Chatbots vs forms: Which one converts better?

When you compare chatbots vs forms, chatbots can do anything as a form but much more.

5 MIN READ | July 30, 2021

Chatbots vs forms: the eternal battle!

If forms can be used for a purpose, chatbots can replace it: data collection is as easy with chatbots as it is with forms. Chatbots are not only a great replacement for forms, they can do way better.

Chatbots succeed where forms fail. They are interactional, friendly and contrast with the long and laborious form filling. Where forms only have few purposes, chatbots come with infinite possibilities. Thus chatbots are relevant for many use cases:

sales,
lead generation,
customer support,
human resources
marketing, etc.

Also, building a chatbot is easier thanks to endless integrations and intuitive building.

Chatbots can replace forms for any use case

Forms are mostly used to:

build lists for market segmentation,
lead generation
newsletter mailings.

This simple data collection with forms can easily be replaced by chatbots. Chatbots ask the same questions and send the answers to the same databases. A subscription to a service is also possible with a short conversation on a chatbot.

Forms are the most common way to process payments on the internet. The whole payment processing traditionally made with a form can now be made with a chatbot. As they would do with a form, customers can:

order a product according to the availabilities,
ask for a certain number of products,
add remarks using a chatbot,
and fill in private information and use secure online payments with a chatbot.

Chatbots improve the traditional forms user experience

Conversational business

In the era of conversational business, chatbots perfectly succeed where forms fail. Customers want to have interactions, to feel involved in a discussion.

Forms are formal, they let customers fill in information alone with few indications. Chatbots do not work like this. They help customers step by step with particular sentences in a friendly discussion. Users will feel more involved in answering questions in a casual chat format than in an annoying form field filling. Conversational marketing with chatbots allows extra things as they:

can give additional information,
react to the users’ responses,
and, make the user feel relaxed as the discussion is going on with friendly sentences, emojis, GIFs, etc.

Step-by-step chatbots vs forms' cognitive overload

Forms are known for being annoying and generally demotivate the visitors. Visitors may refuse to give information and they even could quit the website. A page with many questions inevitably creates a cognitive overload.

Cognitive overload is when working memory receives more information than it can handle. It leads to frustration and discouragement. Data collection strategies must take this into account.

Chatbots’ conversational format is a solution. Asking questions step by step as a dialogue feels so much better for the user. They do not see many fields to fill at the beginning and will not see it as a painful form filling.

Here is a comparison between a traditional form:

And a chatbot:

Easily build and anticipate scenarios with chatbots

A huge advantage of chatbots vs forms is the way scenarios can be build to set up a great and fluent conversation.

With chatbots, it is very easy to guide data collection according to users’ responses. Yet it quickly becomes a series of conditions that never ends with forms. Conditions make forms’ creation way more complex for marketers.

Moreover, in general, form builders are not made to have many conditions. So they are poorly optimized and increase website load time. And you don’t want to extend a website load time: every second of loading highly increases its bounce rate.

Joonbot doesn’t meet these issues. Complex conditions don’t take away this precious load time. Joonbot visual interface makes them very easy to build.

Here is how you handle conditions with 123form:

Here is how to build conditions with Joonbot:

Chatbots have infinite possibilities

Traditional forms often don’t meet business needs. They are getting old and struggle with the evolution of user experience.

Chatbots as a new dynamic tool seem to have infinite possibilities. They meet any purpose thanks to interesting and seemingly infinite features.

Multiple formats chatbots

Forms generally stick to a traditional format: a poorly designed page with fields to fill.

Chatbots can do more. They can meet different purposes thanks to different formats and designs.

The classic form format can be replaced by an embedded chatbot. But chatbots also can prequalify leads and help customers with a widget format to add to the website.

The last option is the full-page format. Indeed, that allows collecting data from anywhere in seconds. No need to build a landing page!

Data processing

Chatbots offer possibilities that do not exist for forms. By means of many integrations, chatbots can go further with data processing. Chatbots’ integrations allow to:

send emails,
book meetings,
fill Google spreadsheets,
and many other actions possible with Zapier and Integromat.

And these chatbot applications are supplemented by Webhooks. Webhooks allow to send and use data from any apps in real-time, including custom databases. Webhooks offer limitless automation and possibilities like:

product recommendation in accordance with trends, stocks and more,
checking databases live to answer visitors’ requests,
or any imaginable application.

Chatbots’ most efficient use cases

Lead generation & sales chatbots vs forms

Chatbots offer interesting features to increase lead generation and sales. According to studies, chatbots increase sales by an average of 67% with 26% of them starting through a chatbot interaction. In particular, chatbots are very efficient to:

collect customer information,
qualify leads,
book product demos,
engage visitors.

Here are many chatbot templates for lead generation and sales.

Customer Support

Forms are outdated for customer support. They are not made to qualify and prioritize requests which makes customer service inefficient.

Chatbots now perform customer support because they perfectly fill the need. By qualifying and prioritizing requests, chatbots make your team more productive.

Also, chatbots help visitors quickly find answers to their questions. A FAQ chatbot can automatically answer more than 80% of customers’ questions. This way, the support team won’t need to answer redundant questions anymore which is a huge time-saver.

Human resources

Job application form filling is often an irritating process for candidates. It takes time and they may not know what to put in some fields.

But the recruitment process can be improved for the recruiter. So he can qualify these applications easier, our job application chatbot can :

replace a traditional job application form,
automate pre-qualification processes,
rank candidates with a scoring system,
and book interviews.

Marketing

In terms of marketing, chatbots give huge opportunities. Chatbots can be used as customer feedback forms to improve the service delivered. It would be an interactive and more attractive way to collect customers’ opinions.

Chatbots are also very useful for contests or giveaways. Companies ask potential customers to answer questions. Customers will only see the chance to win products. It increases the number of company’s leads and also helps for data collection.

You can have a look at an example of a trivia game template about Friends.