The evolution of artificial intelligence is now at its peak, and people are expecting new changes every day. One of the boons of artificial intelligence is the presence of chatbots that make customer management easy and painless if you have the right tools. Chatbots are giving fierce competition to human customer service executives by becoming smarter and more widely used than ever before.
According to Garter, by 2020, about 85 percent of customer interactions would be done without the need for humans. If you are also fascinated by this innovation and want to make it work for your company, then read this comprehensive guide to introducing chatbots to your company that tells you what a chatbot is, what it can do for you and who can provide you with one.
Meaning
According to Oxford dictionaries, “Chatbot is a computer program designed to simulate conversations with human users especially over the internet”. It can also be considered an assistant that communicates with humans via text messages and can integrate with websites, applications or instant messages to help businesses get closer to the customers.
Origins
No, we are not going to bore you here. We just want you to know that the first conversational bot was written in 1966 in the US. It was implemented by a computer scientist of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Joseph Weizenbaum. This bot was named Eliza, but it didn’t prove to be an instant hit because it was too authentic with communication and misled the customers.
Why a Business Needs It?
A business needs chatbots due to these reasons.
High Productivity
Chatbots are more productive and efficient than humans.
Entertainment
They can even entertain people when they are getting bored as the conversations are often amusing.
Non-Judgmental
Customers who don’t want to be judged by other humans for picking a product prefer to seek the help of chatbots.
Curiosity
People are always curious about new technologies and prefer companies that offer a chatbot experience.
Personalized Communication
Chatbots resolve specific queries of customers and helps them feel special which boosts brand loyalty.
Enhanced Response Rate
They are more responsive than humans as they can be functional 24 by 7 rather than just 8 hours put in by human employees.
Make Repetitions Easy
As most customers have some basic FAQs like when the business will open, when a particular product will be launched or whether X product is available, Chatbots takes care of the task of offering the same information again and again without feeling frustrated (which a human employee might).
How Can a Chatbot Help Customers?
Pre-Purchase Query Resolution
Chatbots can help the customers find answers to some basic questions like business hours, product availability, discount details, etc.
Shopping Assistant Bots
As the name suggests these bots help customers to make a purchase decision quickly by asking simple questions like type, color, size or design of the product they would like to buy along with the budget range or delivery address details.
Explainer Bots
When you buy a new product that you have never used before like new accounting software, and you need help in deciphering it, these types of bots would serve as trainers for you and your customers/ employees by answering queries by using media like videos, images or links.
After Sales Bots
These bots do post-purchase tasks like collecting feedback, resolving return issues, registering complaints, and doing everything possible to keep the customer happy.
How Can Chatbots Help Businesses?
Apart from customer management, companies are also using bots to collect customer data, help organize meetings and other such tedious and time-consuming tasks.
Where to Buy a Chatbot?
Chatbots have gained popularity in every part of the world. Here is a list of a few companies by regions that provide excellent options.
USA
- 1080bots — San Francisco, USA
- Bdost — San Francisco, USA
- Convos — USA
- Headliner Labs — New York, USA
- Zebo — Palo Alto, USA
Canada
- BinaryFog — Toronto, Canada
- deepPiXEL Inc. — Toronto, Canada
- Heyday — Montreal, Canada
- Massively — Toronto, Canada
South America
- Alan — Montevideo, Uruguay
- ChatClub — Brazil
- Labs357 — Rafaela, Argentina
- Nama— Sao Paulo, Brazil
- Atendimento com Inteligência Artificial — Brazil
Europe
- 01tribe — Rome, Italy
- aidevelopers.co.uk — Manchester, UK
- The Bot Agency — Bordeaux, France
- The Bot Platform — London, UK
- Xbots — Greece
Australia & Asia
- Autus — Sydney, Australia
- Xandra — Maroochydore, Australia
- Botpress — Dubai, UAE
- BotsNext— Bangalore, India
- ChatterOn — India
Israel
- 200 Apps — Jerusalem, Israel
- Chat Leap — Tel Aviv, Israel
- Spartans — Tel Aviv, Israel
Africa
- Bots بالعربي— Cairo, Egypt
- BotsZA — Johannesburg, South Africa
Should I Build a Chatbot?
If you have the skills or resources, you can also build a custom chatbot for your business. All you need to do is to take benefit of the great services like these:
- howdy’s botkit
- api.ai
- wit.ai
- textit.in
- BeepBoopHQ
- Dexter
- Chatfuel
- converse.ai
- IBM’s Watson
How to Make Your Employees/Customers Comfortable with Chatbots?
To make your employees/customers comfortable with chatbots, make sure that you tell them of this change in advance and clear their doubts. You can also offer free training or create tutorial videos on how to use a chatbot.
If a customer or employee is showing resistance, you can sit him or her down and talk through the issues. Remember that chatbots will garner results only when they are widely accepted, and you as a business owner need to lead this change. Once done, this change will be worth it as it will save money and still deliver a customer with an excellent experience!
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