Jim Rowe-bot Switch to ubisend to Build Higher-end Chatbots
Jim Rowe-Bot is an agency of chatbot developers and proud ubisend partners. With over 300 chatbots under their belt, they have seen and built it all.
Before ubisend, they relied on the usual suspects: chatbot platforms that enabled them to start quickly but, ultimately, limited them in their creativity and revenue potential.
Since they've adopted ubisend, they have dug deep into the extensive capabilities of our chatbot platform to deliver bespoke, highly engaging, and results-driven chatbots. As ubisend platform power users, they have accessed the immense potential of creative chatbot building to generate more revenue for their agency.
An eye for the chatbot opportunity
While most marketing agencies are only now waking up to the chatbot opportunity, Jim Rowe-bot noticed it early on.
Our client had two goals for their chatbot. Within four weeks, the chatbot we built [on the ubisend platform] smashed both targets.
- Jim, Director at Jim Rowe-bot
Jim, director and founder at Jim Rowe-bot (now you know where the name comes from!), says, "For more than a decade, I’ve been working in digital marketing. I came across chatbots whilst working with a UK startup that needed to market to an audience that was very active on both Facebook and Messenger. At that time, I knew that Messenger-driven chatbots were becoming 'a thing' but knew very little about the technology or conversational design. As an experienced self-starter, I started reading articles and watching videos and created my first chatbot within a month. That chatbot was an immediate hit and I was hooked."
Since then, Jim and his team have been incredibly busy.
"Over the last 4 years, I’ve built more than 300 chatbots for clients that assist customers with their queries or support them along their journey to becoming a customer.
My clients are often looking to automate elements of their customer journey to provide always-on customer service or sales support. This allows them to focus expensive human resources and knowledge on activities that help their businesses to scale."
In search of the right chatbot platform
Before ubisend, Jim Rowe-bot did the usual rounds across the many chatbot platforms out there.
"It’s a wild-west out there. In the last four years, I’ve tested at least 30 different chatbot development platforms."
What eventually brought Jim and his team to ubisend was a mix of technical, creative, and support requirements. Jim says, "I was looking for a platform that would grow with my clients. It had to be:
- Cost-effective for medium and large businesses.
- Technical enough to deliver on the project but not so technical that the client can’t take full ownership of the finished product.
- Willing to listen to my and my clients' needs.
- Able to deliver outstanding support.
- Able to integrate with well-known software.
ubisend was the only platform that fulfilled all my clients’ needs. For Jim Rowe-bot, ubisend's partner programme makes perfect sense".
Exploring the features that make building a chatbot with ubisend unique
Jim dug right into the conversation builder, saying "The ubisend builder is where the real work is done and we love how we can build user-focused, and efficient chatbot conversations with ease. Conversations can have multiple, combined, or mutually exclusive triggers that start a conversation, allowing so many more ways to engage with customers in the right place at the right time."
At the same time as building conversations, Jim made sure every important piece of data would be captured.
Jim expands on this, "Capturing chatbot data within ubisend is flexible. We can choose from a huge list of metrics, sure, but also create our own. Combining custom metrics and the builder allows you to collect the data at various stages of the customer conversation, which can then be added to your dashboard."
It was primordial Jim Rowe-bot would capture the successes (and failures) of their customer's chatbot. This data would help them justify their current and future work.
Solving their customer's challenges quickly and efficiently
As soon as they became ubisend partners, Jim's team got to work. Their first client needed a chatbot to solve the immense manual work of their customer service team:
"Our first client to use the ubisend product delivers more than 5,000 virtual events, in 55 countries each year. Their problem was similar to many e-commerce businesses that are experiencing rapid growth. Email as a communications channel for thousands of conversations each week is just not scalable. Using Email is slow, repetitive and expensive to manage."
They had two goals for this first chatbot:
- Reduce the cost of managing customer conversations by 25% within 12 weeks of going live.
- Deliver consistent and accurate automated message responses during all four stages of the customer journey.
As Jim and his team got to work, they set out to build what he likes to call an 'MVB', or a minimum viable bot. "What do we need to launch now that will give us the most benefit from the chatbot in the shortest time possible?", Jim asks. "What has surprised me is how little I needed to know about the platform to begin building and how powerful it is when I want to achieve more for my clients. Using the FAQs we were able to very quickly build an intelligent product that continues to learn."
Delivering results and looking to the future
Jim's MVB approach and careful consideration for building excellent conversational software evidently paid off.
"Within just 4 weeks of launch, the chatbot had smashed both targets. By 12 weeks we had achieved 51% of messages answered without a human resource requirement, and this upward trend continues.
The third most commonly used FAQ is our automated response to customers saying 'Thank you'. Even though they are aware they are talking to a chatbot, they feel sufficiently serviced that they thanked a chatbot. Pretty astonishing!"
As is usually the case when launching a chatbot, more opportunities opened up for Jim and their first customer. Jim says "Since launch, as more possibilities present themselves we have taken an iterative approach. Exploring opportunities that came apparent during the build and others that appear as the chatbot collects more data and becomes more intelligent."
Creating a long-lasting and impactful partnership
The ubisend platform offers partners a clear competitive advantage, Jim says "The most important aspect of our partnership is that we are now able to offer our clients a product that can help them scale their businesses quickly. The ability to offer an intelligent chatbot product coupled with live chat and ticketing makes ubisend an absolute conversational powerhouse.".
At ubisend we pride ourselves on delivering more than a chatbot platform. Our partner programme is aimed at building strategic, long-lasting, and impactful partnerships with incredible companies worldwide. Why? Jim puts it perfectly:
"As a partner, you are often looking for much more than just technical support. We also need sales support, advice on ethical implementation, how to develop metrics that inform the client, how best to handle difficult customer questions and so much more.
There are so many companies claiming to offer partner support but often talk the talk but fail to walk the walk. ubisend value their partners and the real-world experience they bring with them. A good partner is there when you need them. ubisend have been there for us."
Armed with the excellent ubisend platform, their unique conversational design skills, and our support, Jim Rowe-bot have an exciting road ahead.
"After working with so many businesses across so many sectors we have found a couple of opportunities we would like to explore further. We see many franchise businesses can struggle with managing customer conversations."
"The next sector we feel can benefit the most from automating their customer conversations is venues. For example, we have a client with ten venues. They have to manage several different email inboxes and Messenger accounts across several teams. Their customers’ behaviour has changed with messaging as the dominant communication channel and they need to provide the best service they can. For businesses with large or multiple sites, ubisend can be a game-changer."
We're extremely excited to count Jim Rowe-bot as one of our partners. The quality of the work they have delivered on their first client has been impressive. If you are a venue looking for chatbot automation, consider reaching out to them.
Jim Rowe-bot's chatbot tips
We like to end partner case studies by opening the floor to our partner, for anything they'd like to add. Staying true to his helpful self, Jim offered some valuable chatbot tips for future partners.
"From analysing our clients’ conversational data it’s clear that a well-planned and effectively delivered chatbot project can help customers get the service they deserve. In an ideal world, it would be a human-to-human conversation every time. The reality is that resourcing is expensive and difficult to manage. A good chatbot will do the heavy lifting so that businesses can focus on handling the more complicated conversations using talented human resources."
"There’s a reason one of the most commonly triggered chatbot FAQ’s we see is “Thank you’. Even though they know they are messaging a chatbot! Our clients’ customers feel sufficiently well serviced that they need to say thank you! That’s when you know you’ve delivered a world-class product on a world-class platform."
