September 11, 2020 
The buzzword today, especially in the online and digital marketing world is ‘chatbots’. With the giddiness comes a kind of unreal hype that makes you wonder how effective chatbots are.
The goals of each company are different from others which means the metrics for judging how effective a chatbot is would be different to each of them.
However, it all comes down to improvement and being able to offer better services than before, than your rivals too.
Although they have been in existence for quite some time with the existence of rule-based bots, interest in chatbots has only started to increase in the last few years.
However, with the emergence of artificial intelligence, and the introduction of bots on Facebook Messenger, more businesses have begun to see how effective chatbots can be.
Proliferation by businesses in the use of chatbots are now increasing day after day, and a few years after Facebook’s introduction, there are already about 300,000 of bots in use.
Powerful chatbots like Zebrabuzz can perform the job of a whole marketing team with incomparable effectiveness, it is only a matter of time before even your competitors take the initiative and gain grounds on you.
Measuring how effective chatbots are to business is called chatbot metrics.
Read: Why do Companies Use Chatbots?
What is Chatbot Metrics
A metric is a quantifiable way of measuring, assessing, and tracking the status, impact, and effectiveness of a business process.
In this case, the business process you desire to measure and track its process is your chatbot.
Therefore, chatbot metrics is the process of measuring, assessing, and tracking the status and effectiveness of the chatbot you use.
Chatbot metrics are important as they give you an indication as to how far you have come, where and how you can improve your bot as well as satisfying your customers.
While building a chatbot, what were your plans? A chatbot that engages customers regularly? A chatbot that provides faster responses? A chatbot that generates massive leads?
Your reasons for building a bot will help you define your chatbot metrics properly, which will eventually help you measure how effective chatbots are to your business.
How Effective are Chatbots to Business?
There are different ways a chatbot can be effective in business.
Although chatbots have many benefits, to judge how effective chatbots are to a business, such establishment will have to consider the reasons why they employed one.
Considering the variety of benefits that chatbots offer, businesses usually check an area where they are lacking and use the bot to fill it up or make it better.
For such business, measuring how effective chatbots are will solely be based on where they built it to fit in.
You cannot create a chatbot to help you with customer satisfaction only, and when measuring how effective it has been, you begin to consider the insights it has given you.
That is not to say chatbots can only work in one role; in fact, chatbots are the most versatile computer program software you could employ for your business.
Chatbots can be used for many purposes. If you decide to use them for all the features they offer, measuring their effectiveness will encompass all these features.
Consider below some ways in which chatbots are effective.
Can Do At Least 80% of the job
A recent study has confirmed that chatbots have singlehandedly answered or solved 80% of all user queries without human intervention.
That is to say, out of ten people, chatbots will do the work of eight. This is why when statements like “Chatbots can function in place of your whole marketing team,” it is not devoid of truth.
With regular and constant development and upgrades being made to chatbots, it is only a matter of time before they can do 100% of the job.
With 80% of the job assured to be done already, it is good practice to hire human representatives that will back up your bot.
Massive Increase in Open Rates
Open rate is a term used in email marketing but can also apply to measure how effective chatbots are to your business.
Open rate is a metric that is used to evaluate the rate at which emails are opened. It is measured in percentage.
The average chatbot offers 70-80% open rate, although it can reach up to 90-95% with chatbots like Zebrabuzz.
If you know a little about email marketing, you would agree these numbers are terrific and massive.
The average open rate for email marketing is between 15-25%. With this enormous gulf in the difference between chatbots and email marketing, you can now see how effective chatbots are.
It gets even better when you find out chatbots can offer you up to 60% click rates compared to the maximum 30% that email marketing offers. That is double.
More Insights
Another way to measure how effective chatbots are is by the insights it gives you.
Chatbots can give insights on certain happenings on your page concerning visitors and their activities.
You may wonder why are they visiting but leaving without purchasing? This and more are information that chatbots can help acquire from visitors.
Concerning insights gotten from user data, the controversy about the application of user data is being taken seriously by chatbot companies like Zebrabuzz with a serious and dedicated application of the EU General Data Protection Regulation in protecting end user’s data.
Chatbots can help you plan your business strategy by giving you answers to the questions that will help you.
In the long run, business owners get to determine what to change about their mode of operation. Should a product be marketed differently?
Which service should receive more intensity in marketing or which should be revisited and re-launched and many more angles of developing your business?
Increased Leads Generation
With the numbers that chatbots give as regards open rate, it is not a surprise to find out there will be an increase in leads generation.
Leads are your potential customers, and chatbots will help you locate them quicker and faster. The more customers you have, the more sales you make, which brings us to the next metric to measure how effective chatbots are.
Huge Boost in Sales
All of the above will eventually lead to an increase in sales.
Chatbots can also set reminders for customers who have not confirmed orders, help you send personalised adverts, book appointments and many more.
These will, in their ways, increase and boost sales.
These are many more are metrics that show how effective chatbots are to you and your business. All you need do is choose the right metric that suits you.
