Chatbots are a big deal right now. Kind of THE big deal in nearly all industries. But what’s the hype and how useful are Chatbots, specifically for real estate websites?
How many times do you have to answer the same questions, providing the same information to your clients and potential clients on a daily basis? Don’t you wish you could create a Frequently Asked Questions page, where people can reference to, but make it more personable and more like an interaction? Chatbots hold one major value to any busy person or team; it allows someone to ask questions and get a response to their answer immediately. It’s infinitely more usable than a FAQ page as you don’t have to navigate with a thousand clicks or have to know the right search query to get your answer. It also looks and feels better; more like chatting with a personal advisor, all while saving your time to to focus on the harder aspects of your day-to-day.
One of the most fundamental things “consumers want is a simple, informative response in a timely manner.” These Artificial Intelligence-driven virtual help-desks live inside the messaging apps you use everyday and they respond right away, unlike their human counterparts. The best way to think of it is a personal assistant who is always there responding to your customers questions. They get an instant response and you have another social media tool at your disposal. Think of it like an interactive answering-machine.
What are the benefits?
Fundamentally Chatbots remove the burden from you to answer every question in a timely manner. For your potential clients, it digitizes the information you can provide without needing your input. Ultimately, and perhaps most importantly, it makes the customer feel like someone is listening and attending their needs, even if there actually isn’t a person but a machine answering them- especially if the responses are more candid and ‘humanized’!
Even good things have limitations, though. Keep in mind that Chatbots aren’t really intelligent in anyway, but potentially a whole lot more interactive and ‘smarter’ than a website. There’s a lot of work that goes into cultivating and preparing responses and if one runs into anything outside of a preset query, it might not have an answer. And, most importantly, it can never provide the human-touch factor that you, as an agent, will always be able to provide.
Chatbots are one of the best tools to use to help alleviate your day from answering the same mundane questions for your leads. Used wisely, and it can be your personal assistant that filters out the easy stuff, allowing you to focus your attention to the most important things in your day. Since Chatbots are such a big deal at the moment, in all industries, there’s one for everything you can think of! Some may not exist yet, but in the near future, chatbots will be the first interaction someone will have, before they need to even talk to a live-person.