The lead generation tool that’s always on? Your chatbot

The lead generation tool that’s always on? Your chatbot

You might think chatbots are only for customer support but using them to answer your customers’ questions is just one way to leverage chatbots. With the right setup, a chatbot can power your lead generation activity so you never miss a lead.

53% of buyers are more likely to buy from a business they can message, so if you’re looking for ways to make your lead generation strategy more effective, live chat is the way to go. But how do estate agents implement live chat for their marketing without increasing their headcount or using costly live chat outsourcing providers?

The answer is by using chatbots!

Here’s an in-depth look at how chatbots can be used to engage house hunters browsing on your website and social media pages and turn them into leads for your agents to follow up.

What is chatbot lead generation?

Simply put, chatbot lead ‘gen’ is the practice of using bots to engage your prospects and customers, either on your website or social media pages. Just like how you can use chatbots to answer questions, you can use chatbots to start conversations with website visitors, qualify leads, and even sell your services to customers.

While chatbots aren’t powered by a human, they are built by one. They send your leads and potential customers the exact messages you want them to see based on both the rules you define and the knowledge the bot acquires over time with access to data. So, for example, if you want your bot to only appear to website visitors whilst looking at a property, you can do that. Or if you want it to appear to visitors who have been viewing your valuation page for longer than 10 seconds, you can do that, too.

Benefits of chatbot lead gen: Never miss a lead

The beauty of chatbots is that they’re constantly running. They’ll keep your lead gen engine going outside of business hours and save your staff time when they’re hard at work. Here are the key aspects of digital marketing channels that chatbots can automate:

• Engage and qualify leads.Use your chatbots to show website visitors a simple prompt – like “Let us know if you have any questions about this property” – or even a welcome message to open up the door for conversation. Bots can then ask further questions to collect basic qualification details like whether a viewer has a property to sell and, if so, would they be interested in a free valuation?
• Send high-intent leads directly to sales.Visitors who spend minutes on your valuation page are likely have a serious interest in using you to sell or rent their property. Use your chatbot to instantly qualify and arrange a call with one of your valuers.
• Nurture and upsell users. If you offer mortgages, bots can offer help to purchasers. You can let them know about your mortgage broker service and set up a meeting with your mortgage adviser.g

Chatbot lead gen. examples in the wild

Chatbot technology has advanced to a stage where they can easily replace traditional web forms on your site and offer users a simpler way to get in touch with you. Let’s take a look at a few examples.

How a Volvo dealership uses bots to provide custom quotes

One great example of chatbot lead gen that we’ve seen comes from Volvo Cars Amberg, a German car dealership. More and more potential car buyers visit dealership websites these days to research prices, so the company placed a chatbot on their website site that provides an instant, totally customised price quote based on visitors’ input.

The Volvo dealership’s chatbot provides instant price quotes to website visitors.

Here’s the impact the chatbot had on the dealership’s bottom line, according to their marketing manager Tobias Wamser:

“We were able to increase the number of leads generated on our website by about 300%. We are also able to prioritise high-quality leads and offer them an even more personalised experience”

Not only that but leads coming through the Volvo dealership’s chatbot are 200% more likely to purchase a vehicle than those acquired via their contact form, since they’re able to get immediate answers to their questions or book a test drive online.

How we use chatbots at Syndeo

Chatbots are a key component in our lead generation activity at Syndeo, too. We use chatbots on all the key pages of our site, including our pricing page and demo page.

If you visit our web page, our bot will pop up almost immediately, asking how we can help. It can answer questions and offer the opportunity to chat with someone from our team to learn more.

The Syndeo chatbot

Using lead gen chatbots allows our team to qualify leads 24/7 and instantly move them to the next step.

How to set up Property Chatbots with Syndeo

Ready to give chatbots a try? If you’re not using Syndeo yet, first sign up for a free 14 day trial.

We offer pre-built bot flows specifically designed for estate agents that you can deploy in minutes to proactively engage visitors on your site. What’s more, there is no need for specialist IT skills. Our Property Chatbot will allow your customers to arrange valuations, seek mortgage advice, schedule property viewings, report repairs and much more. 

Best practices for a non-spammy chatbot experience

With the right audience and messaging, chatbots can successfully bridge the gap between “first-time visitor” and “qualified lead.” When putting together your chatbots, keep these tips in mind to ensure a positive experience.

Don’t pretend your bots are human

No matter how useful chatbots are, they’re not human. Whilst its okay to give your chatbot a name you should make sure your customers are aware that it is not a real person. Pretending it’s a real person will only serve to confuse prospects: if they expect a human response but get something else entirely, no matter how useful that reply is, they’ll probably feel like you’re trying to pull the wool over their eyes. We have named the Syndeo chatbot ‘Kate’ but we do say “I’m Kate your automated assistant”.  

At the same time, your chatbot should still sound conversational. The messages a chatbot sends should read like the voice of someone on your team.

Trigger chatbots at the right times

Chatbots can be distracting and intrusive if they appear too quickly or in the wrong places. Use your chatbot to offer help to visitors on key conversion pages but trigger it only after a few minutes.

Test and refine

Some leads don’t respond to chatbots, and that’s okay. Monitor your engagement reports to understand what is and isn’t working. Instead of trying to get a reaction out of every visitor, adjust your chatbot’s behaviour to target the leads who will engage.

Provide a blended experience

Chatbots are really good at somethings, but not everything! To provide the best customer experience its key to blend the interaction from a chatbot to a live human – the chatbot can cover the mundane tasks while the human can handle the more complex and higher value activities. A seamless approach to blending the conversation flow from chatbot to live person is crucial.

Expand your lead gen. with chatbots

Chatbots won’t replace your marketing or sales team, but with the proper setup, they’ll help you feel like you’ve grown your team by 10x. If you’re ready to advance your lead gen. activity with chatbots give our bots a spin