Chatbot development

Chatbots for business: what are they and why are they needed?

Chatbots are programs for automating processes within a company. They help businesses effectively communicate with the audience: answer popular questions, close sales, conduct consultations, offer to take advantage of promotions, and solve many other problems. And most importantly, bots are always in touch and ready to help your clients at any time, without the physical participation of managers.

Bots are attractive not only for companies, but also for customers. Twilio analysts found that 85% of users prefer to contact support via messages rather than voice, and 51% of them expect instant response from business representatives at any time of the day or night.

All this suggests that the trend of demand for chatbots in the market will grow, and if you are thinking about implementing such a tool now, then this article is for you. We develop bots for most existing interfaces and offer to talk about how they can benefit a business. We will also touch on some technical issues so that you understand how the process of implementing such software is organized and form expectations about further steps.

Who needs chatbots

Bots can be successfully used in many areas of business - from online stores and service providers to manufacturers and food delivery services. And in order to list them, we decided to describe situations in which such a tool is almost irreplaceable:

• To attract customers, you actively use your website, social networks and instant messengers, but manual processing of requests takes up too much staff time and requires automation.
• Mass and trigger mailings to clients are too expensive and give poor results.
• You are in sales and want to close more deals through a well-built funnel based on effective reminders and customer incentives.
• You are selling a complex product or service, so customers need qualified and continuous technical support.
• You want to improve your audience's experience with your brand to become more competitive in the market and gain more loyal consumers.

If at least a few of these points are directly relevant to your company, using a chatbot could be a good solution.

What problems do bots solve?

Chatbots can solve various problems depending on the specifics of the business and customer needs. Here are some of the most common ones:

• Provision of information. Bots can automate answers to popular questions from your customers, such as about products or services, prices, promotions, delivery conditions, etc.
• Customer support. Chatbots help customers with solving problems, handling complaints, providing technical support and instructions for using products or services.
• Placement of orders and reservations. Bots can accept orders for goods or services without the participation of managers, help with product selection, calculate the cost of purchase, and also make reservations.
• Conducting surveys and collecting feedback. Using a chatbot, you can ask customers questions, collect feedback about products or services, and conduct surveys to study the opinions and preferences of your audience.
• Providing personalized recommendations. Based on the analysis of data about customers and their preferences, the bot is able to give consumers personalized recommendations for purchasing goods and services.
• Messages and mailings. A chatbot allows you to quickly and freely carry out mass mailings to your customer base, which can be used to popularize loyalty programs, maintain contact with the audience, and sell certain groups of products.
• Integration with external services. A bot is not an autonomous tool. To improve efficiency, you can integrate it with third-party software, such as payment gateways to accept payments, a CRM system, an accounting program, or an ERP. This way, every lead from the chat will be processed as efficiently as possible.

What is included in the chatbot development service?

The technical implementation of a chatbot is a complex process that includes several stages:

• Analysis of business needs and goals. This stage includes studying business processes, business goals and tasks that the chatbot should solve. Developers must fully understand what functions the product must perform to satisfy the needs of the company and its customers.
• Functional and interface design. Based on business analysis, the main functions of the bot are determined and its architecture is created. Developers also design the UX, the list of commands available to users, and integration with external services. Next, the finished layout is approved by the client and technical documentation for the project is drawn up.
• Creating triggers and sales funnels. At this step, specialists create templates and banners for automatic messages, triggers for sending messages based on events, and also develop, test and optimize sales scenarios. To achieve optimal results, the customer’s side is involved in these processes.
• Technical implementation and functionality integration. When all issues of the chatbot logic are resolved and agreed upon with the client, the developers begin writing code that implements the business logic of the project. They create a custom functional part, set up interaction with databases, create a bot menu and perform external API integrations.
• Testing and debugging. After development is completed, the product undergoes testing for detecting errors and shortcomings, which includes checking the operation of all functions of the chatbot, its feedback from different teams and use cases.
• Deployment and support. The bot is deployed on the target platform, for example, Telegram, Viber, Facebook or on the client’s website, and then configured to work effectively. Next comes post-release support, during which developers maintain the stability of the bot and develop it by introducing new functions.

How much does it cost to develop a chatbot?

The cost of developing a bot is always individual and depends on many variables. Functionality has a big influence on the final price - the more individual features developers need to implement, the more expensive the result will be. The number of integrations required, the level of personalization, and the technologies involved during implementation also play an important role.

The best way to find out the cost of implementing a bot for your company is to contact us. After carefully studying your request and requirements, we will be able to calculate the price of the work as accurately as possible.

Why you should order chatbot development from Avada Media

Our team develops chatbots for most existing interfaces: Telegram, Viber and Whatsapp messengers, social networks Facebook, Instagram, websites and mobile applications. We have also done a lot of work on implementing innovative solutions in many areas of business and have broad expertise that we can apply when creating a bot for your company. If you are ready to take action, fill out the feedback form and let’s start discussing the problem.