Chatbots are disrupting industries, is it the right time to invest in Chatbot?

Artificial intelligence will transform businesses across all industries to an extent that is beyond what the industrial revolution has not also seen since its inception. It is impacting how companies run, compete and thrive as well as it’s taking the customer expectations to a new high.

With this, it can be seen that these technologies have a huge potential. More and more companies are utilizing the power of Artificial Intelligence powered chatbots today. These smart chatbots are serving specific purpose are driving a shift in how the products and services are designed, delivered and consumed.

Companies are using chatbots to engage with both – existing and potential customers via messaging platforms involving in-message purchasing and other calls to action (CTAs) as they do so. Messaging apps have the most number of active users and have overtaken social apps in 2015 i.e. 2 years ago. These messaging apps drive conversations among consumers with millions of messages being exchanged on Facebook Messenger alone. 

The companies can utilize bots to drive more business via the messaging apps and increase their revenue significantly. The companies have started to realize the shift of users towards messaging apps than other apps. This shift towards the messaging platforms can generate more extraordinary opportunities for the businesses. In order to harness the opportunities, chatbots are going to be an essential component.

The perfect chatbot strategy:

We have seen that chatbots have an enormous potential. Before companies straightaway jump into the chatbot bandwagon, they need to first analyze carefully the new technology implementation challenges that may come as an obstacle. For this, below are the proposed points to get started:

1)   Not getting lost in crowd

There will be a large number of chatbots out there, how your chatbot will stand out from this crowd? The companies have to analyze the discoverability issues. The companies must also compare the service provided by their chatbot and how it is different from their competitors’ offerings.

2)   Consistency is the key

Customers want a seamless, not disruptive experience across all of the communication channels. It is to be noted that the chatbot needs to be fully integrated into the web and mobile services offered by the companies. In order to achieve this, the companies have to see to the dependencies that the chatbot have along with the scope for new, untested communication channels is to be established.

3)   Simplicity

Getting a task completed via a chatbot is difficult than a click of a button of a menu in a website or a mobile app. It is to be made sure that the chatbot interactions need to be as efficient, short and painless as possible. For this, new user experiences implementation will be required.

4)   Security

The chatbot system to be implemented needs to be highly secured especially when there would be payments also involved. As with all the customer facing technologies, privacy and security are critical. Customers won’t be using the services they don’t trust with their data.

5)   Avoid any misunderstandings 

Completing the simple tasks and simple interactions seamlessly is critical to the chatbot implementation process. If the chatbot is not able to comprehend straightforward questions, customers will surely turn away from using its services. But the most advanced chatbots will encounter some complex scenarios that they won’t be able to handle. Companies need to check their fallback procedures when something like this happens. Also, how quickly is the shift from chatbot to human interaction in such a situation takes place is an important measure.

Implementation of chatbots

The chatbots aren’t limited to any specific industry. Their disruptive power is seen and felt across all industries. There are three areas companies can feel the impact of chatbots:

1)   Customer interactions – Increased speed and reduced costs

With increasing competition, companies across the globe are forced to reduce the cost of customer service. Labor costs in call center operations takes up to two thirds of the total costs. Also, with high staff turnover, there are additional expenses, enterprises are on a lookout of the ways to increase the efficiency and reduce the volume of calls handled by the staff.

With the introduction of chatbots, it has become possible to respond to customer queries with twice as speed of the voice-based support over telephone and most importantly, it comes at a lower cost too.

2)      Sales and Marketing teams get a speed boost

Chatbots are making a key impact to sales teams and marketing campaigns. Chatbots are leveraging messaging platforms to help companies in marketing their online stores. Chatbots have the capability of sending email campaigns, posting updates, and running ads on social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

3)   Automating business operations for visible efficiency gains

In the chatbot age, business functions are also set to be disrupted. Enterprise chatbots developed today are capable of completing timesheets as well as editing other basic paperwork. The chatbots can be programmed to carry out multiple follow on tasks triggered by any event. For an example, a request for leave submitted by an employee can trigger a calendar invitation to a meeting with a line manager.

The potential of AI powered chatbots can also be seen in the recruitment process as well. These AI recruitment assistants can automate the company’s screening and qualifying processes by a great extent. The chatbot system will keep the applicants engaged over the messaging platforms, ask contextual questions regarding the job requirements and also can offer personalized job updates, feedback and next step suggestions.

Conclusion

With the above decision, it is evident that the answer to the question,’ Is it a right time to invest in a chatbot?’ is highly dependent on and driven by a sense of experimentation analysis and learning along the journey. As of now, the market is in the formation stage and will definitely evolve. However, there are still competitive advantages for the companies that are agile enough to move quickly and are able to capture them.