Successful Blog

Here is a good place for a call to action.

Search Results for: questions

5 Benefits of Using Chatbots for Business

by

By Kayla Matthews

If you want to stay ahead in today’s business world, you need to leverage technology. AI is one of the most promising aspects of technology today, and chatbots are an excellent way to use it. Chatbots for business is a growing field and one you should consider looking into.

The word “chatbot” may make you think of the robotic, monotone voices you’ve heard on calls in the past. Today’s bots are far superior, though, and are a handy resource for any company. Here are just five of the ways you can benefit from a chatbot for your business.

1. Increased Profits

Traditionally, you’d answer customer questions with an employee, either a dedicated customer relations agent or whoever’s free. This model can end up being costly, though. You may not be able to afford a dedicated service agent, and answering questions can distract employees from their regular work.

If you automate the relations process with a chatbot, you avoid these expenses. Chatbots don’t need a salary, and you allow your employees to focus on their other tasks, accomplishing more at once. Some researchers even suggest that chatbots will save businesses $8 billion a year by 2022.

2. Unlimited Availability

Chatbots are also available at any time on any day. You can only work for so long, but you never know when your customers may have questions. With a chatbot, you can help them get the answers they need whenever they need them.

Even during regular business hours, traditional customer service systems can have trouble keeping up. If you have more callers than you have service reps, you may have to put people on hold. Chatbots, on the other hand, can talk to multiple people at once, so everyone gets immediate service.

3. Versatile Customer Service

When you use a chatbot for your business, you also create a more versatile customer service platform. For example, 64% of consumers prefer texting over calling, so you want to provide the same experience across both. Since the same chatbot system can handle both calls and texts, it can deliver consistent service for all customers.

Chatbots also allow for multilingual support. Finding an employee who’s fluent in many languages is challenging, but finding a robot that is isn’t. That way, you can help your customers no matter what their needs are.

4. Fast Responses

Your consumer base may be just as busy as you are. They want information as fast as they can get it, but traditional customer service systems can be slow. Since AI works so much faster than people, chatbots can offer almost instant responses.

There are many reasons why a human employee may be slow to answer a customer. They could have to think about the answer, think about how they’d phrase something or they could be distracted. Chatbots don’t experience any of those pauses, so they can work faster.

5. Fewer Errors

Another benefit of chatbots for businesses is that they reduce the risk of human error. If your employees are tired, distracted or have a momentary lapse of judgment, they could accidentally tell a customer incorrect information. Chatbots don’t have this problem.

Chatbots don’t forget anything, and they don’t get distracted. They will almost always give the right answers. That kind of reliability is hard to ignore as a business.

AI Will Drive Tomorrow’s Business World

The potential of chatbots for business is substantial, and it’s growing as the technology gets better. If you want to improve your customer service, you should consider investing in chatbots. Not only will it help your customer more, but it’ll save you time and money.

AI applications are driving industry, and will likely shape the business of tomorrow. Resources like chatbots will become standard practice before long, and you can see that trend is already starting to take place. If you want to move your business into the future, consider chatbots.

 

About the Author: Kayla Matthews writes about communication and workplace productivity on her blog, Productivity Theory. Her work has also appeared on Talent Culture, MakeUseOf, The Muse and Fast Company.

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

How to Use AI for Your Business

by

By Kayla Matthews

One of the most significant breakthroughs of the past few decades has been artificial intelligence. However, AI has mostly reserved for big tech companies that could afford to research how it worked and develop custom AI-powered tools — until recently.

There is now a variety of tools, platforms and solutions directed at end-users who don’t necessarily have deep AI or technical knowledge — meaning that almost every business can take advantage of the tech. Here are a few different applications of AI for your business, regardless of size.

Customer Service Chatbots With AI

One of the biggest benefits of AI is that it can overcome some of limits of conventional automation. Customer support chatbots, for example, have proven tough to automate well. Most of the time, the hard-coded, pre-written responses that make these bots work make them inflexible — and, as a result, not great at helping customers. Usually, if a customer needed a question answered and they turned to a chatbot, they’d end up speaking to a customer support rep, anyway — or click away when they couldn’t get an answer.

While these conventional chatbots are clunky, however, most customers still want support right away. They’re also willing to talk to a chatbot if it means getting support sooner. For many businesses, especially smaller businesses, service reps can’t be available 24/7. Some kind of automated solution will probably be necessary — but conventional chatbots can’t always provide quality customer service.

AI chatbots take a more intelligent approach. These bots use tech like natural language processing to more intuitively read and respond to customer questions. They’ve proven  much better at handling basic customer requests than conventional bots. According to data from Salesforce, 64 percent of service agents with AI chatbots are able to spend their time handling complex customer issues, compared to 50 percent of agents with non-AI chatbots.

These AI chatbots also collect a lot of information — like what a customer needs or even how they’re feeling — that they can pass on to a customer support rep, if the bot can’t handle the customer’s request. Reps who pick up requests from a chatbot will have a much better idea of how to help the customer as a result.

AI-Powered Workforce Management

Another strength of AI is its ability to find patterns in vast amounts of information. This means that AI tools are great at using large data sets — like historical sales data — to make predictions.

Most businesses with employees generate serious amounts of staff and customer data, but don’t take full advantage of this information.  AI-powered workforce management tools can apply AI algorithms to your business’s data to optimize employee scheduling and forecast workforce needs. The insights these platforms generate can help you avoid over- or under-staffing. By offering an estimate of how many customers will be in your store, hour-by-hour, you can more accurately schedule employees.

Business Intelligence With AI

Business intelligence (or BI) tools with AI also allow businesses to more effectively use the data they create. These tools help companies collect, organize and analyze business data — information on sales, marketing, payroll and anything else — so they can make better decisions about their business direction.

Most modern BI platforms from major companies — like Microsoft’s Power BI or IBM’s Cognos Analytics — come with AI tools active by default. If you learn the platform, you won’t need any advanced training to take advantage of these features. Often, the AI features actually make the platforms more valuable and easier to use. For example, Power BI includes natural language processing. With this feature, it’s possible to type in a plain-language request — like “what were our highest-selling products last quarter” — and you’ll receive a visualization of that data, no menu-navigation or coding necessary.

Applications of AI for Any Business

Artificial intelligence has changed how the biggest businesses analyze data and solve problems. New AI-powered tools and platforms allow businesses of any size to do the same thing. Chatbots with AI can intelligently respond to and answer customer questions. Analytics platforms can take the data that businesses already generate and analyze it.

As AI tech becomes more advanced, it’s likely that new AI tools will be developed, and that existing platforms will continue to add AI-powered features.

 

About the Author: Kayla Matthews writes about communication and workplace productivity on her blog, Productivity Theory. Her work has also appeared on Talent Culture, MakeUseOf, The Muse and Fast Company.

 

Photo by Michael Dziedzic on Unsplash

How Businesses Use Social Media Marketing

by

Many businesses hear about the advantages of social media in terms of marketing their products or services, but some forget to look at other major benefits of social media beyond finding leads or making a sale.

Here are eight ways that businesses can use social media to learn more about themselves and their industry as well as get more involved with their clients and communities interested in what they have to offer.

1. Monitor Conversation About Themselves

There are many free ways to monitor what people are saying about your company through social media, including the following:

Google Alerts

Google Alerts will send you a daily digest email anytime your search terms come up in blogs, news, or other websites.

Social Mention

Social Mention monitors 100+ social media properties directly including: Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, YouTube, Digg, Google etc. You can have your mentions emailed to you daily.

Twitter Search

If you want to know real time what people are saying, you can setup a Twitter search in HootSuite, Tweetdeck, or just keep a RSS feed in your feed reader using Twitter search results. Include searches for your company, business owner, or unique product name.

Further reading: Set Up an Online Reputation Management Strategy That Wins You More Sales

A solid social media service could help you get the most of reputation management efforts.

2. Keep Up to Date on Their Industry

Along with keeping up with what is being said about your brand, as anyone with a business administration degree would tell you, you should also keep up to date on current events and news that affects your industry as a whole.

While there have been good company reactions to industry issues, such as pet food brands that assured their customers that their food was tested and 100% safe during the recalls and Toyota continuing to address their recalls assuring customers they are working to resolve the problems, I have seen some other fails where there was obviously no attention by the companies given to current events such as:

  • Auto warranty companies continuing their usual advertising while stories of auto warranty scams were on the rise.
  • A hotel chain in Hawaii sending out “last minute deals” about an hour before the tsunami was supposed to hit the islands.

If you’re keeping up with how the public feels about your industry, you can reformulate your next announcements and advertising to boost the confidence in your company even in the midst of a negative wave. Facebook advertising is particularly effective for that.

In the above examples:

  • The auto warranty companies could add facts to their advertisements which would prove their authenticity above the scammers so people could trust them.
  • The hotel chain could have simply sent out updates on the conditions and reassure the public once the threat was over that it was safe enough to take advantage of their special rates.

3. Give Great Customer Service

One great way to use social media is for customer service. For example, if you have a Facebook Page setup, your customers might ask specific product questions.

Answering them right on the page not only gives them the info they want right away, but shows other fans / potential clients that you are a readily available to help, as well as provide an answer to a question that other clients might want to ask.

You can also encourage phone calls from your social media channels and set up your small business phone service to turn all those calls into the leads!

4. Provide Emergency Updates

Lately, the way to find out if something is not working is to make a quick search on Twitter. The last time I couldn’t get into my Gmail, I went straight over to Twitter to see if others were having the same problem or if it was just me – it was the former, so I knew there wasn’t an account issue.

Customer service is never more important than during times of crisis.

Since many people now turn to Twitter to voice their complaints and concerns, those that respond through the same media show both their followers and others who are watching the events unfold that they are interested in helping their followers quickly. It helps add a positive light to a bad situation.

5. Gain Customer Feedback and Opinion

Social media can be a great research tool. If your company has unveiled a new product or service, maybe your customers will be talking about what they think about it in real time.

I’m sure that Coca-Cola monitors any comments on their latest drinks to see if people are enjoying it or hating it, which affects whether they will continue to produce a specific flavor or try out a new one. You can also query your followers to ask them their opinion on a future product to get their insight before it even goes into development so you can create something that you know others will be interested in.

It is also a good idea to create polls on Facebook regularly to gain insight into your audience.

6. Move Positive Information to the Top

Reputation management via social media can be a great way to boost positive information about your business to the top of search results in an attempt to get negative results off of the list.

So if your company had a negative review placed on sites such as Rip Off Report or individual blogs, the best way to counter it is to have your company website, blog, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social profiles ranking higher than that bad entry. It only takes ten strong, positive items to bump that bad one off of the first page.

7. Drive Traffic to Their Website

Social media can certainly help boost the traffic going to your website in a variety of ways. If you have a regularly updated corporate blog, you can post your blog articles on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and social bookmarking sites, which should help drive visitors to your post and then onward to your main site for products and services.

Also, you can monitor people talking about the products and services you offer and respond to them with your link if it helps answer their questions. Just recently, I mentioned migraines, and someone sent me an @mention with a link to learn more about natural homeopathic migraine remedies.

Social media is perfect for launching a new site as well as promoting an established one.

You just have to make sure that what you are sending will be absolutely helpful to the person you are replying to, and not look too much like a blatant advertisement (ie. maybe send a blog post link instead of a link to a product page unless some specifically says “I want to buy ___, where can I find it.”)

8. Create a Reference Library

Social bookmarking makes it easy to create a reference library of any news / press releases / mentions of your company.

Simply use your hashtag alerts to find the places online that talk about you, and use sites like Flipboard to bookmark them. This helps you keep track of all the talk about your company, as well as boost the article by giving it the bookmark.

More Tips on Social Media for Business

Looking for more ideas on how to use social networking for business? Check out this post on business social networking by a blogger whose focus is on helping small businesses use online marketing more efficiently and effectively.

Do you have a business that you use social media as an avenue to connect with clients? Or do you know of a business that does a great job using social media? Let us know in the comments!

7 Mistakes to Avoid in Digital Marketing

by

By Michael Deane

Digital marketing can be tough and not getting the desired results can happen even to the most experienced marketers. The digital landscape is constantly changing and evolving, and you need to keep up to date with the best digital marketing practices at all times.

Digital marketing blunders can have a detrimental effect on your business and your finances. Lack of results in driving traffic, lead conversions, and sales happen when your digital marketing strategy is inadequate.

Let’s review the seven most common and biggest digital marketing mistakes you need to avoid if you want to promote your business and help it thrive.

1. Failing to Set Realistic Goals

Setting unrealistic goals is one of the common mistakes when it comes to this strategy. It is not rare for digital marketers to overestimate the potential of their digital efforts and to expect all their prospects to convert into sales, which is highly unrealistic.

Another downside of this way of thinking is having doubts about the benefits of digital marketing.

It is best to set clear goals you can achieve in the short, medium, and long-run with this strategy. To do so, it’s a good idea to observe past trends and the experiences of similar businesses operating in your industry.

Also, it is crucial to set specific and measurable goals since that will allow you to better track your digital marketing efforts.

2. Not Knowing Your Target Audience

The first step when developing a digital marketing strategy is taking the time to get to know and understand your target audience.

Without this information, you risk losing money since you can only make assumptions about who you’re promoting your company to. When you know who your ideal customer is as well as who your buyer personas are, you can create content that will resonate with their problems and interests.

Learn as much as possible about your target market and establish a connection with those who are most likely to be interested in your offer, instead of trying to sell your products or services to random individuals.

To research your target audience, start with identifying who your current customers are. Social media analytics can provide in-depth information about this.

Creating buyer personas is one of the best ways to better understand your audience. When you know their needs, preferences, and pain points, you can generate amazing content that will attract them to your brand.

3. Failing to Respond Promptly to Your Customers’ Inquiries

When you manage multiple channels and have to manually respond to customer interactions, it can become overwhelming or even impossible. On the other hand, failing to respond to your audience’s inquiries promptly can have dire consequences for your business.

Responsiveness and excellent customer service are critical in today’s market, regardless of the industry.

The solution to this is chatbot technology. It can help you engage with your customers in real-time and lead to better business results.

When you choose the right chatbots for your business, you can enhance customers’ experience, satisfy their needs, and answer their questions 24/7 without having to put them on hold. This will reflect in your profit since more leads will turn into sales with access to the right information at hand.

Conversational chatbots can save your business money since you won’t have to hire additional customer reps, while the conversations can be designed to use your brand’s particular tone. A call deflection bot is another example of how this technology can keep you from wasting precious resources, leaving your human agents free to engage with more complicated scenarios.

4. Engaging in Black Hat Methods

Those eager to get a quick increase in traffic or to rank higher on Google may resort to unsafe marketing practices. If you make that mistake and engage in any type of cheating techniques, it may cost you a lot.

Avoid using any type of black hat methods, that is, dishonest and cheating practices, since they will most probably lead to penalties by Google. Instead of boosting the performance of your website by trying to trick search engines, opt for ethical methods.

Safe marketing strategies will require more work and patience. Still, they will also build your brand a good reputation and deliver better results in the long run, without any unpleasant consequences.

5. Settling for Paid Advertising Only

Pay-per-click marketing can indeed earn quick traffic and sales, but it is not the only digital marketing tactic that can generate revenue.

Also, it can get expensive, since it can take some time to see the long-term results.

If you use only paid advertisements, you may miss other more effective digital marketing strategies. Spending on paid advertising is recommended if your goal is to generate more visibility for your brand.

If the organic visits to your website are increasing with time, then it is best if you invest in other aspects like generating outstanding content and improving the design of the landing pages.

6. Not Promoting Your Website Efficiently

With more than 1.5 billion websites online, your target audience is not likely to stumble upon your site unless you do your best to promote it well. Without people coming to your website, no sales will be made.

Promoting your website will increase its visibility and result in reaching new customers.

To get more traffic, invest in SEO, SEM, and creating engaging and informative content. Another significant ranking factor besides exceptional content is backlinking. This tactic relies on earning links on reputable and trustworthy websites, as they practically vouch for relevance and credibility.

Implementing effective link building strategies can help rank your pages higher and ultimately bring you more traffic and conversions.

Turning to paid ads on search engines and social media is also a great way to promote your business.

7. Not Using Social Media Properly

Posting content on social media channels isn’t sufficient in helping your business convert more leads and gain profit. Again, it’s the engagement with the right people that makes all the difference.

Your social media marketing efforts need to be focused on your target audience. Otherwise, you will be wasting your time and money.

This means you need to communicate with your customers via platforms they use the most and develop high-quality content that will appeal to them.

Facebook recently stated that it would encourage meaningful interaction between people. In other words, there will be less “salesy” content and advertising on their users’ news feed. This means that your safest bet is to create valuable content that engages your audience and connects your brand with your followers.

Posts that educate, inspire, or entertain are more likely to get your customers to take a specific action. Responding to comments encourages engagement too.

Social media, content marketing, and SEO are great digital marketing strategies that can be as effective as paid advertisements if done properly. The mistakes that we discussed can hinder your growth significantly, so be careful.

 

Author Bio:

Michael Deane has been working in marketing for almost a decade and has worked with a huge range of clients, which has made him knowledgeable on many different subjects. He has recently rediscovered a passion for writing and hopes to make it a daily habit. You can read more of Michael’s work at Qeedle.

Photo by Diego PH on Unsplash

3 Keys to Running a Sounder Business

by

How good of a job would you say you are doing when it comes to running your business?

No matter the length of time you have been a business owner, it is important to be doing all you can for your business. If you are not, you could be on the outside looking in before you know it.

So, what steps do you need to take to run a sounder business?

Protect Yourself So You Can Remain in Business

In looking at the keys to keeping your business plugging along, remember these things:

  1. Protect yourself – You will not be much good to consumers if you are not taking care of you. This means not only physically but also financially. That said make sure you have protection in place should something happen to you. As an example, if you run a medical practice, keep in mind all the people depending on you for medical needs. As such, you can’t afford to miss a large amount of work. If you were to suffer a serious medical issue or injury, how would you support yourself and your practice? By having the best disability insurance for physicians, you are in a better position. That coverage allows you to protect all you have invested in. This becomes especially important when a notable illness or injury impacts your world. The last thing you want is to watch all you have worked for go by the wayside. Shop around for the right protection and get it today.
  2. Take care of customers – It goes without saying that taking care of customers goes a long way. That is in determining how long you will remain in business. With that in mind, are you doing enough to show customers you care? No matter the type of business you have, it is important for customers to know they can count on you. Not only is service key, but also rewarding those loyal customers who have been by your side for a while now. Do all you can to show them that you are there for them. From discounts to answering questions they have, taking care of them is a priority.
  3. Stay up on technology – Last, how good of a job are you doing when it comes to staying on top of technology? As technology grows and improves, it is important for you to grow along with it. Some businesses are more focused on the tech world than others are. If technology plays a big role in your business world, be sure you are staying on top of it. If you are not technologically sound, hire one or more individuals who are. Their experience can play a key role in helping you provide customers with the tech they expect from you. You can also attend some tech events during the year. That is to gain more insight in the role technology is playing in the business world.

When it comes right down to it, you have to do all you can to run a sound business.

If you are not doing so, chances are good your competitors will reap the rewards.

About the Author: Dave Thomas covers business topics on the web.

 

A Guide for Starting a Private Foundation or Philanthropic Business

by

By Kayla Matthews

Today’s consumers are becoming increasingly conscious of their spending habits and keep close tabs on where their money is actually going.

This has led many companies to reconsider their philanthropic efforts and begin supporting charitable causes. And, if you’re one of these businesses looking to boost both your revenue and your giving, investing in a private foundation or philanthropic businesses may be the move.

The Benefits

There are a number of advantages to becoming a philanthropic business or starting your own private foundation. One such advantage is an improved reputation. The public will likely notice the goodwill your company generates and will form a favorable opinion of your brand. This may lead to increased sales and even create a new market, especially in impoverished communities or those without prior knowledge of your products or services.

Moreover, if you donate to a local cause or organization, you’re taking company profits and reinvesting them into the same community that invested in you.

Another benefit of becoming a charitable business is your efforts will likely attract top talent. Younger workers are looking for more than just a paycheck — they want to make a difference. So, naturally, they wish to work for a business that values charitable giving. In fact, 79% of employees want to work for a company that contributes to society. And 55% would choose to work at a socially responsible company, even if it meant a lower salary.

Are You Ready?

So, if you want to attract both customers and employees by giving back to the community, it’s time to seriously consider whether you’re ready to start your own private foundation. Of course, one of the most important things to think about is the amount of money you can dedicate to such efforts. If you’re going to create an in-house volunteer team or commit to donating to a certain charity, there is no minimum cost requirement. However, you must still determine how much you can afford to allocate to philanthropy efforts.

And, in regard to starting a private foundation, traditional guidelines suggest a $1 million to $2 million investment. However, this amount may differ depending on your company’s size and monetary situation. And your initial investment will likely not amount to this large sum. Rather, your business and fellow donors will donate to work toward this goal over time.

It is important to note, though, there is a payout requirement for private foundations. This requires non-operating foundations to distribute 5% of their fair market value of investment assets to charitable efforts each year.

Starting Your Own

Once you’ve decided how much money you can afford to invest in philanthropic efforts, it’s time to begin putting your plan into action. Here are a few important things to keep in mind when creating a charitable giving initiative.

Decide on a Foundation Type

One of the first steps to becoming a philanthropic business is deciding what kind of giving you’ll be taking part in. There are a few options to choose from — partner with a non-profit, start a private operating foundation or a private non-operating foundation. These are three very common avenues your business may choose to take.

Partnering with a non-profit may be the simplest since you’re simply joining a cause instead of creating your own. However, this still entails a fair amount of time, planning and organization. For example, you’ll want to dedicate time to find an ideal nonprofit with which to partner, recruit and manage volunteers, — and willing employees — define volunteer roles, develop an orientation program and actually go volunteer.

Similar to a nonprofit partnership is a private non-operating foundation, which grants money to charitable organizations. And, as previously mentioned, regulations require these foundations to pay out a certain amount of money each year in grants. A private operating foundation, on the other hand, distributes funds to its own charitable programs. This type of foundation must either spend at least 85% of its income, or its minimum investment return, on direct charitable expenditure — excluding grants.

Know the Tax Requirements

The IRS requires all private foundations to submit an annual 990PF tax return since your business won’t be considered a public charity. However, you’ll still be tax-exempt as long as you donate the minimum required amount according to your foundation type.

In order to receive your tax-exempt status, you’ll need to file the correct paperwork and fill out Form 1023 which will inquire as to your foundation’s financial information, grant-making guidelines and other details. Additionally, the IRS may have questions about your application, so be well-organized and prepared to thoroughly answer any inquiries.

 

About the Author: Kayla Matthews writes about communication and workplace productivity on her blog, Productivity Theory. Her work has also appeared on Talent Culture, MakeUseOf, The Muse and Fast Company.

Featured Photo by Sandy Millar on Unsplash