Chatbots for Small Businesses- A Must-Have for Customer Relationship Management

Technological advancements have disrupted customer service through digital channels. Nowadays, customers demand instantaneous interactions and there is no other option but Chatbots. According to Gartner, by 2020, customers will manage 85% of their relationships with a company without human interaction. This trend shows that customer service is transforming at a pace unimaginable and companies need to start leveraging Chatbots in businesses to deliver extraordinary customer experiences and meet consumer expectations.

But the problem is, most small businesses aren’t really aware of how a chatbot can help them grow their customer management. Let’s dive in to see what is a Chatbot and explore its applications in business. Later, we will determine how Chatbots for small businesses can revolutionize customer relationship management. So, let’s start!

What is a Chatbot?

A chatbot is an automated system of communication that can instantly communicate with clients or visitors on a website. Think of it as an AI-powered support employee. Chatbots are mainly used to respond to customer queries in real-time and address their concerns to nurture strong relationships with customers with none or minimal human interference.

Business Applications of Chatbots

Save Time of Customer Service Agents

Chatbots help in minimizing the cyclical tasks of customer service agents. With Chatbots, customers can get their simple queries answered instantly, giving time to the customer service staff to focus on the escalated issues.

Seamless Customer Interactions

Customers play a pivotal role in each industry and you should go the extra mile to ensure customer satisfaction. Responding to customer queries quickly is the number 1 rule to improved conversions but you can’t always be on standby to respond to customers whenever they get in touch. However, a chatbot can. Also, gathering feedback from customers can turn into a cumbersome task, and chatbots can help you there too.

Close More Sales

Gone are the days where customers would wait for you to respond. With so much competition, customers often get in touch with multiple businesses at the same time and you have to race against time to be the first to respond to win the customer. With chatbots, you can do this easily. The visitors on your website or other online platforms will automatically get answers to all their questions during the customer journey process. This will help the customers to make informed decisions resulting in better user experience and increased brand loyalty.

Less Investment on Human Capital

By implementing chatbots in small or medium-sized businesses, you can cut down the expenses of hiring multiple customer service representatives. Chatbots are available 24/7 and never get tired of responding to customer queries; hence you won’t have to worry about training the resources or hire more employees when your customer base grows. This makes chatbots a sustainable solution for small businesses.

Chatbot and CRM Integration

Now that you have a very good understanding of the applications of chatbots. Let’s take things a step further and see how you can manage your chatbots in an optimized manner. With chatbots doing so much in such a small amount of time. You now have tons of data that you need to make sense of. This is where a CRM comes in. Now, if you already use a CRM, you can revolutionize your customer service with chatbot and CRM integration. However, don’t worry if you don’t have a CRM platform for your business. Simply go for a SuiteCRM implementation. SuiteCRM is a free open-source CRM and can be customized to fit your business needs and can be integrated with chatbots to deliver meaningful experiences to your customers.

Moving on, let’s explore how conversational Chatbot integration with the CRM platform can boost your business growth.

How Chatbot Integration with CRM Can Revolutionize Your Business

Recordkeeping and Data Storage

There are a number of uses of chatbots in CRM. However, to leverage customer service chatbots fully, you should store all the data and derive actionable insights from it. Integrating chatbots with the CRM platform will allow you to simplify the complex task of storing all the data. This will make the workflows simple, so you can spend more time ascertaining how to add value to your customers and boost your business growth.

Sales Management Process

Chatbot helps in shaping great customer experiences. However, you can also accelerate revenues and streamline your sales management process through Chatbot and CRM Integration. But how does this work? It’s simple and fairly easy.

With chatbot and CRM integration, every time a visitor contacts your Chatbot, a lead is created in the CRM platform. Now, when the Chatbot collects enough information about the lead that qualifies it as a prospect, the CRM converts it into a contact. Hence, you will have all the information regarding a prospect in your CRM platform. So, just follow-up with the lead to push it through the sales funnel and increase the conversion rate.

Customer Intelligence with Interactive Reporting

Leverage the data from your customer service Chatbot and create interactive reports in the CRM platform to gain actionable insights, make informed decisions and strategize in a better way.

Run Smart Marketing Campaigns

Through Chatbot and CRM integration, you can run personalized marketing campaigns with the data from your chatbot. Moreover, for marketing automation to have a higher ROI, go for CRM and marketing platforms integrations to streamline your processes and see how your campaigns are performing- all through the CRM system.

Why SuiteCRM is the best CRM for Chatbot Integration?

Now there are a number of CRM platforms in the market and all have their own pros and cons based on different variables such as your business needs, business size, and business industry. But to make things easier for you, we suggest you go with SuiteCRM for Chatbot integration. Here’s why!

As mentioned above, SuiteCRM is a robust open-source CRM platform, It is intuitive and easy to use. Many companies with Chatbots are already leveraging the benefits of CRM and Chatbot integration to stay ahead of their competitors. You can also leverage SuiteCRM customizations so that your CRM mirrors your business processes with custom features i.e. reports, modules, dashboards etc.

Moreover, if you use multiple platforms to streamline your business processes, you can go for SuiteCRM integrations. As a result, you can integrate marketing automation platforms and also take advantage of payment gateways integration with SuiteCRM.

The Bottom Line!

Chatbots have transformed customer service to meet the rising expectations of customers. Now if you want to go to the next mile in providing value to your prospective customers, go for SuiteCRM and Chatbot integration to win your customers and skyrocket your business growth.

RT Dynamic is an Official SuiteCRM Partner firm and is proficient in the provision of services including SuiteCRM Migration, Integration, Customization and Support. Get in touch by filling out the Contact form. We will be glad to assist you!