I worked on a very interesting project where the client wanted me to design a web page, which could communicate with visitors. If they were going to buy a few items, or wanted to download something, but they had some basic or limited information. This thing prevented them from taking the next step.
Well! that was a good idea to understand consumer demands, queries, and then find the solutions to bring more and more business. But, before that I wanted to test to see if it was a feasible solution for landing pages, which was a very crucial stage to collect payments if this was the place where customer would come just to make the payment. That was the final stage. I was not quite sure. But, my client asked me to conduct a research to bring out the maximum information on this subject.
This is what we are going to discuss today.
We mostly use landing pages for the following purposes:
1. Capture the email address of a user.
2. Inform users about the benefits of using our products and services.
3. We can also insert videos, images, PDF files, and other media to guide on how to use products, which increases the value of our businesses, and gains the trust of our customers.
4. If customers are not interested in providing any information. A chatbot can build interest and trust by saying a few lines, "Is there something specific that you are looking for?", "can I help you?", "Ask me?", "I am your best friend" etc.
5. Landing pages definitely increase the conversion rate, where a CTA button plays an important role.
Call-To-Action (CTA) buttons - We use these buttons for conversions. If a person comes to a webpage where he or she has to sign up for a service. The Call-To-Action (CTA) button will guide the user. When users come to our landing page, we want the users to take some actions. The CTA buttons fulfill our wishes. The users click them to download, to buy things, or for some other activities. The Call-To-Action (CTA) buttons can convert a visitor into a lead. For example, a user lands on a page, finds a form, provides all the information, and clicks the submit button.
We put lots of efforts and hard work to bring traffic to our landing pages from social media, google ads, various websites, search engines, and other sources. Make sure there is complete information for our visitors.
For example, visitors search for healthy biscuits for their dogs. They come to our landing page from one of the channels. If the users find all the information, each and every thing about dog biscuits, they will be happy and encouraged to buy from us. We can also sell other items to the same customers, and new consumers will also visit the page after receiving good reviews and recommendations.
There are two types of landing pages -
Type 1 captures customer information by allowing them to download an eBook, fill out a survey form, sign up services, or some other activities.
Type 2 is for products and services where customers make the payment with one click, which is very crucial for our businesses.
Let's summarize the concept of landing pages with an example-
A place on the web, which can help us grow faster on the Internet. We go to a restaurant to eat food. Similarly, landing pages are used to fulfill the needs of the users who visit our website. An important part of the website, where visitors enter their information, make the payment, or perform some other actions. Don't call it a payment collection page because users use such places to download eBooks, newsletters, or for some other types of services. For example, we want to inform the visitors about new items, or the customer has already bought our product, but he or she wants to know about new line of products and services. Use a pdf file, chatbots, infographics, or beautiful images to provide the information on the landing page.
What are chatbots?
It is a box with artificial intelligence or without AI, which can answer human queries. There are different types of chatbots. One of them can answer only those queries that are injected into them. For example, how are you? what is the price of this car? how can I buy it? etc. Even if we ask different questions, they say the same things in their response. The other one can copy the human mind and they can repeat the actions. They learn from us to answer our queries. For example, humans ask questions, chatbots learn from human behavior, what we want. Then, they are able to find the best answers. Very effective because they don't follow the patterns. No fixed set of responses.
They change answers based on our queries, try to identify what we actually want to ask.
This question is very interesting, and to find the answer let's go back to history, where humans I meant to say, customer support executives were available to resolve our issues. But, slowly and gradually we evolved the process to automate things. The whole world moved towards the automation because it saved money and energy of the businesses. Chatbots did not need training and instructions from humans. They just needed great programming and engineering. It was quite easy for companies to install bots to handle multiple tasks - Answer certain questions, resolve customer issues, lead generation, marketing etc.
Things went up when people started integrating bots with ERP, CRM, and other platforms. Leads and contacts were created. A communication channel was established. Then, the visitor was sent to the desired web page where he or she bought the product, or performed some other actions.
Nowadays, the concept of "landing pages" is very popular.
A Landing page where a visitor lands, just like an airport and its aircraft. The landing page is a virtual airport or platform where users land, and chatbot gives them a warm welcome. Do we ever think that why so beautiful pages are designed? Why do we spend so much money and energy on these webpages, or do we ever think that why the exterior design of a restaurant is so great? Why is the book cover so thoughtfully designed?
We always hear a simple and straight answer, " to attract more visitors". Yes, the appealing design keeps the users engaged. They always want to receive good customer service on a landing page. If a chatbot is available, and that is with artificial intelligence, it can be very helpful for the visitors. We should not avoid the design of it. The users stay on the page for a longer period if they find that the bot has very attractive design, and it is very funny. They would like to chat more. It is also interesting to note that we should see the behavior of the chatbot, how it responds, the way it talks to the customers, how it looks, creativity in answers etc. If it can make the customers smile and laugh using some funny interactions while being around the topic. Such landing pages and chatbots can make millions of bucks for us.
There are two types of chatbots-
Rule-Based Chatbots - They are made for basic tasks. We can definitely build them to perform complex tasks if required. But, they don't learn from their interactions with customers. Already aware of all the questions and answers, and just follow the rules. Whatever items are fed into them, only that data is used. They can answer certain questions, not all questions can be answered. Basic and traditional ones.
AI Chatbots - They use machine learning to understand the intent of the question that a customer asks. Always ready with the right response. Giving useful and relevant answers using Natural Language Processing (NLP). Learning from the available information and customer interactions. They train and improve themselves with more data. They can understand different types of languages, which is a great point if we want to use them in a global market.
Benefits of Chatbot Landing Pages -
1. Lead Generation - Visitors provide a lot of information, which can be collected to understand our customer requirements, lifestyle choices, money to be spent, items to be bought, and their various other habits. All the information can be fed into a chatbot. In order to serve them better, our products and services can be fine-tuned. This is how we can build a huge customer database.
2. Low Bounce Rate - If someone is already there to take care of the visitors. The users have a few queries, and all those queries are resolved by the chatbot. They will spend more time on the landing page to gather information about the available items. The visitors feel good because they are properly heard, and enjoy such high level of support.
3. Sales Volume - We mostly use chatbot on our landing pages to provide good customer service. But, it can also help us increase our number of sales. For example, a visitor asks something, gets the response quickly. This act can definitely encourage the user to buy the item. All the relevant information is available on the spot. Another example, if the user is in a hurry, wants to do everything as fast as possible where the chatbot's activities play an important role because it is programmed to do so, which will be a difficult task for humans. This is how the chatbot indirectly convinces the visitors to buy our products and services.
4. Unlimited Visitors - A customer service executive or sales representative can serve one customer at a time. If there are more customers, demand different things, raise lots of questions etc. cannot be handled by one person at the same time. On the other hand, our chatbot is smart enough to do all these things. If we use strong server, it does not matter how many users land on the page, how many questions they ask, how many items they want to buy, their various demands etc. can be smoothly handled by the chatbot, which is built to perform multiple tasks at the same time. No one will be waiting to be served.
5. Customer Service - We go to a store to purchase a shirt, also want to talk about different sizes, varieties, color, price, and our budget. If there is a salesman to assist us, everything can be discussed before buying the shirt. Similarly, a great customer service is expected when we land on a webpage where lots of products are listed. We are a little confused because it is difficult to choose the item that suits our needs. In this scenario, we need a virtual assistant, that can provide the relevant information about each item. The chatbot can talk about prices, sizes, features, and other important things by using images, pdf files, videos etc. It acts like a service executive. Sometimes, in a physical store we hesitate to say that we are on a low budget, but in a virtual store it is not like that because no one knows us there. We can say anything to the chatbot. If more services are required, but don't know the directions. The chatbot can provide the directions. If customers want technical support, that facility is also available on the landing page.
6. No Investment in Training - Need to spend money, time, and energy when we build and program a chatbot. After that, it learns from customer queries, responses, and other types of interactions. It does not require training, learns from the responses that are sent by customers, gathers information and knowledge using its own resources and skills. Once chatbots are up and running, they are able to train themselves.
7. Chatbots Work Globally - If we build chatbots in our own city, it does not mean that they can serve only local customers. If the landing page is available in all countries, not blocked anywhere. The chatbots will serve all visitors globally, work without passport and visa. They don't care if it is day or night, any weather-related problems, or some other regional or global issues. They work 24X7 across borders, countries, and states. Employees might not come to the office if the road is blocked due to heavy snowfall, but the chatbots will always be there without interruption. Their global presence is widely accepted.
Disadvantages of Chatbot Landing Pages -
1. No human touch - A chatbot just answers customer queries. It does not talk to customers, like real humans. If a customer wants to talk about weather, it tells the exact temperature. Lacks the human touch, no feelings, and no emotions. On the other hand, a customer service executive talks to customers, listens to them, discusses things, and empathizes with them, which creates a big difference between natural and artificial customer service. In the real world, there is always someone to help. We should not ignore the fact that businesses have grown faster because of their strong workforce.
2. Not for complex tasks - Chatbots can be multitasking. They can handle lots of customers at one time, but they are not made for complex tasks. In our businesses, we face lots of difficulties. If we want to find solutions to different types of problems, multiple teams, research work, expert advice, and other important tools and technologies will be required. This work cannot be done by the chatbots because they can resolve only that issue, which is expected, or occurred in past. We find the solution, and feed into the chatbots.
3. No prediction - We can anticipate many things that are going to happen in the future. Using various analytics tools, we can identify a customer's needs, conversions, business operations, weaknesses, future results etc. We become aware of consumer buying habits and tastes, but chatbots cannot anticipate things in a similar way.
4. A challenging task - Want to create a chatbot. Not an easy task, it requires time, money, and efforts. If we hire a developer, patience is the key because it is a long process where lots of steps are involved - research, coding, debugging, testing etc. We should be able to assess the skills of the developer, having some coding knowledge can give us an advantage. The developer may drag the process out for many weeks or months, copying code, or some other issues. There are lots of activities, where we have to burn our energy and calories.
5. Re-engineering is mandatory - Chatbots require regular maintenance. It is not right to think that we have built a chatbot, and no further action is required. We cannot sit and enjoy the services for an unlimited period of time. It is important to keep analyzing the interactions between the chatbots and customers in order to avoid the potential issues. They need regular updates and improvements, which is a constant process. There is no stopping point. The moment we stop improving our machine, all the hard work that was done to bring traffic to our landing page, will be wasted.
