Chatbots vs Agents: Who Converts More?

Speaker A: Heavyweight battles require two things. An incumbent and a newcomer. Fans are pitted against one another, half wanting to see more of the same, the other half cheering for change. So what happens when we put modern marketing technology in the same ring? It might not be Ali versus Frasier, but in the end, I have a feeling you'll be out of your chair, and I'll ask that you stay standing as we immerse ourselves in an album and an artist who punches well above her weight class.

Speaker B: Foreign.

Speaker A: Welcome back, viewers and listeners of the program. On the Record here back for our fifth episode of the third season, we're making some headway. Talked a lot about AI and AI this and AI that in data. A lot of data, my friends here. And we're gonna talk a little bit more about that today. But we're gonna take a slight pivot into a different direction. Much to do with chatbots and lead agents. Who's winning? Who converts more? What excites us about the future, perhaps. Uh, but as we do always, we like to introduce a piece of music that correlates. You tell me. It's Bjork. It's Bjork. It's Bjork. All right, America. It's Bjork for us, perhaps. But the record goes by the title of homogenic, and it's a radical record. Is anything that Bjork does, Uh, I mean, look at the album cover. That says enough in itself. Right? Um, it's pretty radical. You've done a fine job thus far in this season tying these things together. Agents, chatbots, who converts more. And then this thing. How does it all pull together?

Speaker B: Yeah, well, uh, when we were looking at the topic, this, uh, record stood out because what she was trying to do was take the electronic, this kind of like UK house inspired sound and make it feel organic.

Speaker C: All these accidents that happen, follow the dots. Coincidence. Makes sense. Only with you.

Speaker B: She was trying to recreate the Icelandic, um, environment, countryside, volcanoes. Right? So she's trying to recreate all of that through the beats. Um, and then she pairs this, like, heavy electronic sound with the Brodsky Quartet, Right? And so you've got this very. These strings that flow through the whole album. It's not very well. It's not danceable at all.

Speaker D: Um, Is that a new rating now? Is the album danceable?

Speaker B: Well, you know, because she was inspired by this, like, heavy dance culture, and that's kind of where she came from, um, on her first two albums. And then here she's starting to depart, um, and we hear a little bit more of that Songwriting, the artistry, uh, come through

Speaker C: if travel is searching and home what's been found.

Speaker B: But what I liked about it was, you know, with AI chatbots, we're trying to recreate this human experience. We're trying to make it so that we can scale ourselves so that we don't have to physically have every conversation or have someone on our team have every conversation, but we're able to get the customer the information that they need. And so in very the same way, we're trying to take computers and make them sound organic.

Speaker A: Yeah, very well said. Stas, what did you take away from your listens of this record?

Speaker D: This one was quite different than MF Doom, I'll say that. I mean, maybe that goes without saying. Um, I was really surprised. I didn't know anything. I mean, I heard the name, um, but I had no idea what to expect. So when I was listening to it, I was like, oh, and I will be. I did listen to the MF Doom album right before that. So a very big difference. I, I. Now, as you were describing all that, I'm like, oh, like, I probably should have maybe connect. Read that before. And then I would have gone and gotten it. I was more curious on. I couldn't keep up with like, kind of the story, like, throughout because I would just zone, like, I'd zone out. Like, I don't, you know, and then I'm like, oh, gosh, I need to like, listen, listen again. You know. But it was just kind of like, lets you just kind of drift away. And I think that's a good thing. It's definitely not danceable, but, you know, that was kind of how I found myself. I was like, oh, gosh, no, listen, pay attention. But, um, uh, I don't know, maybe that's what she's going for.

Speaker B: I think it was kind of that trip through the countryside, and it was almost like taking a walk with her through that environment. And she really. I felt like she brought Iceland to life through the record. And you can kind of, you can feel the land there, which I found a fascinating challenge to take up as an artist. Uh, but something that the COVID doesn't even really, I don't think properly express the, the sound, but that's a whole nother aspect of her artistry. Um, was. Was these kind of extravagant pieces. Um, but yeah, the, the record as a, As a whole, it is kind of like a, uh, it's, it's a jo. And I don't think you need to be tuned in the whole time to really enjoy it.

Speaker A: She's obviously at her best when she pairs visuals with the music. Like you said, you find yourself drifting off if there was a visual or a video to watch. With every song on the record, I think it even becomes more powerful. The few videos that she does have are pretty radical. One leverages a ton of CGI and actually, like you said, shows mother nurture. Kind of going through these transformative, uh, I don't know, what do you want? Progressions, if you will. It's captivating. It's always hard to get to the exact meaning because she's quite abstract in a lot of her stuff. But if you listen closely, you watch closely enough, it does start to come to life. So I thought it was well done, but I think a video per song, which is impossible in that day and age, would have been really, really incredible. Because she's a multimedia artist, we think of her as a vocalist, a singer, a performer, but you can tell she goes well beyond that, at least from her own eyes.

Speaker B: Absolutely.

Speaker A: I thought the tonality of this record was really interesting. It's on the heels of some really traumatic events in her life that were kind of tempting her to walk away from fame because she had had experiences that were involving her family members, people that were approaching her when it wasn't necessarily okay to approach her. And she took that, and you could feel some of the ferocity and almost some of the angst and the tension from her because she was tussling with fame. Did it make sense for her and her loved ones at that point in time? So a really interesting contrast of the beautiful, serenading countryside vision, like you said, but also against some of these things that are quite tough to deal with as a human being. So we'll talk about how humans and all these things kind of interact as well. It's really cool stuff. All right, we're here to talk about chatbots and agents and again, who converts more, who wins more. But why? So let's start by just kind of identifying. Chatbots have been great to us for many years. Many a marketer has benefited from us. But what are some of the common frustrations and limitations of chatbots that have led us to a world that looks more like a lead agent?

Speaker B: Yeah. So I think chatbots are really good at regurgitating, uh, information back. And I think we've all had that experience where we're trying to get support, and it's just pulling up the FAQ article, uh, that you already found when you Googled it the first time, and then it's like, do you want more help and you kind of feel like you reach a dead end pretty quickly. Uh, but what we're seeing is as that evolves, that these agents can become smarter, they can actually have a goal. And one of the things that we've been working on is how can that goal be lead collection? So not just regurgitating information, but actually drawing the user to a conversion.

Speaker A: Makes great sense.

Speaker D: Yeah. I think the part that really resonates with me is kind of what you were talking about, that personalization of not just, uh, interactive FAQ anymore. It's if I want to know, I can talk to it. I love to chat. I hate calling in, I hate emailing, I hate filling out a form. It seems so old school. And so now to be able to just say in my own words in my third grade level vocabulary, ask what I want or like, start to explore, and then it actually understands. It can kind of. And I feel like we're interacting a little bit more and that I am more hopeful or I trust more that I'm going to get an actual response, not just thank you for the very robotic. Um, I just, Because I don't feel that robotic, I just automatically feel more like trustworthy, I guess, in this agent kind of experience.

Speaker A: So for marketers that aren't privy to it, how are we training these agents to perform that personalized experience? Maybe you guys could talk a little bit about that. What are we feeding into the agent to outcome or output these wonderful personalized experiences?

Speaker D: Yeah, so I think, uh, my favorite is you can almost give your agent a personality. So, um, you know, maybe western is the theme, Cowboy. You know, for some that's the move. Um, and I kind of like that, again, giving that more personal touch, um, to it. So I think that's a different one. Again, different than a chatbot. And that really can make a difference. Um, so not only the personality, but then, uh, the kind of intention or the goal, like you were saying, like we were doing for ours, is we're all about leads. So, um, how can we get the agent to be persistent about leads? Not necessarily. Um, oh, yes, we are open from 9 to 5, Monday through Friday. But more of providing the answer, but then also being like, hey, they'll try to get their input, get their email. And so having that personality with that overall goal of I'm here to collect leads, I think is really important.

Speaker A: Yeah. Can you advance it even further, Michael, just how we're training these leadbots to be wildly intelligent against a driven goal?

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, a lot of it is similar. Right. In the information that we're feeding it, but we're trying to make it more conversational. Correct. Um, there is a different sales process than when you're providing customer support, or a different process, I should say, than when you're providing customer support than when you're trying to qualify a lead. So you can actually start to train these bots to qualify a lead for you and collect the right information that you need. And so when we're looking at, uh, you mentioned a stat right before this that was, um, while marketing teams are sending the majority of the leads to, uh, a sales team. But 27% were qualified.

Speaker D: Yeah. Of this, yeah, 63% that they are sending over the B2B, 27% were not.

Speaker A: Time lost, time wasted.

Speaker B: Right. So now you've got your team actually spending time on these leads. So with these bots, every company knows that, uh, their customers have a certain problem that they can solve. And if they don't have that, well then maybe we don't need to go sell them because they're not ready for a solution yet. So these bots can actually start to pre qualify for you so that you're using that human time, that sales time, way more effectively. And so it's not just a one way conversation where in most support bots you're asking it a question, it's giving you a response. Do you have another question? Is the next person prompt? Uh, we're actually trying to lead the customer down the sales cycle to see will you be a good customer for us? Are we actually a good fit for you? And if so, let's get you in front of the right person. Um, rather than let's get everyone stuffed through a sales process, even if they're not ready, if they're not ready yet, maybe there's something else you do with them. Maybe there's some nurturing sequence that you put them into. Maybe there's other information that softer sell that you're getting in front of them.

Speaker A: Correct.

Speaker B: You can now have a decision tree that helps you better get the customer to where they are and meet them on their journey. And these chatbots are opening up that capability for us.

Speaker A: So like you were to jump in here?

Speaker D: Yeah, I was gonna say going off that. And that's what, um, B2B, especially B2B buyers expect. I was just reading a study that like 78% of B2B buyers expect a personalized journey.

Speaker A: Yep, they do.

Speaker D: And if they don't, they're pissed. Right. And so it also is kind of meeting Them where they're at. Um, I like as a B2B, I expect that. So. So not only is it good on the business side, but as a consumer as well, that is what I want. It's kind of like a win win, which is kind of rare these days. It's tough, but it's fine. It's like, yep, that's what I want. That's what you want. Great. Yeah.

Speaker A: Yeah, I love that. All right. LeadPages has been like a preeminent landing page solution for the longest of time. We understand conversion optimization is as good as anybody. I'd like to think. There's always been this myth that how dare you distract from a single call to action on a page? So you got a form. How dare you put a lead agent on there? You're going to erode at conversion rate. I want to debunk that myth right now, because the modern buyer, I think, isn't the one that we used to adhere to with how dare you distract them? We're talking about an additive experience, it sounds like. And maybe, Michael, I'll start with you and just, uh, kind of just debunking this.

Speaker B: Yeah. Well, I think we build a landing page to answer the customer questions. Right. We're trying to tell them what is the solution that we offer? Why are they here, and what can we do for them. We're identifying their problem, but it's hard to do that and answer every single question that a client could have on a single landing page and make sure that the information is ordered specifically to that person based on their order of qualification. Right. And so landing pages, ah, as dynamic as we can make them, we'll never be able to know what is the visitor thinking? What is the one question that if we answered, they would convert. Right. And so what, um, the agents allow us to do now is to figure out what is that question? What do they want to know before they give their email or any other information? What do they need to know about our service? And a landing page can answer maybe one or two of those within a scroll, but a lead agent, uh, can then anything that is on the customer's mind, it can have an instant answer for. And I think that's important.

Speaker A: Yeah. Can you fan the flames further, please?

Speaker D: Yeah, I was gonna say shortens the time, though, too. Right. Um, so before agents, we could find that information by, okay, I go to the landing page, I need to know more. And then maybe depending upon attribution in your cookie and pixel and all those things, no one wants to really talk about, um, you can determine, oh, she looked at this page and this page and this page. Um, and then follow the journey. That's just one person where. And then. So making me, the consumer, click all over. Then as the marketer, making sure your attribution is really tight and able to find the journey, whereas an agent cuts almost all of that out. It's instant. I don't have to click seven times and I can just go, ch, ch, ch. And that's actually more natural to me these days. Chatting versus actually going and finding.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker D: ChatGPT. It's convenient. It's chatting versus googling, where you have to then go scroll and try to find your answer. It's kind of the same idea.

Speaker A: That's instant gratification. We're moving towards a society that certainly puts an index on that side of the coin. So why not provide that to them in return? Absolutely. Now, I'm guessing with lead agents, there's gonna be some metrics. We're talking about data this whole season, by the way, so get used to it if you're not already, uh, bored of it. But there must be some new metrics that might crop up that we're gonna look at. At the agent level, there's these micro interactions. How many chats does it take to get a person to do a thing or something like that? Are there things you guys are putting a pin in and saying, hey, people, use a lead agent, for instance. Be aware of this. Anything that comes to mind.

Speaker D: I'm not sure how I would describe to me it's, uh, the time or how you. Or maybe if it's not time, it's the number of interactions. Um, I think that that can be telling because if it's. Let's just say if it's 10 minutes to 10 seconds, um, it's like, wow, they really needed a lot more information. Like, maybe this landing page isn't doing enough, or maybe this isn't the right route, or maybe we're targeting the wrong person. Or if it's 10 seconds, it's like, oh, it was just a quick little thing, no big deal. This all still works. So I think the time in which they're interacting or how many times I think can be telling from a marketing standpoint of like, how is the content? How is the journey going? Is it right?

Speaker A: Yeah. I love that. Anything you could add to that pile of message?

Speaker B: I think it is that, like, time to lead or time to resolution. Um, although I don't know if we're trying to get to zero. Right. Because There is a qualification that people want to go through, so it could also be, you know, it's obviously the conversion rate. Right. So how many people are visiting, how many people are interacting with your agent versus just the page and then what is the conversion rate of both? So is the agent actually adding to that experience in a positive way? Um, and what we're seeing is yes. Right. Um, the customer journey isn't as, uh, singular as we wish it would be. Um, and we can see that in all of our funnels is like people are visiting all types of pages to gather different pieces of information. What we're hoping to see is can the bot answer some of those questions and then get them to the right place? Do they need to talk to a human to make this sale? Some people prefer that. Right. They want to get in front of ah, a physical sales agent. Right. Other people, maybe they just need to qualify questions know like, do you have these deep integrations? Xyz, I got my checks, now I will go start my free trial. So I think each buyer journey really is unique. Um, and what we're hoping is that these agents allow us to meet our customers better where they are.

Speaker A: Absolutely. Now their lead agents have been around for a little bit, but LeadPages has actually built their own version of this. And one of the advantages I see with the product development that's soon to hit market is the user experience. Many of these chatbots or agents are the most easily clickoutable window on the website. You see them pop up, you're like, God, get it out of here. But leadpage has made a concerted investment to make sure that the design wouldn't feel like an invasive experience. So when you plop it on your landing page, your webpage, it's actually an addition to your branding capabilities. And you're a design guy. I have to just kind of go through the process of what led to this very beautiful ux, you know, ui, excuse me, and then form that ux. But like take us through it.

Speaker B: Yeah, we were trying to make it feel like how do you make a website compared to life? And that's, I think we have these fairly static assets. Um, how do we make them more interactive? Right. How do we get you to the parts uh, of the page that are most important. I think what the agent allows you to do is kind of bring that to life so you can be answering questions as they're scrolling, as things are coming up. Um, it's designed to look like an extension of the page, not something that's sitting on Top of it. Um, and hopefully what we wanted was this. To feel alive. Right. We wanted it to feel like you were. Like there was this entity here that had the answers and that you could easily interact with.

Speaker A: I love that. Stacey. You've been around it, very close to it.

Speaker D: And it's also a, ah, visual, um, differentiation between a chatbot. Right. Everyone's used to the chatbot, uh, the blue bubble, or whatever it is about

Speaker A: the box, the structure.

Speaker D: Yes, exactly. You used to draw them all the time when you're young. All right, that's a chatbot. But this is. It's also a visual cue of. It's not just a chatbot. Again, the trust. It looks different, it feels different, it's interacting different. And so I think, again, there's just some slight subtleties that kind of nod to kind of what you were just talking about.

Speaker A: The subtle animations that are there. I mean, kind of the gradiated experience, as opposed to this fixed UI box, which is just. It feels antiquated nowadays. I think there's a really incredible experience for those that plop this on their pages, like, holy cow, my page got better. Not just because of its performance, but its aesthetic as well, which I think does win out at the end of the day as well.

Speaker B: Yeah, I appreciate that.

Speaker D: Yeah, I think, too. The other thing, if we even back up further, is everyone knows that it's getting more and more expensive for marketing, just in general. Right. And so each, uh, lead or each person that you lose on a page, like your roi, like, all that kind of stuff is getting worse. And so just having another chat is not a chat bot, but like an agent on. There's just another way to try to capitalize on that conversion. Like, that's kind of the world we live in. It's almost like, is it. If it's not hurting, like, it could help you get more. Like, why not? The world's changing. Everyone says, want something different. Costs are rising. If this, you know, can help you save a little bit there too. I mean, every little bit counts.

Speaker B: Well, you had said that was it. 75% of customers choose the company that responds to their inquiry first.

Speaker D: Yep.

Speaker B: Right. Because you're starting to build a rapport. What a better way than to make that accessible from the first touch point? Right. Rather than waiting for the lead to go through your funnel to then hit your CRM and then someone picks it up, uh, you may have already lost the opportunity to engage them. Why not start that conversation in the first touch point? And I think we're gonna See that become even more and more important is that speed. This is the next iteration of speed. Uh, where it used to take like seven years, days to follow up on a lead. Now we're down to like, you know, maybe 24 hours. Sometimes I get a call, uh, in 15 minutes, but now we could be down to seconds.

Speaker A: It's great. Again, an instant gratification in that kind of, that immediate feedback is so powerful.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: I was going to ask you both to place your salesperson hat on to take that through. Give me an agent versus a chatbot. You just did it with that data drop there, Stace. If you had a way of convincing people that have chatbots to make the transformation into a lead agent, what would it be?

Speaker D: To be honest, I think it's a, uh, go try it yourself. You'll see how easy it is and you'll see the difference right away that me convincing isn't gonna. When you can just go and figure out in five minutes, um, agents aren't this super. Oh, my gosh, I don't get it. I need all these engineers to help me and all that kind of stuff. The ease of use and the responses and things like that that you get. You can try it out for five minutes and just compare it to your experience building it and then interacting with it. I think that's all you need. Like trying it yourself. It's one of those diy. Yeah.

Speaker A: And marketers from multiple disciplines. This is a low code, no code environment. Right. You can run these things at the flagpole, test them, and see what comes back in the way of conversion data, interaction data, and so on and so forth. So it's accessibility once again, you guys are providing and that's an exciting time for all.

Speaker B: I think it's passive versus active. That's really what we're looking at. Right. The chat bots are passive. Uh, you're not going to be collecting leads, you're not going to be qualifying. Uh, they'll be passively answering questions as they come in versus, uh, an agent that is designed to qualify and collect that information. So I think in, uh, terms of performance, we have a very generalized kind of use case for those chatbots. I think if you want an active, uh, agent working on your behalf, that's when you're looking at something like lead agent.

Speaker A: And it's hard to believe that lead agent won't win out at the end of the day, as far as performance, just nuts to soup kind of thing, it's going to be a pretty easy comparison. And I think that people will see that benefit quite quickly. So, exciting times.

Speaker B: Absolutely.

Speaker A: Very exciting times. And Bjork, she took us along for the journey today. I can't believe I'm using Bjork as it appears to.

Speaker B: Bjork, you just say Bjork.

Speaker A: I'm throwing off. I even am stumbling over my own words now because I'm confused. But nice little spotlight today. I thought it was a really interesting record, this idea of personalized experiences. She gives us a bit of that. Yes, these lead agents do as well. Stacey, you brought the value as you always do. Our trousers match. So we were in lockstep today. I like trouser pants. Is boring. Uh, but again, wonderful conversation, the three of you. The three of us always seem to find a way to have some fun along the way and drop some knowledge. So thank you both. Sam.