In the world of high-stakes B2C sales, the perennial challenge of no-shows during crucial meetings has long been a pain point for sales professionals. Imagine the anticipation and preparation for a pivotal meeting, only to face the deafening silence of a no-show. This scenario is not just a time sink but a tangible drain on productivity and revenue potential. 

However, fear not! When used correctly, modern technology offers many untapped opportunities to give yourself the best chance to succeed. This article provides a peek into one of such "wells” not only by showcasing the potential of a WhatsApp AI-powered chatbot but also by outlining how you can build one yourself. Just imagine: A digital ally specifically engineered to counter the chronic issue of no-shows!

We will use a real estate use case as our focal learning example to avoid vagueness. In other words, we will demonstrate how to create a tailor-made chatbot designed to arm real estate agents with the tools needed to minimize the heartache of missed appointments.

Why Use a Generative AI Bot?

Firstly, let’s address the artificial elephant in the room. Why go with a generative AI chatbot? 

Isn’t that a bit of a gamble? 

Well, not so much a gamble as an inevitability. Generative AI is proving to be that powerful! In fact, according to a report by Gartner, by the year 2025, 75% of Sales organizations are predicted to enrich traditional sales playbooks with AI-guided selling solutions. Similarly, a McKinsey report showed that business leaders anticipate Generative AI will substantially influence various use cases, with marketing and sales at the lead.

Thus, when it comes to mitigating no-shows, deploying a Generative AI bot is akin to scoring a powerful ally. Generative AI bots are sophisticated and good enough at mirroring human interactions that the conversation has a natural feel. Given just the right prompt, they excel in engaging prospects in meaningful, contextually relevant chat while collecting valuable data that can aid you in lead management.

Why Opt for WhatsApp?

WhatsApp emerges as the battleground (channel) of choice for waging the war against no-shows. 

Why is that? To follow the lead of your chosen use case, real estate agents often turn to WhatsApp because it’s a messaging platform they and their prospects are familiar with. After all, it’s the most popular messaging channel globally, with 2 billion monthly active users. That’s significantly more than any other app on the market, which gives using WhatsApp for sales higher chances of success than any other messaging app. Moreover, the constant effort on the part of META makes WhatsApp automation as business-friendly as possible year after year.

Besides all that, its allure lies in its ubiquity as well as its arsenal of communication features. Asynchronous communication is the crown jewel—a feature that allows conversations to flow organically without the pressure of instant responses on the part of the lead/customer. This freedom to engage at one’s own pace fosters a relaxed and natural dialogue.

The gift of everpresent conversational history is another gem in WhatsApp’s crown, ensuring seamless interaction continuity. This treasure trove of past conversations allows agents to pick up discussions right where they left off, preserving the context and nurturing relationships. This simple fact fortifies the retention of crucial lead information and qualification scores, preventing them from getting lost in the digital abyss. Gentle nudges in the form of reminders or follow-ups become effortless, ensuring your messages stay within the immediate grasp of your prospects.

How to Build a WhatsApp Scheduling Assistant (for Real Estate)

Part 1: Preparing the Groundwork

Before jumping into the tech part of building your chatbot wizard, laying down a solid groundwork is imperative. Get started by diligently documenting your lead management process. 

1. Crystallize Your Objectives

In our case, the primary objective is to maximize property viewings and convert leads into successful showings. Hence, to further crystallize this goal, consider setting sub-objectives, such as increasing the number of qualified leads and boosting conversion rates from viewings to successful sales or rentals.

Expanding on this, clearly define what constitutes a qualified lead. Is it merely attendance, or does it involve a specific set of metrics that could have been determined prior to the viewing? After all, if a lead is not qualified, the possibility of a no-show is higher by default. 

2. Identify Your Target Audience Segments

Understanding your audience is pivotal. Professionals working in real estate can consider categorizing based on demographics (such as age, family status, location, and income), preferences (property type, budget range, amenities desired), and behavioral patterns (engagement with previous property listings, frequency of inquiries). 

3. Establish Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

In the case of a real estate agent or a company, metrics such as the number of scheduled appointments, the ratio of expected appointments to attended viewings, and the conversion rate from viewings to sales or rentals are vital indicators.

4. Chart the Entry Points into Your WhatsApp Chatbot Ecosystem

Entry points are, quite simply, CTAs that serve as virtual portals your leads use to enter your WhatsApp channel. These entry points could be anything from Facebook and Instagram ads to innovative real-world tactics like strategically placed QR codes on property listings or physical locations like benches or billboards. 

These objectives act as guiding stars for the chatbot. Clarifying your stance and expectations regarding the above four points will be invaluable when training your Generative AI WhatsApp assistant. You will be able to script chatbot questions with clarity and purpose. From understanding preferences regarding property types and locations to delving into budget constraints and timelines, these questions will sculpt an engaging and personalized interaction strategy. 

Remember, your AI chatbot is only ever as intelligent as the prompts you used to train them. Going through this exercise, you will know what information you need to collect so the bot can quickly qualify the lead before the scheduling takes place and, perhaps, offer an alternative nurture path if it's clear the prospect is not ready, and the no-show risk is too high. 

Part 2: Building a Scheduling Assistant that Boosts Show Rates with Landbot

If you're unfamiliar with Landbot, it is a user-friendly tool for creating chatbots, suitable for tech novices and programmers alike. It allows you to build various types of assistants using a straightforward visual interface, from simple rule-based ones to AI-powered models.

To give you an idea, crafting a bot inside Landbot app is akin to playing with virtual LEGO blocks. If you are curious, check out the Landbot Academy, which is filled top to bottom with concise video tutorials and practical courses to understand its workings. Here is a peek: 

1. Train Your AI Bot

To start creating your show-rate magician, access the Landbot app. On the home page, click to start creating your bot on WhatsApp:

You’ll be presented with three options: have your bot built by us, built its from scratch yourself, or use a template. 

For the purpose of this demonstration, we’ll choose the “from scratch” option and be redirected to the builder:

To start building your scheduling bot, click on the “AI Lead Gen Assistant” feature. This is a Generative AI-powered block that can be configured without having to use any code at all. 

An editor will appear on the left side. 

The top section offers you, once again, a quick template that will present you with some pre-set questions and variables. But, we will proceed directly to the “Define your Smart Questions” section.

As you can see, you are presented with a Question field and a Variable field. Use the questions you identified in Part 1 to populate it. The bot will use these questions as prompts—a guide around which to build the conversation with the possible lead. The variables will act as “folders” where to bot will save the answer to each prescribed question. 

You can add as many smart questions as you find necessary.

After you are done, proceed to the next section, “Define Your Assistant’s Settings.”

Once you expand it, you will see several different fields: 

• Customise welcome message (How do you want your bot to jump into questioning?)
• Summarize company offering (This serves to give your bot a bit of context, who is it representing?)
• Provide information to answer FAQs (What are the questions people like to ask before commiting to viewing or a meeting? Feel free to copy paste here any information your prospect might require)
• Goodbye message (What should the bot say, if anything, when it’s done?)

When done with this part, scroll down further and fill in the few final sections: 

• Your company’s name
• The name you want to call your AI assistant 
• Space to personalize your conversation (Here is the space and place to give your bot any other additional information it needs to be the perfect representative of your business. You can include prompts to guide the bot's tone of voice, and level of formality as well as further reiterate its goal.)

Make sure to press “APPLY” when you are done. 

2. Score Potential Buyers

Having trained your bot, you can proceed to score the information so you can understand the needs of your prospect a bit better. Within Landbot, there are multiple ways you can go about lead scoring:

• Conditional Logic 
• The Lead Scoring Block
• Formulas

All of the above are the building blocks within Landbot. We dove into how to use them in our Lead Scoring Best Practices Guide. However, you can always visit the Landbot Academy and learn from videos like the one below:

Scoring your leads automatically, in real-time, allows you to adjust their buyer journey on the go. Based on their answers, you can lead them to book the viewing, invite them to an orientational meeting, or a workshop, or provide them with some educational content instead. This ensures people who do book the meetings are offered the maximum value that is relevant to them at that particular stage in their journey. By default, prospects who proceed to the meeting/viewing stage, are more likely to show up, and the meeting is likely to be more productive. 

3. Export data to your CRM

You have the data, and you have the scores. What now? 

While your bot does save all the user answers inside the app, it’s more comfortable to work with a system or database you and your colleagues/employees are familiar with. That’s why, within the Landbot builder, you are able to—relatively quickly and easily— set up system integrations, whether they are as simple as Google Sheets or something more complex like Salesforce or others. 

These native integrations allow you to export collected data and ensure no information is lost. 

4. Book a Meeting (or Send them Down Another Path)

After you score your leads and export the data to your central CRM, you can personalize your prospects’ experiences on the go. 

Unqualified prospects can be sent on a path to receive more content or further guidance. Qualified ones can jump into booking that meeting, while—if you wish—your bot can send the HOT ones to a direct chat with you! 

5. Set up Meeting Reminders with WhatsApp Campaigns

However, the very best part of hosting your Generative AI scheduling assistant on WhatsApp channel, is your ability to follow up and have that follow-up delivered and read just as swiftly. 

Yes, the bot allows you to collect the information you need, BUT once the channel is open, you are free to send prospects who opted in to WhatsApp customized campaigns such as viewing reminders or invites to any other future events like open houses.

Once again, you can learn all you need to know about the WhatsApp campaign at the Landbot Academy. Here is a sneak peek: 

Conclusion

In the competitive world of B2C sales, combating no-shows remains a persistent challenge. However, armed with a tailored WhatsApp-powered chatbot, you have the potential to significantly enhance show rates. This article provided insights into creating a chatbot specifically designed to minimize missed appointments, particularly in the real estate domain. Leveraging Landbot’s user-friendly platform, one can construct an AI-driven assistant adept at engaging leads and guiding them toward successful interactions. By streamlining the process of appointment scheduling and nurturing leads effectively, this tool offers a tangible solution to a longstanding problem.

Ready to revolutionize your approach to show rates? Landbot offers a straightforward pathway to crafting your personalized WhatsApp chatbot wizard. Seize the opportunity to elevate your sales interactions by leveraging technology and empathy. 

Cheers to embracing innovation and forging ahead toward a future where no-shows become a thing of the past!