Every consumer is familiar with chatbots even if they don’t realize that. The most commonplace to see these is on business and commerce websites. While a consumer is browsing, they may see a chat box pop up in the corner of their screen. These boxes usually have a person introducing themselves and inviting the site visitor to ask any questions they might have.
In all likelihood, the person on the other end of these chats isn’t a person at all. Instead, consumers are interacting with a chatbot.
Chatbots represent a convenient step forward in artificial intelligence. The ability of a live person to interact with the automated response system on custom questions is a pretty big idea, especially in retail fields. Just like any new technology, though, it’s important to analyze if chatbots will last.
[tmh_article_ads]
Benefits for Businesses
Businesses are turning to chatbots to ease the strain that customer service and support are creating. Chatbots help to solve problems without the need for a real person to spend time to help the customer. Instead, this manpower can be used for other purposes that may need more time. Businesses know that customer service has to be a number one priority, though, so that’s where chatbots come in.
These bots can respond to a customer’s message and use artificial intelligence to provide solutions to the problem. This can reduce the number of employees that need to be available for customer support, lowering the business costs.
Chatbots also respond to conversations in a more efficient way than humans. Bots do not get fatigued or stressed, making them perfect for customer service situation which can involve customers that are irritated or overwhelmed.
Benefits for Customers
Chatbots don’t just have benefits for businesses, but there are also benefits for customers. While some companies have 24-hour customer service support, this is certainly not the case for all businesses, especially small firms. For organizations where this is not the case, customers may have to wait for a response if they have a problem outside of business hours.
A chatbot can solve this problem by making customer support available at any hour of the day or night. These bots are programmed to pick out keywords within customer messages that can alert to the specific problem the customer is experiencing. These keywords are linked to certain responses that can be relayed to the customer with the hope of giving them an idea that would solve their problem.
While some people feel that working with chatbots is more difficult than speaking with a live human, this isn’t necessarily true. Chatbots prevent you from spending time on hold waiting for a support representative and never get stressed or frustrated when people would.
Near Future of Chatbots
With all these benefits out on the table, it is clear that chatbots are not going anywhere, anytime soon. It does beg the question about where we can expect chatbots to go in the future.
Companies that provide iOS and Android app development services are working to incorporate chatbots into many of the new applications that are being developed. Strategists are working to expand the use of chatbots to reduce costs and promote the use of artificial intelligence to solve customer problems. We may even see a time when chatbots make human-based customer service obsolete, but this would likely take decades to happen. In the meantime, we’re likely going to see assistants like Siri expand to where they can answer almost all of our questions and solve most of our problems.
Consumers can expect to see chatbots accessible in more apps and serving more functions when they are present. Not only will chatbots work to solve our problems, but they will also be intelligent enough to provide us with friendship and help with tasks. In the same way that Siri can remember our past choices and use them to respond, chatbots can be made to remember our individual preferences. The more that an artificial intelligence software learns, the more specialized its responses can become.
Innovations in technology have moved artificial intelligence from an idea of science fiction into a part of our everyday lives. Even if you don’t use an app that currently has a chatbot, you can be sure that you will come across them in the future.
Neha Nidhi
Tell Me How
Share your thoughts