Updated on August 28, 2023
What’s so special about this picture? Guess guess..
Nope, it’s not our company dog.
This dog, in fact, is a stray and this was the very first pic that was uploaded on a photo sharing app, which today, has over 1.3 billion users.
Did we make things too easy for you? Oh well, enough with the quizzes already, let’s get right down to the story of the dog and the social media platform we are talking about.
You know, the snap, snap.. Click click.. upload app that all the youngsters use these days. It’s the source of a lot of memes too.
But you are a business and Insta is more of a “hippy- fun – Gen Z” kinda app no?
Wrong.
According to this survey, 1 in 2 people have used Instagram to discover new brands.
And 92% of people will make a purchasing decision the moment they see something on Instagram.
So we know that people are coming on the platform to make purchasing decisions. But how do you make sure you, as a business, are bringing your A-game?
Two words – Instagram chatbots.
In this article, we will learn everything there is to know about Instagram chatbots, and why you, as a business, cannot ignore this important channel.
What is Chatbot for Instagram?
An Instagram chatbot is the same as a regular chatbot, in the sense that it gives automated responses to customers who reach out to you over Instagram. Chatbots are powerful marketing automation tools, and they use artificial intelligence to understand human conversation and respond accordingly.
Don’t confuse Instagram chatbots with Instagram bots. Instagram bots are computer- generated accounts that are used to boost a profile using black hat methods, to make it look like someone has more followers than they actually do.
An Instagram chatbot can do a lot more than just answer DMs from customers coming to your Instagram profile. It can send automated welcome messages and even scroll and respond to comments. And it can do this all without taking a break, talking to multiple customers at the same time, if necessary.
Benefits of having an Chatbot for Instagram
1. Instagram chatbots are a gold mine of data
If you are a modern marketer, you know how important your social media strategy is in bringing in business. Having the right visibility is only possible if you know everything about the customer. One easy way to collect this information? Chatbots.
Chatbots log every interaction your customer has with your brand. You can use this data for everything from creating re-targeting ads to improving customer support.
Once an Instagram chatbot is active on your account and a customer interacts with it, you have access to all sorts of data. The type of data can be anything, from their names, phone numbers and email IDs. Chatbots can also be very useful in understanding consumer behavior. It can dive into the trends that interest them and the type of content that works with different types of audiences.
2. Chatbots as a lead magnet
One of the biggest challenges that businesses face is generating enough high quality, relevant leads. A greater number of leads may not lead to increased sales, because some of these leads may not be relevant to your product.
Chatbots can help bridge this gap, because the customers who interact with chatbots are usually high intent. Infact, 55% of businesses who use chatbots generate better, high quality leads. Customers who come on the chatbot will have a high engagement rate, if the chatbot design is good, and will eventually convert.
Instagram chatbots can also help your company shore up against any potential algorithm changes, since it is offset by the sheer number of leads that you can collect from DMs.
3. Reduced customer response times
You need to respond to customers fast, or they are going to go to your competition, who will. The longer the customer waiting time, the poorer is the customer experience. According to Sproutsocial, brands take an average of 10 hours to respond to a customer. That is a lot of time that a customer has to wait.
A customer on Instagram, used to instant DMs and quick responses, may not be that patient. Most of the social media users, in fact, expect a brand to respond to their queries in less than sixty minutes.
Chatbots can reduce this waiting time to less than a few minutes, if not seconds, with automated responses. You can also program instagram chatbots to provide details on order summary and delivery information, if you are an e-commerce brand.
4. Instagram chatbots can respond in multiple languages
A multilingual chatbot is not just a fancy add on to your Instagram page. In fact, multiple studies have shown that people prefer to interact with brands that speak their own language. English may be the language in which you make that most marketing campaigns , but in regions with a majority of non- English speakers, they fall flat.
Having a social media manager or a customer support representative respond to Instagram queries is also less efficient compared to a chatbot. A chatbot can speak a plethora of languages, which a human agent simply cannot match. Kommunicate’s chatbots, for instance, can be built in over 104 languages.
Instagram chatbots with the ability to interact with customers in a wide variety of languages are bound to increase your engagement rates. Customers can convey their thoughts more clearly, which will lead to improved customer satisfaction.
5. Will make your brand available 24 x 7
The early bird may or may not get the worm, but the business that gives timely responses will surely get the customer. Poor puns aside, you know that the businesses that succeed are the ones that respond to customers instantaneously.
If you are a clothing brand and a customer reaches out to you over Insta for a poor piece of clothing that they bought at your store on a Friday. If your customer support reps are out for the weekend, it means that the customer has to wait a whopping 2 days to get a response. This is a recipe for disaster.
Instead, deploying an Instagram chatbot on your website will make your brand available to your customers around the clock. Chatbots don’t take bathroom breaks, go on vacation, or fall sick. If you have a chatbot on your Instagram account, that same clothing customer’s query can be resolved in a matter of minutes. A happy customer which, in turn, will lead to more business.
How does an Instagram chatbot work?
Like all other chatbots, Instagram chatbots are built on conversational flow charts.
The following diagram shows you how an Instagram chatbot works:
As you can see, If a customer comes to your shopping website, and you sell, say sneakers, then you can set your chatbot to be active when the customer types in “Sneakers,” or “Shoes” or even “Nicks.” (Hey it’s Insta, remember?)
Change the trigger, action or condition and modify your chatbot accordingly.
Things to avoid while making Chatbot for Instagram
Okay, so you have built your Instagram chatbot and are now ready to let it go wild on your Insta page?
Wait Wait WAIT!!!
Here are a few common errors you should avoid while building your Instagram chatbot.
1. Keep it short and sweet:
No one likes to read lengthy replies, especially on Instagram. Keep your Instagram replies short and to the point. If there is no way you can shorten a reply, you can separate long sentences with adequate space, and consider using separate DMs. Spend as much time as possible simplifying complex concepts, so that your customers don’t know if they are talking to a chatbot or a real human.
2. Ensure that the bot replies
When building chatbots for websites, an important point to consider is the situation in which a chatbot is unable to understand a user query. We here at Kommunicate call it “Default Fallback Intent.” Every question that the customer asks must have a response. Sometimes, chatbots don’t understand the intent behind an inquiry, and tend to go without a response.
That is the reason why you must carefully build the conversation flow, considering all the scenarios which the chatbot will encounter. Make sure that the bot replies, especially to an inquiry that it does not understand.
3. Avoid spamming at all costs
There is a fine line between sending a fine welcome message to a customer and coming across as too pushy. Walk this line carefully. Don’t come across as a brand that sends sleazy sales messages through its Instagram chatbot. Not only does your audience hate it, there are chances that Instagram will penalize you by blocking your account.
Parting words
And there you have it folks. Everything you need to know about Instagram chatbots in the year 2023. We at Kommunicate are super excited to announce that we will be coming up with our own version of Instagram chatbots in the coming weeks. Excitement level : Super high!!
As they say on Insta: CIAO.
At Kommunicate, we envision a world-beating customer support solution to empower the new era of customer support. We would love to have you on board to have a first-hand experience of Kommunicate. You can signup here and start delighting your customers right away.
