligent snippets aren’t just simple canned responses. Snippets with Quiq Replies can leverage the customer’s response and route the customer conversation to the appropriate agent or department.

Higher Education

• Segmentation:In the same vein as the example above, higher education can use snippets to segment inquiries based off of student status. For example, A Quiq Reply can be used to determine if the person is a parent, prospective student, current student, or alumni. It could also be used to understand the topic of their inquiry in order to route the conversation to the right department.
• Easy resource reference:Contact information and program details can be stored as a snippet and recalled with keyboard shortcuts. Faculty within Student Affairs, for example, can use snippets to keep a handy reference of the diverse range of programs and resources available to students. Whether students need help with tutoring or finding a support network, the information can be available with just a few keystrokes.

Travel and Hospitality

• Customer orientation:If you have obtained permission to message a customer, you can use Quiq’s outbound messaging to point out available amenities at your resort after they have booked their stay. Instead of a resort having to list out popular add-ons, like a trip to their spa, available guided tours, or restaurants on site for each guest, a rich snippet can be used to help the customer find and book services that add value to their experience.
• Follow-up survey:Employees can send follow up surveys to guests after their experience. Quiq allows agents to gather this information and take action immediately. If the guest in the above example had some issues during their dinner and gave their stay a 2-star rating, the conversation could be routed to the appropriate person to address the issue.

Conduct engaging and streamlined conversations with your customers

The simple automation examples presented above are a few easy ways to reduce friction for your customer. Quiq features like snippets and Quiq Replies help streamline the customer experience without losing the human connection that customers want.

Implementing automation doesn’t have to become an overwhelming task but it can have substantial results for your bottom line and customer satisfaction rates.  If you’re ready to improve productivity within your organization with a few simple automation within your customer experience, request a demo.

You’ve been chartered to deploy messaging and web chat in your contact center. You already have a CRM vendor and are hesitant to add any more complexity. You wonder if it is just easier to turn on the messaging and capabilities that your CRM provider offers.

Here are the  3 considerations to help you decide which path to take.

Treat Customers Like People, Not Cases or Incidents

1. Messaging is the new, always-on channel, so think about it differently. The reason you are considering messaging is because it is convenient for customers and offers them a better experience. So don’t just turn the messaging tool on within your existing CRM suite until you understand what you may be giving up when you just flip the switch

CRM systems, like Salesforce.com and Zendesk, were built on “cases” and “tickets.” Since when do customers want to be treated like a case or a ticket?

The only way to deliver a customer-driven messaging experience is to choose a vendor that built it that way, from the ground up. Selecting an incumbent CRM vendor that has either purchased another company to get messaging functionality or tried to build messaging on top of a case/ticket-based system will only lead to frustration and failure.

Start the Transition from Contact Center to Digital Engagement Center

2. Do you remember when all the talk was about moving from a Call Center to a Contact Center? That simply meant that it wasn’t just about letting customers contact you via the phone. It meant adding and supporting other channels like email and chat to become a “contact center” in order to help customers reach a company on their terms. We are facing the same type of shift again.

Everyone knows we all have our mobile device practically sewn to our hands. Texting and messaging happens all day, every day, by each and every one of us. Ensuring your organization is prepared to handle all the digital engagement channels is critical. Today, the Contact Center manages phone calls, emails, and web chats in a synchronous fashion.

A Digital Engagement Center takes the latest channels and manages them asynchronously. Customers never have to re-start and re-explain when they use messaging. The conversation becomes an ongoing dialog that never has to end.

How CRM & Messaging Fit Together

3. The decision to turn messaging and chat on within an existing CRM solution or to select a purpose-built solution is not easy, but it doesn’t have to be an either/or decision. A Digital Engagement Platform can be the connective tissue between the phone channel and your CRM application.

Your organization already has the tools in place to manage phone calls and you already have a repository for customer interaction history. Now you need one place to turn for all your digital interactions that can span texting, web chats, and social.

Quiq offers the Digital Engagement Platform purpose-built for asynchronous, always-on communications. It is the single application that manages SMS/text messaging, web chats, and social conversations. It is incredibly straightforward to integrate Quiq with your existing CRM system. You can also add the option to your phone channel (IVR) for customers to “press 3” if they prefer to text. See how the Digital Engagement Platform really is the connective tissue between your existing contact center systems.

Quiq makes it easy for customers to contact a business via Messaging, the preferred channel already in use with friends and family.  With Quiq, customers can engage with companies via SMS/text messaging, Facebook Messenger, Web Chat, In-App, and Kik for help with their pre-sales and post-sales questions. In return, companies get a digital engagement platform to communicate with customers. Learn more about Quiq today at quiq.com.