Social media virtual assistants -According to Facebook data, 2 billion messages are exchanged between people and companies every month.
Whatsapp, Telegram, Messenger, Instagram, Slack are communication channels between people, but also between people and businesses.
A Business Insider study confirms that messaging apps have far surpassed social networking apps.
“Messaging is one of the few things that people do more than social networking”
Mark Zucherberg
During 2020, about ¾ of the major B2C brands in the world recorded a growth in terms of revenue, generated through messaging channels associated with social commerce purchasing habits.
According to the “We are Social 2021” report, social networks are the second most used online search channel. In particular, for the consumers between 16 and 24 years old, social media occupy the first place.
While few years ago, social media were considered a “satellite” communication channel for businesses, today they represent the voice of the brand and the key platform through which to interact, sell and assist customers.
Social media affect today every step of the purchase process: from searching for information in the pre-sale phase, to purchasing and checking the order status in the post-sale stage.
In parallel, messaging applications have proved to be an efficient marketing tool, thanks to the high open rates (98% compared to 20-30% of e-mail marketing) and wide penetration (15 million text messages sent every minute daily).
Just think about it: are you most likely to read a message on Whatsapp or read through an e-mail?
In this scenario of efficient combination of social presence and interaction via instant messaging, conversational AI is a tool capable of further optimizing results, thanks to the advantages of automation, direct engagement, 24/7 service availability and customer data.
Integrating virtual agents within the social communication strategy means giving your customers exactly what they expect when interacting with a brand:
-Immediate responses
-Problem solving
-More detailed information
-Possible transfer of the conversation to a human operator
In addition, thanks to conversational AI it is possible to increase the conversion rate of customers through a direct engagement and the interactive exchange that takes place directly on the customer’s favorite messaging apps.
Social media virtual assistants: combining Conversational AI and social customer care
Social media virtual assistants – Setting up a social customer care service increases the customer acquisition rate, contributes to building brand awareness and guides the purchasing and post-purchase assistance process.
Combining conversational AI and social customer care means giving immediate response to customer requests, engage users through their preferred platforms, convey offers and promotions through an interactive dialogue, dispose of useful data for decision making and future marketing actions.
In a nutshell, it means offering an automated and always-available customer service, tailored made for the single customer.
According to Gartner, by 2025 80% of users will interact with customer support via text messages and through platforms such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and WeChat.
Conversational AI agents can further contribute to maximize the customer care service, favouring the construction of “one to one” relationships through the user’s favorite messaging apps, which will not only be “reactive”, in response to specific requests, but also “proactive” in order to anticipate individual needs.
Sources:
https://www.hootsuite.com/research/social-trends
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2021/09/30/the-psychology-of-messaging-how-to-engage-customers-through-text/?sh=7094290176d8
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https://crafter.ai/it/2021/10/21/conversational-ai-marketing/
