How Chatbots are Disrupting Online Experiences for the Better?

There has been relentless buzz around chatbots over the past few years. Today you can no more view this. We at Helios Solutions provide chatbot development services to our clients and we can say it from technology as a passing fad because it is already revolutionizing the way people communicate with your business our experiences that the impacts are real and measurable.

In case you are new to chatbots and wondering what this technology is all about, here’s how we would define a chatbot. Stay tuned!

Chatbots are a type of conversational software that can help you implement new engagement strategies to win over your customers. They are a paradigm shift in human computer interaction, fueled by artificial intelligence (AI). The best ones can deliver a customer experience wherein you cannot even tell whether you are communicating with a human or a chatbot. The advancements in AI have made it possible for chatbots to recognize the content as well as context of customers’ queries and requests.

Why are chatbots gaining traction?

Chatbots have been in development since the 1950s; however, businesses have started using them to communicate with customers only in recent years. The shift in how people prefer to connect with businesses today could also be due to the problems associated with traditional online experiences.

The most common ones reported by consumers include:

• Basic details like address, phone number, etc are hard to find.
• Websites are hard to navigate.
• Unable to find answers to simple questions.

Take a look at the graph below to know more about the frustrations that customers have experienced with traditional online services.

Your customers are accustomed to living in a real-time and on-demand world wherein everything seems to be just a click away. Hence, they get frustrated if they are not able to find information they are looking for easily and quickly. As a result, they could end up landing on your competitors’ sites that are providing the online experiences contemporary consumers prefer.

Business benefits of using chatbots

Now let’s find out how chatbots are creating an impact in the customer experience space and customer service world.

Ability to provide 24/7 service

Your chatbot never sleeps; hence it can provide 24/7 customer support which is cost-effective yet powerful. In the banking industry, chatbots are redefining customer experience by performing same tasks as a live support centre agent such as answering basic questions about account balances, correcting an invoice and more.

The best part is that chatbots can recognize human emotions and if it detects that a customer is frustrated, angry or upset, it would seamlessly transfer the interaction to a human agent to take over. Thus, you can remain rest assured that your customers would receive the same level of service that they would receive from any customer support agent.

Effective customer handling

We human beings have restrictions in terms of the number of things that we can handle simultaneously. Research has shown that we can concentrate on only 3 to 4 things at the same time. If we get into more things than that then we are bound to cause errors.

Whereas, chatbots can have conversations with thousands of people simultaneously irrespective of the time of the day or the number of people contacting it. Each one of them will get answers instantly. Chatbots, thus, eliminates the friction point in customer service as you no longer have to listen to the on-hold music and wait for the next agent.

Many companies like Domino’s and Taco Bell are already putting chatbots at work for arranging delivery of parcels.

Personalize customer experience

Chatbots are proficient at collecting customer data while support interactions. They can serve as virtual assistants and feed customer data to the customer service representative in real time, so the rep can provide the customer customized solutions based on current needs in addition to the past interactions with your company.

If you are an eCommerce business owner then you can try the eCommerce chatbot to deliver personalized shopping experience to your customers and win over their loyalty for your brand.

What are the potential blockers to using chatbots?

The main road block preventing businesses from using chatbots is that not all consumers are ready to abandon human-human interaction completely. Some worry that chatbots would make a mistake while making a purchase. While many consumers do not like the idea of getting locked into a single platform like Facebook for using chatbots.

However, the best thing is that as a business you are not left with an either/or option. You can use both chatbots (where they make sense) as well as human (when they are required).

You can talk with our software development specialists to integrate chatbots on your website and make it easy for your customers to trigger chatbot conversations.

Are chatbots doing better than other communication channels?

Although not all consumers trust chatbots completely but many still affirm that it can enhance online experiences in many ways – speed being the key benefit. No denying the fact that chatbots can respond to requests more quickly than their human counterparts.

Customers often expect real-time response from online chat and businesses can make the most of this channel by using it in combination with chatbots. When chat volume gets too high, chatbots can assist customer support agent so that the customer experience does not suffer.

Chatbots are also revolutionizing the way you can stay in touch with your customers. They can help to foster brand loyalty by sending an email or text on a customer’s birthday. Or they can even make a quick check-in to ask if your customers are enjoying your products or services. Furthermore, intelligent chatbots powered by machine learning can even provide more human experience because they never get frustrated by customers.

Conclusion

Businesses are already deriving lot of benefits from chatbots and as new advancements come in AI, machine learning and Natural Language Processing, chatbots will get even more intelligent. Being an outsourcing software development company, we have enabled many of our clients to save a lot of money and at the same earn more revenue with the help of deploying chatbots.

What’s your stand on the current state and future of chatbots? Are you keen on getting one for your business? Please initiate a conversation with our chatbot development experts by leaving your comments below. You too can leverage this technology to get an edge over your competitors.