Chatbots

August 15, 2023

Leah

17 Real-Life Chatbot Examples in Support, Sales and Marketing

As an AI writer, I’ve talked to a lot of chatbots. Even in my personal life, I opt to talk to a company’s chatbot instead of calling their hotline just to see how good it is.

Chatbots, thanks to developments in AI, have definitely improved over the last few years. Today, 58% of B2B businesses in a variety of industries use a chatbot on their website, and 42% of B2C.

This means customers are highly likely to be greeted and assisted by an AI assistant before reaching an agent.

Who’s making all these bots, and how good are they? As an AI company, we’ll share some of our favorite chatbot examples in this post. But first, let’s go over some practical chatbot use cases to give you an idea of how a successful chatbot behaves.

What can chatbots do?

Today’s AI technology enables chatbots to do extraordinary things - from being a good friend to talk to for your mental health to keeping you on track with your fitness goals.

In this post we’ll specifically focus on business chatbots that excel in customer support, sales and marketing.

Here’s some of the things a chatbot can do for your business and your customers:

1. Generate leads by collecting contact info. Chatbot conversations don’t just disappear into a void, they’re actually valuable for filling up your CRM with juicy leads.
Answer the questions your team is tired of. Small acts of kindness are a chatbot’s love language. If your team is over giving the same canned answers, chatbots are perfect for taking these off their hands.
Play matchmaker between your customers and products. Just like a love quiz, chatbots get to know your customer and recommend the products or services that suit their needs best.
Meet customers on any channel. Does a lot of your customer traffic come from social media or WhatsApp? Chatbots easily slide into their DMs.
Show off your business’ latest catalog. Chatbots can proactively approach your customers and fill them in on your latest product launch.

And much more. Seriously, so much more. This is just scratching the surface. Keep reading to see examples of how businesses creatively use chatbots.

More resources:

• 5 Unbeatable Customer Service Chatbots
• 7 Strategies for Using a Chatbot in Lead Generation
• 7 Proven Chatbot Marketing Strategies
• 7 Key Use Cases for Insurance Chatbots
• 6 Proven Use Cases of E-Commerce Chatbots
• 7 Ethical Use Cases for Pharmacy Chatbots

17 AI chatbot examples in customer service, sales and marketing

From bicycle companies to energy providers, there’s a little bit of flavor for everyone in our list. Check out these chatbot examples ranging from simple rule/keyword-based solutions to advanced AI chatbots.

1. KTR Systems: machinery chatbot
2. 23andMe: data privacy chatbot
3. Hermes: postal service chatbot
4. Royal Bank of Scotland: banking chatbot
5. Brussels Airport: travel chatbot
6. MailChimp: email marketing chatbot
7. The Keyes Company: real estate chatbot
8. Goode Company: restaurant chatbot
9. Squarespace: website builder chatbot
10. YETI: retail chatbot
11. Fissler: ecommerce chatbot
12. ROSE: biking chatbot
13. ILTHY: clothing retail chatbot
14. Wistia: video marketing chatbot
15. Lidl: grocery store chatbot
16. An Artful Science: digital marketing chatbot
17. Kiehl’s: skincare chatbot

Customer service chatbot examples

Machinery company KTR Systems created their chatbot “Buddy” to help users quickly find what they’re looking for on their website. It’s a rule-based solution that uses button options to guide the user.

Buddy is powered by Userlike, so if a customer has a complex question, or if it doesn’t cover the topic they need, the chat is easily redirected to an available agent – humans and chatbots collaborate within Userlike’s Message Center.

Key feature: Buddy specifically assists customers outside of normal service hours. This is an ideal solution for small and large service teams alike to maintain positive customer satisfaction and keep generating leads.

DNA testing company 23andMe provides customers with detailed ancestry reports, which triggers a lot of privacy questions. Not everyone is eager to send in their cheek swabs without wanting to know how their DNA will be handled. Hence their support chatbot.

Key feature: To ease doubt, 23andMe emails a link to their chatbot if a customer abandons their cart during checkout. That way they can get direct answers to any questions they may have — especially if they neglected the FAQ page during their first visit.

As a major logistics and mail service provider, Hermes handles thousands of customer requests a day. Customers often need to locate or redirect their packages, which is why their chatbot “Bo” was created.

Bo speaks German, but non-German speakers can request an agent and use their native language. The visitors and agent’s answers are translated in real time with Live Translations.

Key feature: Bo is also available via WhatsApp. So convenient! Hermes uses Userlike to power their website chat, WhatsApp and chatbot so all messages land in a central inbox, the Message Center. This unified messaging approach makes it easy for support teams to communicate via multiple channels and keep track of the bot’s performance.

Another company that is no stranger to high chat volumes is the Royal Bank of Scotland. The bank created Cora, which speaks to more than 40,000 customers a day.

Key feature: Cora has thousands of answers to more than 200 customer questions. Users don’t follow rules when wording their requests, and the RBS knew their chatbot shouldn’t either. Detailed support requires knowledge and planning.

At Brussels Airport, instead of asking personnel or checking an airport map, just ask BRUce.

BRUce is a rule-based chatbot that uses button options, but also understands written requests. It can assist with every aspect of your trip — from booking parking passes to letting you know which restaurants are near your gate.

Key feature: BRUce sends users real-time updates directly to your phone. If you share your flight information, it’ll keep you informed about gate changes, delays, boarding and more. This up-to-date information leaves many other airport chatbots in the dust.

Sending emails to huge contact lists can take courage. If you’ve used MailChimp long enough, you know they used to use a sweating monkey hand when confirming a campaign launch.

These days the email marketing tool gives customers peace of mind by offering help through their chatbot. It can help you with your campaign setup, automations, account and more.

MailChimp lets customers know what types of commands it understands to avoid frustration and confusion.

Key feature: MailChimp’s chatbot gives in-depth answers to cover every possible question a customer may have about a topic. This is thanks to their detailed knowledge base planning.

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Sales chatbot examples

Buying a new home can take anywhere from a few months up to a whole year. Real estate business The Keyes Company helps you get the process started by offering a sales chatbot, Sunny, on their homepage.

Key feature: Sunny stores your conversation for a pretty long time. I go months without talking to this chatbot and it always remembers my buyer details. In sales, this is a key feature to have so you don’t lose customers over filling out tedious applications.

Buying food online is tricky. This is especially true if it’s sensitive to temperature — you don’t want to risk your dessert baking in the sun at your doorstep. That’s why the Texas restaurant Goode Company made their chatbot BotBQ, which is basically the best chatbot name ever.

Key feature: BotBQ offers purchasing and shipping advice so customers don’t talk themselves out of buying. The Goode Company is clearly speaking from expertise and past customer experiences, which gives them a convincing sales advantage.

Squarespace’s foundation is simplicity. The drag-and-drop website builder makes sure this is reflected in its customer service with a helpful button- and keyword-based chatbot. It can assist new and existing customers about billing, domains, website building and more.

Key feature: Squarespace offers individualized help depending on the domain provider a customer is switching from. If the move to Squarespace is no problem, then they’ve crossed a major purchase hurdle.

FAQ pages are necessary, but boring. Drinkware retailer YETI created a chatbot to make getting answers a lot more interactive. It helps customers find products and answers questions about shipping, refunds, returns and more.

Key feature: The YETI chatbot asks for the user’s full name and email address before continuing the chat. Leaving your information is optional, but asking for it is a clever lead generation tactic. It shares their privacy policy up front, so customers can review how their information will be used if they’re unsure.

Not every pan works on every heat source. Too many people learn this the hard way, so asking for help from a chatbot like Fissler’s Cooky will help you make the right choice. The cookware company chatbot uses button options and typed inquiries to assist customers, or forward them to an available agent.

Key feature: Cooky automatically redirects users to the page of the products or information they’re looking for. There’s no need to click a link — the page opens after just a couple seconds. This is a smart way to keep customers interested while they’re in the chatbot funnel.

Bike company ROSE created an AI chatbot for their website to help customers buy and rent bikes, track orders and more. It mimics human typing speed and uses a combination of button options and conversational AI to make the conversation feel more natural.

ROSE uses chatbot provider moinAI and connects the bot to Userlike’s live chat solution to enable a bot-human handover.

Key feature: The ROSE bot is a self-learning chatbot that improves its knowledge base over time. This makes it easier to upkeep and gives your sales and service team an idea of what customers are looking for.

Marketing chatbot examples

It takes new tactics to convince the latest generations of shoppers. This is why Ohio-based clothing brand ILTHY created a marketing chatbot to grow their customer base by targeting their social media audience. The rule-based chatbot works from a pre-designed conversation flow and qualifies customers in the process.

Key feature: As a campaign boost, ILTHY offered a 10% discount to engage new customers. Their approach was a success and resulted in a 22% conversion rate increase with over 197 engagements with their bot.

Video marketing is on the rise. If you have software or products to sell, showing is often better than telling. This is a new tactic for many businesses, so Wistia uses a chatbot to make sure customers’ initial questions are covered when you visit their site.

Key feature: Wistia keeps it playful and fresh by using a dog in sunglasses as its chatbot icon. This is a super simple way to get visitors’ attention and show off your brand identity.

Lidl has a pretty solid wine selection. The affordable supermarket knows this, so the UK-based store created a chatbot to help their customers choose the right bottle for their food pairings or personal taste preferences.

Key feature: Lidl UK’s chatbot is available via Facebook Messenger so chatting is simple and convenient. Customers are familiar with the app and companies can use dynamic button options and carousels to show products.

The digital marketing brand An Artful Science demonstrates their clever marketing brains with their chatbot, Milo. Unlike other websites where chatbots are nestled into the bottom corner of the page, Milo is front and center. It even gives you an incentive to chat by offering a free gift later in the conversation.

Key feature: An Artful Science put care into their chatbot persona when designing Milo’s conversation flow. It uses clever quips and a storytelling-type concept to keep the marketing conversation going.

On beauty brand Kiehl’s German website (and perhaps others, but only the German one worked for me), you can do a chatbot skin quiz and get tailored product recommendations.

The chatbot lets you plan your skincare routine, schedule a talk with a professional or analyze your skin online.

Key feature: Kiehl’s uses one of their skin experts as the icon for their chatbot, which creates a more personal, trustworthy feel to the chat. The chatbot appears after you’ve scrolled through the page to target visitors who spend more than a few seconds on the site — which is crucial!

Userlike: Build your own AI chatbot

You’ve got the chatbot idea, we’ve got the software. Let’s make your chatbot and automation dreams a reality!

At Userlike, we’ve helped companies create chatbots for every need — finding new leads, taking common questions off their agent’s hands and showing off their latest product line.

Our AI Automation Hub is a central knowledge base that powers three highly-coveted modules: an AI chatbot, Smart FAQ and Contact Form Suggestions.

The AI chatbot pulls information from the knowledge base and can understand a variety of intents. This means customers will get accurate answers every time without having to contact your agents.

As the chatbot speaks to your customers, it improves the knowledge base and the quality of its answers over time. If it runs into an issue, it can easily forward the chat to an available agent in Userlike.

Userlike makes getting started with an AI chatbot and automation easier than it looks, so don’t hesitate to sign up for a free trial to get to know our product. If you like what you see, reach out to us in the chat on our website. We look forward to hearing from you!

Learn more about the AI Automation Hub by watching our video below: