“What’s a chatbot?” If that is your reaction to this title, don’t feel bad. In today’s fast-paced world, it’s hard to know the meaning of every technical term. So, first, let’s define chatbot using Wikipedia’s explanation:
“A chatbot or chatterbot is a software application used to conduct an online chat conversation via text or text-to-speech. Chatbots are used in dialog systems for various purposes, including customer service, request routing, or information gathering.1.
Chatbots are a key feature of Online Giving. Our chatbot and text marketing features provide you with the tools to keep in touch quickly and easily with your members. It operates on various channels, including websites, text messaging, Facebook Messenger, Google Voice, and Alexa. Our chatbot allows for powerful text marketing and interactive conversation features. This allows you to connect with your members quickly and seamlessly for various purposes, such as baptism sign-ups, contact cards, volunteer sign-ups, salvation responses, care requests, and much more.
Why should your church consider using a chatbot? Consider these facts:
- Forty percent of millennials engage with chatbots daily (Mobile Marketer).
- Thirty-five percent of people use chatbots to resolve a complaint or problem or get detailed answers (Drift).
- Eight out of ten people who have engaged with a chatbot report it as an overall positive customer experience (Uberall).
Facts and figures might make a point, but they are not great motivators. We thought we would show you the value of our chatbot feature by sharing how one church, Northridge Church in Rochester, NY uses this feature. https://www.northridgerochester.com
We talked with Brad Files, their Online Campus Pastor, to ask about how Northridge utilizes our chatbot feature.
We started by asking Brad specifically how they used the chatbot feature. Brad said,
“We use the chatbot feature for many things. We use it weekly to allow our online campus to check-in. We will soon be using this feature for on-campus check-in as well. As the Online Campus Pastor, I don’t get to look out and see the people as I would from our church’s physical platform. Chatbot lets me know who is online and allows us to collect up-to-date contact information, so we can follow up with them.
Another key way we use the chatbot feature is by giving things away. For instance, we might give away a $5 gift card to the local ice cream store. It’s surprising the amount of response we get for things like this. The benefit for us is that we collect their information and data that we can then work to build on. The chatbot makes it easy.
We also make a lot of resources available through the chatbot. We can provide a link to the material that allows them to download it in a PDF format. We made our Annual Report available to our members this way. Since we have members from our online campus living around the country, this was especially beneficial. OG’s chatbot system has been perfect for this.”
As far as the reach of the chatbot, Brad stated, “We find there are two specific kinds of people that chatbots help us communicate with. The first are church members who are uncomfortable attending in person for whatever reason. The second group is those that have questions about spiritual matters and are looking for answers. Again, for whatever reason, they have not felt comfortable attending in person. OnlineGiving.org’s chatbot feature is perfect for helping us engage with these people.”
Often smaller churches tend to read testimonials like this and assume that only large church staff can utilize features like a chatbot. We asked Brad about this. “Well, first, let me say that I am the only online campus pastor, so like a smaller church pastor, it’s just me! This feature is something that a church of 150 could use. It gives the smaller church the same ability to engage people as large churches. OG’s system is easy to use, and we have found that they are super responsive to our needs if we have a problem or question. We have always been able to pick up the phone and get the help we need.”
Churches are often concerned about integrating their systems with their online platform. We asked Brad about his experience with OG’s system integrating with Northridge’s existing systems. “We found that OG’s system integrated well with our system. It was easy to set up, run, and seamlessly integrated with our systems. One of the great benefits of using their chatbot is the data we collect and update each time someone interacts with it,” said Brad.
Lastly, we asked if church members responded well to the chatbot. Brad said, “Yes, I think partly because it makes things extremely easy for our members. We are really grateful for what OnlineGiving.org has done for us. We’ve had a great experience working with them, and they are helping us engage with people across the country.”
These last few years have shown us the importance of keeping engaged with church members and attendees. Using our platform and chatbot feature, you can also have a similar story as Northridge Church.
For more information about chatbots and how our platform can advance generosity at your church, contact us at (615) 206-4000 or email us at support@onlinegiving.org.
The Stewardship Coach
Our Chatbot and text marketing features provide you with the tools to easily keep in touch with your members for baptism sign-ups, contact cards, volunteer sign-ups, care requests, and much more. Hear how one church is making the most of this tool!https://t.co/XccOcFTqTF pic.twitter.com/tzcYivYidp
— Online Giving (@onlinegivingorg) December 19, 2022