What should you know about chatbots?

 

A chatbot can simply be said to be a software or computer program which simulates human conversation through text or voice interactions. Businesses are increasingly using chatbot virtual assistants to handle simple tasks in both business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) environments. This reduces overhead costs and enables organizations to provide customer service during post-office hours.

Why are chatbots important?

An AI-based chatbot can converse with users and answer recurring questions, thus increasing sales and service productivity and also saving a lot of time, and increasing efficiency. Since consumers are moving away from traditional forms of communication, chat-based communication methods are expected to rise. Hence, organizations are using chatbot-based virtual assistants for handling simple tasks and allowing human agents to focus on other responsibilities.

Benefits of using chatbots

·       Holding multiple conversations at once: It can converse simultaneously with thousands of buyers, thus increasing business productivity and eliminating wait times.

·       Cost-effective: Using chatbots is a faster and cheaper one-time investment, than creating a cross-platform app or hiring additional employees. Also, it helps in reducing costly issues caused by human error and decreases acquisition costs.

·       Saves time: A conversational chatbot can automate tasks that are performed frequently and at specific times. Doing this gives employees a lot of time to focus on more important tasks and also prevents customers from waiting to receive responses.

·       Proactive customer interaction: Previously, organizations relied on passive customer interaction and waited for buyers to reach out first. But chatbots allow organizations to interact proactively by initiating conversations and monitoring how customers use the websites and landing pages. This information can then be used to offer specific incentives to buyers, to help users navigate the site and answer future questions.

·       Improving customer engagement: A chatbot platform can make engagement with customers through social media, more interactive. Since buyers rarely talk to people within businesses, chatbots open a communication channel where customers can engage without the stress of interacting with another person.

Chatbots are continuing to grow in popularity and will continue to evolve, offering new capabilities and new levels of text and voice-enabled user experience, hence becoming a necessary part of the IT ecosystem of the companies.