More and more online entrepreneurs and large business owners are integrating chatbots in their websites and messengers. All the more so because nowadays it does not require hiring programmers. There are plenty of SaaS platforms available that allow for chatbot creation without any programming skills.

Statistics show that users are more open to chatbot communication if they understand how it can help them from the get-go. To maximize the benefits of AI to your business, it’s essential to understand the spectrum of possible chatbot features and uses.

To make the choice easier, we have written a short review of the most common chatbot functions.

Retail Assistant Chatbot

Makes purchases faster, increases conversion rate

The less time a person needs to find the item they need, the more likely they are to order it from you. Bots streamline the user’s access to goods, services or assistance. Most of the time, a bot asks series of multiple-choice questions. After answering them, the customer is provided with a link to the desired item, category or a webpage. Some of the messengers even allow in-chat purchase, eliminating the need to open any web pages.

Possible features:

• Suggesting categories. The chatbot can offer the user to choose between several categories of products and then promote the respective items.
• Promotion of featured goods. Some users have a hard time making a choice. In this case, a chatbot can offer several most popular offers from the get-go. It can help choose a gift, view discounted goods or pick a tariff.
• Item selection by specifications. The bot asks several questions and then offers the best-matching item to the customer.

Marketing Chatbot

Promotes goods and services.

Even if you don’t want to entrust bots with sales, they can still be an efficient marketing tool. What’s the best way to inform an online customer about a one-day discount or a new arrival? Or to highlight special offers in the age when people don’t pay attention to banners and don’t read newsletters? How to build a promotional campaign to make sure users only see the most relevant promotions? A chatbot can do all of it.

Possible features:

• Involvement of idle website visitors
• Running flash-sales via messengers
• Conducting polls

Lead Generator Chatbot

Encourages the user to leave contact details.

Do you spend a considerable amount of money to increase traffic, but only 3% of your visitors become buyers? The rest of the leads are simply lost. Chatbot may get you the contacts of those who have not yet made up their mind about making a purchase. It can go to any lengths to get those contacts - charm, gifts, pleading - anything short of direct threats. And you will get those contacts you can use for email marketing or phone calls.

Possible features:

• Collecting emails to tell about discounts, promote special offers, send promocodes and other ‘perks’ to the users
• Collecting emails for further communication when the question cannot be resolved by the chatbot itself

Virtual Assistant

Decreases the workload on your contact center.

There is a FAQ on your website. All delivery, return and exchange policies are spelled out. Still, users keep bombarding the support service with calls and letters full of questions that can be answered by reading.

Modern chatbots handle these cases easily. The only thing required is analyzing user request statistics and determine which of them are the most frequent.

Bots understand natural language and are able to recognize a request, even if it is weirdly phrased. Moreover, you can set keywords to improve the bot's understanding.

Chatbots are still a far cry from humans and are not able to engage in an open-ended conversation. However, most of the business goals have no need for that. When creating a chatbot, it is crucial to clearly define its functions and structure its responses so that they would suffice most of the users’ needs. In addition, if your bot has its own communication style or is taught to tell funny stories, it will make people spend more time on your website, thus increasing customer loyalty.