January 9, 2021 
Chatbots have been available for quite some time. However, they gained increased attention after Facebook introduced Messenger chatbots in 2016.
Since then, marketers and businesses have begun using Messenger and web chatbots in various aspects of their businesses both on social media and on their website.
As chatbots can be integrated into many channels, marketing, customer service, and communication are a lot easier and better.
For instance, chatbots like Zebrabuzz and the likes can be integrated into platforms like Facebook Messenger, Web, Instagram, Email, and SMS, amongst others.
This fluidity, coupled with the power of artificial intelligence is only but the icing on the top of one of the best chatbot platforms.
Of all the channels that chatbots can integrate into, this blog will introduce you to web chatbots and the reasons why they are important for your website.
If you want to learn about Facebook Messenger chatbots, you can read some of our blogs on it here and here.
Web Chatbot
Simply put, a web chatbot or chatbot for a website is a chatbot that is placed on your website. It works live on your website instead of third-party channels like Messenger, Telegram, Twitter, and the likes.
It engages your website’s visitors in live chat. This chat can be in text, image, video, links, file sharing, etc.
That is, a well-designed chatbot will not only interact with your web visitors using texts, but it can also share media like images, videos, gifs, emojis, links and can even redirect a user to a human if such a demand is made.
The purpose of placing a chatbot on your website differs. As chatbots offer so much for your business, there are many reasons why you may want to deploy one for your web. Let us take a look at some. Also, while we go through the reasons why you should have a chatbot on your website, it is equally important to note that the purpose of chatbot will work hand-in-hand with the development.
Thankfully, you do not have to know a thing about developing or programming a bot to own one today. With non-coding chatbot building platforms like Zebrabuzz, you can make an AI chatbot for your website within minutes.
Reasons You Should Have a Chatbot for your Website
- All Year Availability
- Immediate Answers and Simultaneous Conversations
- Generating and Qualifying Leads
- Consistency and Reliability
- Reducing the Sales Cycle and Turning Visitors into Customers
- Saves Time and Cuts Cost
All Year Availability
The availability of chatbots is unmatched. As a chatbot is available and functional 24 hours a day and 365 days a year, integrating one on your website means you will be available for your customers and web visitors all year round.
Chatbots do not take lunch breaks or vacations and are never out sick or need to sleep. Therefore, a web chatbot for your website ensures you are easily accessible by existing and potential customers whether it’s daytime, night, weekends or public holidays.
Immediate Answers and Simultaneous Conversations
The availability of chatbots, as stated above, means they can offer immediate responses. Oftentimes, website visitors are impatient, especially if they cannot find what they want within the first few seconds.
Yes, patience is a virtue, but not everyone has it and certainly not your web visitors. As thousands of other websites offer the same services as you, they end up leaving for your rivals.
Web chatbots can have a live chat and provide instant responses to any query from visitors. With Zebrabuzz, for example, you can set the reply delay to any time you want, even as low as ‘0 second’.
Also, your web chatbot can hold simultaneous conversations with as many web visitors as possible. As there is the likelihood you will experience traffic from your website visitors who may need help, integrating a web chatbot ensures that all website visitors have instant access to help always.
Generating and Qualifying Leads
Although quality customer service and delivering quality content is important, it all comes down to the return.
An increase in web visitors and more revenue is the ideal KPI for your website. Chatbots like Zebrabuzz and the likes are designed to help you achieve these goals by executing automated lead generation and qualification, resulting in a boost in leads.
You may use web forms, registrations, newsletters, and the likes to receive numerous leads, but these usually end up being low quality. However, with chatbots, your sales team can receive a list of leads that are already qualified and from thence, making them conversions will be easy.
Consistency and Reliability
Chatbots are ever consistent and reliable. They do not have bad days at the office. Your web chatbot will always provide the current answers, and it will offer the same customer service and experience to all your visitors.
A human customer care agent can and will make a mistake at times. They could either misunderstand a question or are not up to speed with the latest information. In fact, a human agent could be having a bad day or week, which could reflect in their responses and service, which can sabotage your whole business.
This is not to say human agents are useless, but these are scenarios that have happened and can happen.
However, even if a question is framed differently by various visitors and web users, a chatbot on your website will provide the same answer.
Besides, if a chatbot cannot answer a question, it can direct the user to a human customer care agent. However, if you develop your chatbot properly and use trusted chatbot building platforms, it will not have to.
Reducing the Sales Cycle and Turning Visitors into Customers
The speed of chatbots and being able to provide immediate responses means you will be able to speed-up a sales cycle.
A web chatbot can take visitors through the sales funnel in a short frame of time, especially if you have an e-commerce website. With Zebrabuzz, visitors can become conversions in a matter of minutes.
Saves time and Cuts Costs
Time is money. We have discussed how chatbots save time by being available and reducing the sales cycle and providing instant responses.
Chatbots can also cut costs. The cost of building a web chatbot and integrating it into your website is significantly lower than what you would spend to hire and maintain multiple human agents.
If you want to engage with hundreds of web visitors simultaneously, one employee cannot, neither will two nor even three. The list gets longer and longer.
A chatbot does not come with recurring costs like wages, bonuses, healthcare packages, among many others. By complementing your sales team with a web chatbot, you will significantly cut the costs that come with hiring new employees for your website or business.
You will also increase efficiency because your chatbot can take the bulk of your human agents’ workload, leaving them to focus on others or more complex ones.
