Why It’s Important For a Business To Have a Chatbot
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Large companies such as United Airlines, Pizza Hut, Denny’s Diner, Focus Features, and Patron, just to name a few, are way ahead in the customer service department. Why? Because they all have chatbots implemented into their social media pages.
Have you ever had a problem with a service or a product and ended up contacting the company? Many of us have and chances are that the experience wasn’t pleasant. The process can be very frustrating and in most cases, those customer support agents aren’t trained very well and have limited knowledge and resources to actually help solve your issue.
It’s time to move on from those pesky agents! It’s 2017 and technology is advancing. In this case, chatbots have started to take on real human support agents. It is way more convenient and way less time consuming to chat with a chatbot. You can have a smooth conversation with it and not have any interruptions because it uses A.I (Artificial Intelligence) to find the appropriate response for you. Various apps like Facebook Messenger or Direct Messages on Twitter greatly help since they have the ability to implement chatbots for businesses and brands. Some chatbots are even able to learn from the information that is sent. For example, if a customer wants to order a particular food item, the bot will remember what that person ordered and will ask if he’d like to order it again the next time he returns. Chatbots have the ability to quickly search through large amounts of information to correctly choose the best answers for the customer.
With Facebook messenger and Twitter DMs, two of the more large platforms, people have had greater success at having their problem solved when chatting with a chatbot. Take @United for example. They have a chatbot that they call “AutoPilot” on both Twitter and Facebook. You can imagine how much easier real support agents’ jobs have gotten. instead of having one of them look up a flight status, send the bot the flight number and it will give you the correct information. Do you want to find the closest Denny’s Diner? DM @DennysDiner and they got you.
Chatbots can also give you the option to speak to an agent. This means that it will transfer you to a real human support agent. With todays technology, A.I and Machine Learning, the possibilities are endless.
If you view the chart below, you’ll notice the three top reasons why consumers want to be contacted by chat. It helps them resolve problems more quickly, it’s more convenient, and it allows the consumer to have a record of the communication with the bot.
If customers have a positive interaction with a company or brand, they are more likely to return. Just think about it. Have you ever Tweeted something you liked about a product and tagged or mentioned the company that makes it? You didn’t expect a reply, but you got one. What would you do? You would likely be a returning customer of their’s right? View examples below:
Chatbots are also very easy to use. With Twitter DMs and Facebook Messenger, you can create bots with Quick Replies. Quick Replies are pre-filled options that a user can choose if one matches their need. For example, a customer is greeted with an automatic welcome message asking them to choose the appropriate option. If they need to find the closest store location, they would select the appropriate Quick Reply. The bot would respond asking them to send their current location and then it would provide them with the store closest to the sent location.
Business or not, anyone can create a chatbot. They’re not only for customer service, but also for fun. Visit this Botlist Collection to view bots made for your entertainment. If you or your business or brand would like to implement a chatbot, there are many platforms that allow you to construct an intricate bot with. You can also hire a company to build a bot for you. Messenger bots are fairly easy to build because so many platforms have already been created to make it easy for you to build one. Twitter is a different story. The feature is relatively new. They had released their DM API to the public not too long ago. Only a few platforms let you build a DM bot.
That’s it! My two cents on why it’s important for a business or brand to have a chatbot.
