The Rise Of AI Powered Chatbots: Are You Ready To Embrace The Disruptive Potential?
Chatbots: Maybe you have heard about them. Maybe you haven’t yet. 2018 is proving out to be a disruptive year for enterprises and their digital strategies. Marketing has undergone a revolution in the past couple of years. Almost every traditional marketing strategy has evolved to keep step with changing business obligations. If you are stimulating a digital transformation strategy for your business, it’s very likely that you’ve heard about the dream of artificial intelligence, machine learning and chatbots.
Chatbots have come a long way from automated answering agents to address customer complaints or reduce the cost of setting a call center. Today’s AI powered chatbots are capable enough to engage potential customers with their intelligence.
Many say it is still early days for chatbots in the conversational business world, but the wave of chatbots will take over conversational UX to offer judgment accelerated tasks within next five years. Artificially intelligent chatbots are no longer limited to Fortune 500 companies, thanks to various innovative bot ventures who converge on the user experience. With the help of bot technology, small businesses are now improving business operations, client engagement, and even revenue addition. With Google’s investment in Allo, Facebook’s introduction of Messenger, Window’s Cortana, and the early resolution of Telegram indicates that AI chatbots are going to be more obvious in near future.
What is a Chatbot & What is the Big Deal?
A chatbot is a computer program, powered by an algorithm and AI, which resembles a real interaction with customers through a chat interface. To simplify this, a chatbot is a service which can have a conversation with you just like a human. Chatbots are based on machine learning to collect conversational flows which enable them to copy human conversations and reply to requests to deliver a service. Since chatbots use AI (Natural Language Processing — NLP), they can understand language, not just commands. Chatbots can become more intelligent if they allowed conversing more with users.
The next question stands, why this sudden rise of the bot? There are two reasons. As cloud technology and machine learning advanced, artificial intelligence reached new heights. With the significance of AI, it has now become easy for a machine to perform human tasks. And the second reason is global CEOs and companies like Facebook, Slack, Telegram has allowed bot technology to explore the market and reach greater audiences. For which it became massively adopted.
A new research report, “Chatbots: Retail, eCommerce, Banking & Healthcare 2017–2022,” noticed that chatbots will save businesses over $8 billion per year by 2022, which is a whopping increase from the $20 million expected in 2017.
Why your business needs a Chatbot?
In today’s world, there is no business who doesn’t want substantial growth. Growth comes out of three things- quality solutions, market reach & customer service. You need a blend of all these things to grow your business and sustain in the market. Let’s now discuss how chatbots can help your business:
· With the use of smart AI technology in Chatbot, it will use right expressions while conversing.
· The knowledge of Chatbot can be vast. This will ensure efficiency in conversation.
· The response time taken by bots are extremely fast. This won’t let your customers wait.
· Chatbots will save a lot of time and money that is invested on various platforms.
· The data generated through Chatbots can be used more efficiently for quality analysis.
· If programmed, bots can not only answer questions but also can initiate actions.
· Chatbots can be used for an interactive marketing campaign.
· Chatbots can handle multiple conversations at a single time, while live agents can manage max 2 to 3.
Here are 5 reasons why Chatbots are essential for your business;
i) You have a customer service which never sleeps
Contemporary chatbots are programmed to learn from conversations. They can understand typed messages and can respond to queries. Chatbots are no longer limited to “Hello, This is Sara. How May I Help You Today?” We are getting real support from chatbots at any time. As today’s customers always look for quick support, businesses are hiring a huge support team, spend time and money to train them, and make them work in multiple shifts in order to provide 24/7 support. Thanks to chatbots, they can reduce significant cost and save a lot of time when it comes to customer support. Most of the work will be done by the chatbot and it will have a conversation with the customer. With the power of AI, even chatbots are able to resolve customer queries. So, eventually, you will have an efficient customer service team that never sleeps.
ii) Chatbots cost less to develop than an app & could be more viral
Developing and maintaining an app, especially high-quality apps dedicated to customer service will cost little high. The cost involved in developing a chatbot won’t come for free either. But it is very cost-effective when you compare it with an app. Chatbots are extremely convenient since your customers don’t have to download them. Chatbots needs lesser human support, and in the long run, it will save a lot of costs. Truth is, a bot will definitely add real value to your customers & can retain more customers for you. As chatbots are getting more advanced thanks to AI, it is very clear that companies who are investing now will save more money.
iii) No repetitive work as chatbots are highly adaptive
No one likes doing the same work repeatedly. In case of humans, such tasks are prone to errors. Chatbots are highly adaptive and help automate tasks which are to be done often and at the right time. This helps business save time and increase their productivity. Only sky is the limit for the potential of chatbots. The more you customize them with the help of AI, the greater their business value. To avoid doing the same set of work, again and again, you need to make the chatbot understand the work once, and after that the potential is worth exploring. To explore the potential of a fighter plane, you need to keep on trying multiple pilots until the best one really explores. Adaptability is a vital characteristic of chatbots.
iv) Highly responsive and friendly
Business needs quick action. And data is the key to every action. Chatbots are the key drivers of digital transformation. If you program them with the processing power of the web, they can perform data-driven assignments real quick irrespective of their size. When you deal with customers, you need two actions. First, to speed up the process and Second, ability to process large data. Human beings can’t match the speed and accuracy of a bot. Chatbots are highly responsive when it comes to dealing with large customer data and analyzing it in lesser time. When it comes to interacting with real human beings, no one expects a machine to be friendly. But, chatbots are built to be intelligent, so they can engage with real human beings. They learn from humans. You may argue that how a machine can behave like a human as this is not their nature, but the real gem is they are being developed in that way by developers with the help of AI.
v) Last but not the least, ROI
AI is an expensive technology. But, when we talk about AI applications, cost curves will swiftly come down. For particularly chatbots, development costs are not too high. Considering how business scenarios are unfolding, investment in technology should not be a hurdle for adoption. Then finally, when the chatbots are in effect, there is no maintenance cost or you don’t have to pay them a salary and they will reduce other operational costs massively. Chatbots can save more for you by reducing the number of human agents required for customer service. Studies reveal that by 2022, artificial intelligence is presumed to diminish operational costs by a whopping $8 Billion. Businesses who have already implemented chatbots accept that it is definitely reducing business costs and total cost of ownership.
Final Thoughts
A Chatbot comes with a lot of benefits. We have highlighted some of them in this post. Businesses are saving a lot of money while maximizing their profits with the help of chatbots that runs 24/7. With technologies like AI, Machine Learning reaching new heights each year, they are making the bot more and more intelligent. One thing is for sure. The chatbot is still in its initial stages and this is here to stay. The potential it has shown in the customer service industry will encourage businesses to understand its future uses for several other aspects of business operations.
BangBit Technologies have got the blend of technological experience and AI expertise to understand your business needs and develop chatbots for your business that will transform your entire customer service process. Contact us today.
