How conversational marketing is impacting housing associations

As technology progresses, so does the way we communicate and the tools that we use daily for our communication. It was once physical mail and telephone calls, then it became SMS, instant messaging and email, then social media and online chat software, and now artificial intelligence chatbots and form-bots. Just as smartphone technology grows every year, we slowly move forward to new platforms and more effective ways of communication.

Twenty years ago, communication was more impersonal and much slower. Today, within seconds a housing association can reach millions of people, with just a few mouse clicks. While communication technology, such as email, SMS and instant messaging, has existed for over a decade, the automation of it to reach thousands or millions of people in seconds is what makes technological progression of communication so important.

Housing associations are under lots of financial and human resource constraints. Many are struggling to keep on top of the workload as demand grows with population expansion and the need for departments to become more lean increases. However, in the light of this lean strategy, productivity and efficiency have become more of a focus than ever before. Housing association agents now have to manage a larger workload and become more effective while keeping the whole operation under budget. This is where Click4Assistance comes in with their robust software solution.

When you think of conversational marketing, most people think of a customer sales agent speaking with a potential customer over the phone, essentially cold calling. But that’s not true of conversational marketing, at least not for today’s definition. Online chat software is the foundation of conversational marketing, and when that is paired with artificial intelligence chatbots and form-bots, it becomes a customer service productivity powerhouse.

A simple one-on-one conversation can massively improve your customer experience. Think of walking into a high street boutique. You are greeted by a customer service representative, and they will answer any questions you may have and assist with your purchase. The nicer and more helpful the representative, the better your customer experience. It’s the same on your housing association website. What if you could have that experience on your website? Would that not massively improve your customer service experience? Click4Assistance’s AI bots can greet your website visitors and customers and assist them with any questions they may have, help them navigate the website and provide basic information they may need, such as opening hours, locations, contact information, or even your latest status during a pandemic.

These hardworking AI bots, Artie and Coni, are online and available 24/7, even when your office is closed and your human team members are asleep. This allows your housing association website to capture your customer requests overnight, address the simple requests and issues without human intervention and transfer the complicated issues to the customer service team, so that they can begin the resolution process first thing the next working day. They can even transfer the customer to the right customer service agents by asking them a series of basic questions, reducing the number of transfers that customer has to experience and the time spent on the query. Have you ever had to contact an organisation and speak with several people before you were able to get the right person to manage your issue? This automatically eliminates that problem.

Click4Assistance online chat software is a complete customer service suite, built with productivity and remote working in mind. By using Click4Assistance, your customer service agents will instantly be more productive, as they don’t need to search through multiple applications to find the information they need. The dashboard can be accessed from any computer or laptop with a Chrome browser, giving your customer service team access remotely to live chat, video chat, social media direct messages, AI chatbot and form-bot, meeting rooms, Click2Call, smartContact and even your own integrated CRM, should they need it. This remote working access also gives your housing association the ability to hire temporary customer service staff during peak periods to manage the influx of customer requests, without having to find space for them at your office.

Click4Assistance has been working with housing associations like yours for over 15 years, so you can trust that we know your industry well, and have a comprehensive understanding of your customer base. If you’re interested in deploying Click4Assistance, the UK’s premier GDPR compliant live chat software solution, to make your housing authority more effective in 2020,  give us a call on 08451235871 or send an email to theteam@click4assistance.co.uk and one of our experts will be with you right away. Not ready to reach out yet? Discover how it works, try a demo, or better yet, try Click4Assistance completely free for 21 days.