In the modern age of business, one thing is essential: an online presence. Through the Internet, a business expands its reach to prospective customers and associates thousands of times over. The form of online presence—whether it be a dedicated website, an app, social media, or all aforementioned—depends on the needs and resources of the business. However, it will always be in the interest of business owners to make the platform that customers interact with easy to navigate.

Small businesses usually have infrastructures that accommodate a smaller target of customers. Therefore, small businesses, in particular, can benefit greatly from having an online presence that is straightforward and simple to interact with. Some tools that business owners might consider using are chatbots for small business.

A chatbot is a marketing and sales tool that is able to reach customers on a wide range of online platforms, delivering automated interactions that mimic genuine conversation. Chatbots are most often used to promote products, answer customer questions, direct inquiries and sales to the appropriate teams, and even conduct sales transactions from start to finish; all of these capabilities are entirely automated.

While many businesses are implementing chatbot technology due to the customer convenience they can provide, there are other reasons chatbots are a growing business tool.

Chatbots can replace many of the most basic tasks that would otherwise be performed by actual human employees. But with employees comes a lot of variabilities. Chatbots can be more reliable, and business owners will be exactly sure what their chatbot will deliver to online customers.

While many customers might generally consider it true that humans deliver that “personal touch” that just would not be there if they had to deal with a ‘robot’, the chatbot is squashing that argument by using customer data to deliver a personalized experience. As an example, websites store information about various components of a customer’s interactions with the site. A customer might click on certain products, for example, and that history is recorded by the website. Well, chatbots can use that data to recommend products similar to the products a customer has already shown interest in. This takes a lot of the guess-work out of the sales process, and a lot of the time out of what otherwise would be paid to a human-employee counterpart.

It should be noted that chatbot technology ranges and the quality of the chatbot depend on the programming team behind it. Considering chatbots are an investment, it can pay to get chatbot software that will perform the tasks the business will require, and perform those tasks in a fluid and pleasing manner. A slow, clunky, error-ridden chatbot will only turn away potential customers.

Choosing the right tools for maintaining and growing a business is an essential role of business owners. However, it’s clear that focusing resources to an online presence is often a wise decision. A quality chatbot might be a tool worth considering for small business in the modern age.