Why are chatbots critical to Enterprises

A common myth about chatbots is the assumption that it is only applicable for Customer support. Quick reality check finds these bots being used for collecting information about users, helping to organize meetings and reducing overhead costs. In fact, chatbots can empower your marketing team study, analyze and offer personalized customer service for converting prospects to sales with minimal efforts.

With so much to offer the ever-growing chatbots, the industry has started growing exponentially. According to Gartner, by 2020, over 50% of medium to large enterprises will have deployed product chatbots.

A comprehensive study on chatbots and its growth by Grand View Research reveals that the global chatbots market is expected to grow significantly in 2025 compared to USD 190.8 million in 2016.

Above statistics, makes it clear that Chatbots find applications in a wide range of industries, such as healthcare, retail, BFSI, media & entertainment, travel & tourism, e-commerce, and others. The BFSI segment accounted for the largest market share in 2016 and generated the highest revenue.

AI assistants are replacing annoying chat windows faced by web users earlier and they not only help in answering the queries but also in engaging and retaining customers. Chatbots have so much to offer that it becomes imperative for smart business leaders to incorporate chatbots as part of their marketing strategy as the use of chatbots enables organizations to deliver timely services at reduced costs.

What exactly is a chatbot?

Dictionary definition of a chatbot is:

“A computer program designed to simulate a conversation with human users, especially over the Internet.”

To put in simple words; a chatbot is an automated system of communication with users.

It is a virtual assistant integrated into websites, applications or instant messengers which communicates with users through text messages and helps organizations to get closer to customers.

Chatbots are segmented based on types into standalone, web-based, messenger-based/third party, which can further be categorized into artificial intelligence, marketing, and human intelligence.

The artificial intelligence (using machine learning) segment is growing at a rapid pace and is expected to register a CAGR of 25.2% by 2025.

Why enterprises need chatbots?

Few basic reasons for enterprises to invest in chatbots: ? Getting rid of routine tasks and simultaneous processing of multiple requests from users. Additionally, a tremendous speed of processing users’ requests with chatbots helps to gain customers’ loyalty. ? Chatbots enable enterprises to directly interact with customers and record data pertaining to customer preferences, which can later be used in digital marketing activities. ? Chatbots offers direct customer reach, allowing marketers to update the existing customers about the products and services. ? AI-powered chatbots offer personalized messages to users as the bots store and retain the customer preferences and use the data to provide relevant personalized offerings from previous visits and impress them with exactly what they are looking for. ? Chatbots also help in cost reduction by using automated scripts to replace support teams.

An additional benefit with chatbots is that fact they can be available round the clock, 365 days a year which would be costly if the organizations use support teams, instead of chatbots.

Why do people choose to interact with chatbots?

A study presented at the 4th International Conference on Internet Science in November 2017 identified reasons why people choose to interact with chatbots.

According to this research, the main factors that motivate people to use chatbots are:

Productivity. Chatbots provide the assistance or access to information quickly and efficiently.

Entertainment. Chatbots amuse people by giving them funny tips, they also help killing time when users have nothing to do.

Social and relational factors. Chatbots fuel conversions and enhance social experiences. Chatting with bots also helps to avoid loneliness, gives a chance to talk without being judged and improves conversational skills.

Curiosity. The novelty of chatbots sparks curiosity. People want to explore their abilities and to try something new.

There are a lot of third party chatbots like Drift and Intercom, available in the market with pre-configured tasks which can be enhanced to suit the needs, however, if you are looking for a custom solution to meet your unique business needs, a custom developed chatbot is what you need.

Site core CMS, with an integrated chatbot can serve as a powerful combo of automated lead generation tool and can act as a virtual assistant for customer care support.

Utilizing the power of Microsoft Cognitive services and Google AI services, we can get the AI-powered chatbot integrated into your Sitecore CMS almost instantly.

Conclusively, chatbots as an industry are on the rise like never before and enterprises looking for improved customer loyalty, engagement and direct reach at a faster pace and reduced costs should start investing in AI.AI-powered chatbots can be the starting step towards embracing the AI into your organization.