Chatbot: What is it, what is it for and how do they work?
Surely, you’ve heard about chatbots lately, but do you know what they are and why they are important in your marketing strategy? In this post we reveal everything you need to know to implement them in your strategy.
Nowadays the Internet is very crowded, it is difficult to stand out among so much information. Companies seek digital channels to attract attention and have contact with users. Consumers accept this fact and prefer to have contact with companies through messages.
Read more about Chatbots on our blog
Goodbye to the digital media before, traditional media such as call centers, for example, are already obsolete. The solution that has been proposed to make both companies and consumers happy are: chatbots.
Surely you have heard about them, you know that chatbots are fashionable, you sense that they are important, but you do not really know what they are, or where to start implementing them in your company. That’s why it’s important that you don’t miss this post. In less than 2 minutes they will stop being strangers to you and you will want to have one.
But a chatbot is much more than an automatic messaging service, it is a very effective tool that brings great advantages. Start your adventure in the exciting world of live chats!
We assure you that once you have read this article you won’t be able to live without one.
What is a chatbot?
In a simple and understandable way, we can define a chatbot as an assistant that communicates with users through text messages. In many other occasions, it takes shape as a virtual companion that integrates into websites, applications… conversing and helping users.
It is a technology that allows the user to have a conversation through a software that is integrated into a certain messaging system, such as Facebook, Twitter, Telegram, Whatsapp, etc.
The system is programmed to interact with the customer and solve doubts, but without a physical person answering. They have the advantage that they are always available to solve the doubts of users who want to contact you at any time of the day.
Therefore, we are talking about a tool that interacts automatically with users and potential customers to guide them to the desired action (conversion).
The algorithms developed by artificial intelligence and machine learning allow chatbots to be able to learn. They can intuit the habits and understand the tastes and preferences of users.
What’s the first step?
Now that you know what they are, you can start thinking about how to implement them in your marketing strategy. The important thing is that you are clear about why you want to create them and the solutions you are going to provide to your customers. The first thing to do is to design a conversational experience.
You must prepare the artificial intelligence software to lead the customer (How does artificial intelligence transform the customer experience?) to the conversation you have prepared and what you want to offer. The bot’s questions should not be general or open-ended, this way you will prevent the user from going to other topics that do not interest you, i.e., going off the deep end.
There are many types of live chats, some of them offer such an authentic experience that it is very difficult to determine whether the person answering is a virtual robot or a human being. Depending on your business needs, you should select the best chatbot tool to help you meet your objectives.
How do chatbots work?
It is worth noting that understanding humans is not easy for a machine. The subtle and nuanced way we communicate is a very complex task to recreate artificially, so chatbots use several principles of natural language:
Natural Language Processing (NLP)
Natural Language Processing is used to break down user input into sentences and words. It also expands the meaning of the text through several techniques such as: converting everything to lower case or correcting misspellings before determining the meaning of the word. At this stage, other factors such as the user’s emotions are also considered.
Natural Language Understanding (NLI)
Natural language understanding helps the chatbot understand what the user has said, the tools it uses are such as lexicons, synonyms, and topics. These tools are used together as algorithms or rules to build the dialog that will tell the chatbot how it should best respond.
Natural Language Generation (NLG)
Delivering a memorable, personalized customer experience and going beyond providing prefabricated responses requires natural language generation. The chatbot can query data repositories and use that information to create a response.
Conversational AI technology takes PLN and CLN to the next level, enabling companies to create advanced dialog systems.
They use memories and personal preference data and the chatbot’s own contextual understanding to deliver a realistic and engaging natural language interface.
The future of chatbots
Chatbots have not yet reached their full potential and according to current trends it is a tool that will be used more and more, this will lead to higher levels of customer engagement, where the importance of how businesses and consumers interact online will be vital.
As chatbots develop and become more sophisticated, they will generate significant value for both the consumer and the business, and as investment in digital technology continues, they will also help transform various aspects of communication in ways we can’t even imagine.
Chatbots of the future will be better equipped to handle proactive conversations, where they will be able to predict an incident and report a ticket, resolving future issues before they arise, reducing costs and optimizing support channels. They will be able to answer your questions and at the same time be able to talk, think and develop emotional relationships with customers.
Would you like to develop your own chatbot application for your website and business? Contact Enkronos’s experienced team today.
Read more — Enkronos Cloud Application Building.
