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The rise of Chatbots in businesses

The rise of chatbots in business is a major step forward for customers. Businesses benefit from the power of artificial intelligence, and customers have never been more engaged or cared for.

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Photo: Luca Bravo

Introduction

You must be familiar with Siri, Watson from IBM, Allo from Google, etc. These bots' primary goal is to act as an intermediary and boost user productivity, which is the fundamental issue they aim to solve. They accomplish this by removing the user's concern over the information retrieval process and the possible input format requirements for obtaining particular data. As they manage user data entry and get more insights from it, bots have a tendency to grow increasingly intelligent. Because they provide you with precisely what you want, chatbots are successful.

Do you find it annoying or frustrating to always be required to enter the very same name, email address, and security code on many websites? Think about a single bot that completes your activities, such as ordering food from numerous vendors, making online purchases from various e-commerce sites, or reserving train or aircraft tickets, all without requiring you to repeatedly provide the same email address, delivery address, or payment details.

When you ask the bot a question in your native tongue or in what is referred to as "natural language" in computer science, it has the capacity to already know this information and is sophisticated enough to obtain what is required.

The widespread Chatbot usage

Although the process of creating chatbots is much simpler now than it was just a couple of years back, chatbots have been around for decades. Chatbot use has skyrocketed in recent years.

Let's try looking at the figure below, which depicts the rise of chatbots, and also try to understand why there is a huge demand for building chatbots.


                                          (source: Engati Blog)

Its accessibility and lack of complexity make it a straightforward solution that everyone may utilize. When we create software, we focus on the users because everyone else will find it difficult or impossible to use. We design chatbots with the idea that users of all ages would utilize them in mind. This only occurs with chatbots, when the computer program attempts to act foolishly (but it is intelligent) and allows the user to be themselves. Chatbots are different from other software in that they don't require you to be familiar with specific terminology or to gradually learn how to use it to its fullest potential. You won't have any trouble using a chatbot provided you know how to communicate with people.

The need for chatbots is always increasing. However, there hasn't been a lot of research that has experimentally attempted to ascertain the reasons why people use chatbots. In a recent study, chatbot users from the US between the ages of 16 and 55 were asked to describe their daily needs for utilizing chatbots in an online questionnaire. According to the poll, chatbot use is primarily motivated by "productivity."


The Business Perspective

We'll try to examine the chatbots from a business standpoint. Is it beneficial for a firm to invest in a chatbot or even to switch over a lot of tasks to chatbots?

Chatbots should now be considered one of this generation's marketing tools by firms. Below are some of the benefits of adopting chatbots in businesses;

    Accessibility: It's simple to get to them. Instead of having to dial a number and follow the ugliness of "Press 1 for this and Press 2 for that" in the IVR, the customer may access the website and start asking inquiries or starting to get their issues resolved. With just the most fundamental of details, they may speak with clarity. Efficiency: Customers can check the progress of a loan application, determine the status of a meal order, or file a complaint while sitting at their workstation in their workplace or on a couch in their home while watching a game.
    Availability: Chatbots are accessible every hour of the day, every day of the week. They wouldn't need time off or get worn out as real employees would. Every time, they will accomplish new or similar duties with the same effectiveness and quality. Scalability: One bot equals one million workers. Observe this? Yes, if your bot can fulfil a client's request, it should have no trouble juggling millions of consumer requests at once without breaking a sweat. You don't have to maintain your customers in line until a customer service agent is available. Cost: It goes without saying that the firm saves a ton of money.
    Who doesn't enjoy making savings? There is no reason not to enjoy bots when they do that service for you.
    Insights: Your salesperson might not be able to recall the user's behaviour and provide you with unique insight into the customer behaviour pattern, but your bots can employ the most recent machine learning and data science approaches.

Chatbots have successfully increased a company's revenue in the past. Businesses that started offering chatbot support or developing a new bot to support client inquiries are outperforming their rivals in the market.

In the first two months after launching its Facebook bot, 1-800-Flowers.com claimed that more than 70% of its Messenger orders came from new customers, according to one of the blog articles on stanfy.com. Due to the fact that they were already acquainted with the Facebook Messenger app, these new clients were also typically younger than normal customers for the business. Their annual revenue increased as a result


One of the greatest added values of chatbots is using them for generating prospects. You can reach your potential clients directly where their atten- tion is (messengers) and present them your newest products, services or goods. When a customer would like to purchase a product/service, he/she can make the purchase within the chatbot, including the payment process. Bots, like 1-800flowers.com, eBay, and Fynd have already proved that.

                                        -Julien Blancher, Co-Founder @Recast.AI

The founder of ChatbotsLife, Stefan Kojouharov, writes about how many businesses are generating more revenue than they would have done without chatbots in an article. He claims,

Chatbots are now being used by the e-commerce industry in a number of ways that are rapidly increasing their revenue. Let's examine the initial success tales:

    Sephora: Through their Facebook Messenger chatbot, they raised their makeover bookings by 11%. Nitro Café: Raised sales by 20% with their Messenger chatbot, which was built for quick two-way communication, direct payments, and fast ordering. Sun’s Soccer: During specialized soccer coverage, chatbots brought back almost 50% of their customers, and during their busiest time, 43% of chatbot subscribers clicked through.

Businesses have found chatbots valuable because of how easy they are to use and how effective they are. Everyone wants to be quick in this blazingly fast IT age, and employing chatbots makes your work quicker and easier every day.

 


                                       (Source: Thrive My Way)

From the statistics in the figure above, businesses have widely adopted the use of chatbots in their operations which has really improved efficiency and increased revenue.

Conclusion

Consumers may communicate with brands in a fun and simple way thanks to chatbots. Future digital communication channels of choice appear to be chatbots. The chatbot market is going to grow internationally, with millennials dominating user surveys. Chatbots will assist you and your team in achieving your relationship-building and maintenance goals. You can provide quick customer support, cut down on time spent on routine work, and enhance lead generation with chatbots.

Chatbots are impacting businesses and revolutionalizing customer engagement in most businesses.