From answering multiple questions of consumers to lead generation to guide users across the website, there are more than enough chatbot applications for businesses. The advancements in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and natural language processing have made chatbots become a powerful tool for businesses, especially in the area of customer service, the key currency for businesses. According to a report by ResearchandMarkets.com the global chatbot market size is projected to grow from US$2.6 billion in 2019 to US$9.4 billion in 2024 at a CAGR of 29.7% with e-commerce, retail, and banking being the biggest beneficiaries. The key drivers behind this growth are advancements in technology, 24/7 assistance, and an increase in self-service demands from customers.

Businesses preparing for a post-COVID world should look at adopting chatbot solutions. Chatbots are bringing businesses closer to their customers, providing operational efficiency, enhanced customer experience, and even increased sales. Let’s take a closer look at the revolutionary AI application and how businesses can make the best use of it as an ally (or not).

What are chatbots?

Chatbots, derived from the words “chat” and “robot” is a computer application that is designed to converse with humans over the internet.  Chatbots are one of the most important AI inventions in recent years. Chatbots are coming in handy for several reasons, such as customer service, lead generation, data capturing, and even for guiding users through the website. As chatbots can streamline conversations between customers and the brand/organization, chatbots are often the more preferred solution, not only for organizations, but even for customers as they get immediate responses, rather than having to wait for a human operator to respond to them.

Why are chatbots essential for businesses?

Chatbots provide important benefits to businesses that cannot be overlooked. The increasing number of uses of chatbots makes chatbots essential for businesses.

• Scale-up Operations:

Chatbots have the ability to handle and respond to thousands of queries at the same time and can work 24/7. Humans, on the other hand, do not come with the same speed, aligily and accuracy in resolving customer queries.

• Enhanced Customer Experience:

Customers today want an instant resolution to their queries with a delightful experience. As chatbots have the ability to deliver both, chatbots are important in customer-driven business.

• Marketing:

Chatbots provide an interactive user experience. Right from recommending the right products to getting books on social media platforms, chatbots are an all-in-one solution for businesses.

• Enhanced Employee Experience:

Chatbot automation is a perfect solution for repetitive and mundane tasks like data collection, responding to routine requests, and the like, freeing up time for employees to concentrate on more important tasks.

• Improved Response Rate:

If your business gets a lot of queries, there are chances that human operators might miss out on queries or might attend the query late, resulting in disappointing customer experience. However,

chatbots do not suffer from this kind of limitation. Chatbots can answer millions of queries at the same time without missing a single query.

Types of Chatbots

Currently, there are two types of chatbots available in the market. These differ in their cost, technology, interpretive skills, and implementation timelines.

Command-based chatbots: 

These chatbots work according to the “if/then” rule. The bots understand the context of the query and provide a standard reply which is stored in the databank. These chatbots cannot understand queries that are outside the scope of their code. A popular question that regularly pops up is “what happens if the chatbot doesn’t know how to respond?” If the chatbot cannot respond, a human operator is notified and the operator intervenes in such situations. The chatbots are particularly useful in cases where chatbots are meant to answer questions that are repetitive in nature. These bots are simple, inexpensive, and easy to implement.

AI-based chatbots:

These chatbots are slowly becoming more and more popular. AI-Chatbot based learning solutions have been implemented by schools globally to cater to the learning needs of their students. These chatbots have the ability to answer questions that are vague in nature. These bots understand the nature of the query with the help of natural language processing and respond back by creating answers from scratch. The solutions slowly understand the different types of queries according to analysis of human interactions over time  and start creating answers accordingly.These solutions are useful in situations where there are a lot of customer queries.

Real-world example of a business using chatbot application

Lead generation has always been a problem for businesses since time immemorial. People are reluctant to fill lead generation forms and are even more hesitant to open cold emails. However, Drift bot, a chatbot developed by Drift has shown the way ahead. RapidMiner, a data science software platform, replaced all of its lead capture forms on their site with a chatbot (even whitepapers!). With the help of the AI-powered chatbot, the sales team managed to gain deep insights into the challenges faced by consumers without wasting time on unqualified leads. According to an article published in Harvard Business Review, the Drift bot conducts about two thousand chats per month out of which it manages to resolve two-thirds of the queries. Till date, the chatbot has managed to bring in more than 4,000 leads, influenced 25% of their open sales pipeline, and accounted for 10% of all new sales. (Source: Drift)

Things to keep in mind to provide a great chatbot experience 

• Persona:

In a world where dynamism is the order of the day, no one would want to have dull, uninteresting conversations. Chatbots can be trained to provide funny, engaging answers, helping  enhance UX of applications with machine learning. This will keep visitors loyal and engaged to the site.

• A/B Testing:

As with everything around the world, the user experience can also be improved by understanding and analyzing the interactions between customers and the bot. Creating multiple versions of the same elements and testing will help to understand what works with your audience and what doesn’t and UI can be modified accordingly.

• Waiting Time:

A critical feature of chatbot interactions is the response time. In human interactions response times vary. Similarly, in the case of bot-human interaction, it is essential to provide some waiting time, so the interaction feels natural.

• Avoid too much text:

In the case of AI chatbot interactions, special care should be taken to ensure the conversations are crisp, to the point, and engaging. Too much text is likely to put the user off.

AI chatbot interactions are the new way of communicating with consumers. Fast, engaging, crisp, and 24/7 availability makes sure customers are always engaged with the business. With chatbots being integrated into social media platforms like Facebook and WeChat, businesses have a new way to reach their customers in a fun, engaging way that was not available previously. Being an artificial intelligence service provider, we understand the intricacies of building a customized chatbot suited to meet business needs. If you are looking for chatbot solutions to develop your business, let’s discuss.