During this hour of pandemic throughout the world, every business is trying to expand its wings and spread them in the digital market more than before. Even consumers are making themselves an expert in online buying and exploration. So marketers have decided to upgrade their online systems in every possible way.
The presence of Chatbot Technology is relatively becoming such a prominent part in all our lives since the time marketers have started using chatbots to communicate with the customers through online mode more fluently in order to boost their own agent productivity and efficiency in a range of ways.
Chatbot, a sort of abbreviation for chatterbot and derived from the term chat robot, is basically a computer-generated program that encourages human conversation either through voice commands or text communication, or both. These Artificial Intelligence (AI) based programs can very well be personalised and used in various other ways. Many of us are well familiar with chatbots for customer care and even famous messaging platforms like SMS, Facebook/Instagram Messenger,WeChat, WhatsApp, and so on.
Chatbot Technology benefiting the business –
Chatbots, as predicted, have already become one of the biggest known things in the industry. With 2017 being recognised as the “Year of the Chatbot”, this technology has become increasingly famous in recent years. With evolving time, chatbots have improved way too much making themselves usable and active in the business area which in return have provided ample support to the marketers.
Few benefits of the chatbots that have actively changed the customer service experience and improved businesses are –
- Chatbots are customer-friendly: Chatbots have become a favourite to a huge number of people considering the fact that they provide an easy and effortless experience to customers. According to an online research work, when it comes to customer relations, 44% of U.S. customers prefer chatbot communication over human conversing.
- Chatbots can work beside humans: The biggest myth that chatbots carry along with them is that soon they are going to take over every service and turn everything into a system-generated or automatic function, leaving businesses with hardly any human employees. Chatbots are most helpful when customers ask simple and known questions whose information its system might have already gathered. And in cases of complex questions, it passes on the queries. At present, chatbots deal with queries clearly within their capabilities.
- Chatbots are a 24/7 service: Many businesses’ ultimate motive is to provide service to their customers constantly, but often that remains impossible due to lack of resources. On the other hand, chatbot services are always active and can serve the customers 24/7. Even in situations when they are unable to answer the queries, they save a customer’s details and question, reassuring them that their question has been passed on and will be answered.
- Chatbots help in collection of data and engagement with customers: The highly improved chatbot technology also helps in collecting the data/information of the customers such as their name, profession, contact details, preferences, etc., to create the customer profiles. In this way, chatbots can be very much useful to keep the new as well as existing customers engaged with various brands and products of the company via push notifications. According to research works, 37% of all American consumers and 48% of millennials are well interested in receiving the chatbot suggestions.
- Chatbots can improve with proper analysis and expansion: Just how any system needs upgradation for a smooth run further, even chatbots require continuous analysis, ranking and expansion for better service. Chatbot performances that are based on ideas like client service, verbal abilities, and helpfulness are usually tracked or recorded. And as time passes by, they eventually grasp and adjust to the user’s needs and offer them a better experience.
- Chatbots meet the beliefs of customers and improve brands: Chatbots are designed in such a way that they are used to promote brand values to a broad span of possibilities and opportunities. Chatbots even provide friendly conversations which eventually helps them in building the rapport with their targeted as well as existing customers. Even the potential customers expect smooth communication, useful replies to their complaints/queries and chatbots are capable of matching these expectations with instant possible decisions and solutions.
- Chatbots help a company in promoting their products and services: Chatbots are considered to be a very useful platform for showcasing products as well as company updates and reaching out to the probable audiences. They maintain a steady and friendly relation with the customers while erasing all the exasperation of the customer from continuous sales calls and mails. Chatbots technology is an excellent podium for not only showcasing new products and services but also explaining them to the potential customers. They form a foundation for push notifications which are only sent to the appropriate customers based on their interests, making them feel elated.
Relevance of Chatbots in the business world –
Previously, chatbots were considered as a very satisfying scheme without any prior planning or strong interest, but at present they have turned out to be a very crucial device in the business world. The development and running of a chatbot requires a lot of hard work and financing. But the positive side and contribution of a chatbot in the corporate space make marketers choose them gladly. From giving the company a concrete face of its own by being immediately available to the customers, followed by laying out the stage for customers to freely let their friendly strategies out and so on. They have a variety of applications, applicable for more than just one industry such as – Customer Service, IT Service Helpdesk, Marketing, Sales. Chatbots even help out the HR department by handing out various tasks to people, answering the queries of the applicants. This technology can also be used for training employees.
Conclusion –
The chatbots technology offers an ample number of benefits to businesses. They save the company’s financial investment and increase sales and conversion rates. With the further developments of AI (Artificial Intelligence), NLP (Natural Language Processing) and machine learning, they are already on the mission to become sharper, leaving the future of chatbots technology looking very promising.
