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A corporate chatbot needs to be precisely tailored to the desired target and user group so that it doesn't lead a lonely existence on the website:
To do this, you need to define the target group in great detail, which is best achieved by creating so-called personas.
Regardless of which communication channels a company makes available to its customers, traditional or new digital channels like the chatbot, the important thing is that the customer is delighted with their experience.
If he chooses the chatbot channel, the experience must be consistently positive. However, this will only be the case if the interaction with the chatbot matches his or her ideas and expectations. So it's imperative that you tailor the chatbot to the exact wishes and preferences of your target audience.
But how to define the target audience for your new chatbot and the chosen use case?n?
Be sure to define the target audience of your chatbot in advance
It is essential that you invest enough time in the preparations before the actual creation of your own chatbot and think about the desired target group of your chatbot.
Once the chatbot is live and you realize that it does not meet the requirements and expectations of the desired users, it is too late or the «exercise» will cost the company dearly.
In a first step, you must always determine the use case, i.e. the function that the chatbot should fulfill. This can also be several.
Secondly, think about the target group that the chatbot should address with the selected use cases. The best way is to define so-called «personas». The term persona is already well known in the field of customer care and comes from Customer Experience Management (CEM).
A persona characterizes the people of a certain target group and shows their characteristics. A detailed description with name, appearance, function, career and private life (hobbies), behaviors, preferences and expectations of the users allows you to better put yourself in the shoes of your potential users and develop the chatbot from the corresponding user perspective.
Instead of personas, companies often only determine the customer segments and thus remain very much on the surface. This is often not enough to align the chatbot with the expectations of the desired user group. If you want to go more in depth, it is almost impossible to do without the development of personas.
What do such personas look like?
To create a persona, you start by analyzing demographic data such as age, gender, occupation, status (married or single), place of residence, and neighborhood. However, the definition is not limited to these rather superficial characteristics.
It goes into more depth and also takes into account points such as personal characteristics, interests, needs, typical behaviors, communication (preferred media/channels, online affinity), the motivation for certain actions and decisions, and possibly points of frustration about certain actions and decisions - on the part of the customer and on the part of the company, as well as external influences (e.g. through other customers, information on social media platforms and the like). It's also best to think about what your persona might look like so that it becomes more tangible for you.
There are many questions to answer: Which persona or customer group is most likely to respond to your digital chatbot channel and how can you design the chatbot according to the needs of this target group? What possibilities are there at all to adapt the chatbot to the customer characteristics you have worked out? How should the defined persona communicate with the customers? Which language suits it?
Modeling the dialogs, test and learn
With the target persona in mind, you model the appropriate dialogs and adapt the overall tone and language to the requirements of the target audience.
Once the dialogs required for the use case have been created in this way, you can move on to the test and learn phase and try out whether the dialogs work as desired and planned and whether customers respond to them.
The chatbot as a value creator
In all the clarifications you make about the target group, you must never lose sight of one aspect: the chatbot channel should bring the customer additional added value. It should not simply be different from other channels, but better.
In order for your target audience's users to feel this way, you need to excite them, and to do that, you in turn need to know what they're most excited about.
What do they want to be able to do quickly and easily at any time with the help of the virtual assistant? Why will they choose this channel and no other?
Conclusion - Which role does the target group of my chatbot play?
The key to a successful chatbot is to think carefully in advance about which of your active and potential customers you want to address with it and how you can best adapt the chatbot to the wishes and requirements of this target group.
This means that users have a positive experience when interacting with your chatbot and will come back again. Only an actively used chatbot brings added value!
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