Benefits of using ChatBots for your business
Chatbots came quite earlier in the world. Turing Test, developed by Alan Turing in the 1950s inches quite closer to demonstrate a machine learning experience. A decade later Eliza came into existence in 1966 as an artificial intelligence software. Eliza was developed as a “psychotherapist” that can answer questions regarding life problems. And then came Parry in 1972. Parry entered the paranoid world of schizophrenia as an artificial program that can imitate a schizophrenic victim.
Fast forward to the current era. Now we have Siri, Alexa, and Watson replacing their earlier counterparts. The latest in the market is Woebot. Woebot is launched in 2017 as a “counselor” to treat depression. Today's chatbots can perform simple daily human tasks with inputs of texts and voice – without any human intervening in it. Studies even show that the Chatbot market would reach an estimated $1.25 billion by the year 2025. Turing’s trial on artificial intelligence had one strangely concerning argument. The argument was that a human can be fooled repeatedly. Looking at the current scenario, isn’t that argument still quite convincing?
But making fools of humans isn’t the only thing Chatbots do. They have some immense benefits for the businesses.
How Chatbots can Be Beneficial For Your Business
Customers usually prefer talking to a real person when they need assistance. However, there is no denying that chatbots have emerged as great communicators. Their usage has resulted in getting more leads and engaging at all the appropriate times of a buyer’s journey. When fashion giant Tommy Hilfiger introduced Facebook Messenger chatbot, it helped them retain 87% of customers. Here are some of the benefits:
Anywhere, Anytime
Customers today want everything on their fingertips – literally. A chatbot can help solve their problems anytime. This means a business needs to get in the mind of its consumers. Any questions that arise, can be fed into the chatbot even before launching that particular service. A study by Conversational Commerce reveals that a voice assistant has helped around 35% of users shop for clothes or food. Chatbots can be a blessing for those who frequently travel. They can send information through private messages to the bot about their time, date and budget. The bot responds immediately through a range of staying options. Sites like SnapTravel, Expedia, Trivago are linked to 3rd party sites that make the whole experience safer too.
Saves Time and Work Hours
An extremely useful benefit of using Chatbots is that they can talk in multiple languages. Customer service can be immensely enhanced by training a Chatbot instead of team members. It would take a lot of time. Plus, every member cannot be trained in every language. Hence, training a chatbot can also mitigate any communication gaps. Users won't have to make their queries only in English. They can ask questions in their native languages. Plus, it would help a business reach a wider audience until they become a big player in the market.
Chatbots can either be made for websites and apps. This makes customers access their services on more than one platform when they can't access a website. Plus, repetitive tasks can be performed more efficiently. Studies have highlighted how beneficial are the voice assistants for customers. Around 87% were highly satisfied to order food and make transactions through them.
Understanding Customers
Understanding the behavior, patterns, buying preferences of the customers is the key in the current era. Humans might not be able to keep a full track of consumer data. However, chatbots can help collect all the important data for data analysis. Tracking such data can be very helpful for businesses in figuring out new marketing strategies. Studies also reveal that around 42% of businesses believe that AI and other technologies would streamline customer services even better. Businesses can develop a Chatbot that responds as humanly as possible. However, there shouldn't be any confusion for the customers about whom they are engaging.
A great way to do this is by sending a welcome message whenever a customer enters a site or opens bot. This message would be describing all the services they offer. So that customers won't have to ask or search what they want. They can simply pick an option they would like to explore. Options to restart the conversation plus transferring to a human is also recommended.
Higher Engagement and Interaction
Chatbots not only help in streamlining personal communications. They also help customers with buying decisions. This ultimately assists the businesses in increasing engagement. The sales funnel works well through email and getting traffic through SEO. However, all these tactics are only to encourage the customers to come to your site. A Business Insider study highlighted that the year 2020 would witness more than 80% of businesses needing chatbots. If a Chatbot is used as a call-to-action button in those pages, it can quicken up the procedure. Chatbots can ask customers about the product or service they would like to avail of. They can direct them to the concerned page and even help in doing the transactions.
Additionally, Chatbots are even better conversion tools than Emails. Though emails are still a great conversion tool, the click-through rate is dropping at an alarming rate. So instead of asking customers to subscribe for email lists, businesses can adopt an AI solution to generate better conversions.
Transforms Business Leads
Business leads are generated through effective communication. And Chatbots have what it takes to understand and analyze the type of texts, phrases, voice, and even gestures. As technology advances, the communications also transform from a mere binary language. The binary system of language has been now replaced with Natural Language Processing (NLP). And this has given the power to Chatbots to talk like a human. And these chatbots can also be customized. Businesses can provide a personality to them that can act as a business ambassador. Feeding chatbots with jokes, puns, and interesting replies can help create a unique niche.
Ending Notes
The chatbot market has a growth rate of almost 24.3%, as stated by a report. The rise of chatbots development has been so much that its users are expected to overtake the social networking site users. Streamlined human interactions with the help of even advanced NLP is the major reason behind such growth. Built-in chatbots are the most preferred types for many businesses. Because they offer enhanced and instant communication with the customers. Market demand has been further facilitated by integrating AI, IoT, speech recognition. Chatbots have undoubtedly widened the scope for achieving an even greater level of human intelligence.
