Businesses use chatbots to boost productivity and efficiency in a range of ways. They help workers set meetings and reminders, and ask simple questions without stopping what they’re doing, to name just a few use cases.

Gartner predicts that by 2020, the average person will have more conversations with chatbots than with their spouse.

Driven by the promise of intelligent round-the-clock digital support, more companies are using them to engage with customers alongside the now classic channels of phone, email, and social media.

But, what is a chatbox, exactly?

Derived from “chat robot”, chatbot is a computer program that simulates human conversation, either via voice or text communication.

You can find chatbots that communicate via smart speakers, smart home devices, and popular chat and messaging platforms like SMS, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and LINE.

What is changing for customers?

In addition to having a conversation with a person (such as a sales rep or a support agent, for instance), people can interact with software that helps find answers fast. Whether through typing or talking, a chatbot can connect with a customer. More importantly, it can influence a customer relationship by responding to requests faster while meeting expectations.

Chatbots can also free up customer support teams to apply their emotional intelligence to more complex queries.

Business impacts can include reducing costs by enabling self-service in simple scenarios, delivering relevant information faster, and improving the customer experience.

The evolution of a chatbot

More recently, chatbot systems have become much more sophisticated, thanks to significant advances in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). By harnessing enormous amounts of data and cheaper processing power, AI and related technologies — such as machine learning — are helping to dramatically improve chatbots’s quality of understanding and decision-making.

“64% of agents with AI chatbots are able to spend most of their time solving complex problems, versus 50% of agents without AI chatbots.”

“State of Service”, Salesforce Research March 2019

When chatbots are connected to technologies such as NLU, they can learn more complex ways of simulating human conversation, such as maintaining context, managing a dialogue, and adjusting responses based on what comes up in the conversation.

Digital disruption is rapidly raising customer expectations. Today’s consumers and business buyers are more informed and less loyal than their predecessors. They’re looking for differentiated experiences based on trust and understanding, and they will shop around to find them.

When chatbots are connected to technologies such as NLU, they can learn more complex ways of simulating human conversation, such as maintaining context, managing a dialogue, and adjusting responses based on what comes up in the conversation.

An AI-powered chatbot can also be trained to actively learn from any interaction with a customer to improve performance during the next interaction. For example, such systems can be trained to recognize customer frustration and switch any more complex interactions or problems to a human in the company’s support center.

The benefits of Chatbots

While chatbots can’t replace humans, they can complement the support-chat experience, giving employees or customers a friendly greeting and direct ways to get what they need — fast.

• Reducing customer waiting time. Chatbots can reduce the time customers spend waiting in line. People get immediate answers to common questions (about order status, store hours, or locations, for instance) in a chat window instead of waiting for an email, a phone call, or a response from another channel.
• Resolving support cases. Bots can also be a company’s ally in the race to quickly resolve support cases. That’s because they can immediately answer straightforward questions for customers to make them happier, and they can do it over and over again. Consequently, fewer cases get logged for support agents to resolve.
• Handling efficient redirects for customer inquiries. This is another AI chatbot strength — bots can instantly welcome customers with a branded greeting in a chat window, for example, and quickly direct them to the resources they need.
• Reducing customer waiting time. Chatbots can reduce the time customers spend waiting in line. People get immediate answers to common questions (about order status, store hours, or locations, for instance) in a chat window instead of waiting for an email, a phone call, or a response from another channel.
• Providing agents with leads. By handling initial support interactions with a customer or prospective customer, AI chatbots can help open up conversations that human agents can follow up on. A bot might ask a series of relevant questions, for example, and gather an email address, thus delivering a more qualified lead to a sales rep — who can then use this information to personalize future customer interactions.

AI and chatbot technology will continue to evolve, ushering in a new era of text- and voice-enabled user experiences that reshape the customer experience. As the research shows, high-performing service teams are often further ahead in developing AI chatbots to augment their human agents and deliver customer service support. In an age where the speed of service matters more than ever, chatbots are helping companies stay a step ahead.

For more information on AI, customer service, and chatbots, check out the “State of Service” research report.

To learn how you can leverage chatbots, AI and other customer-engaging technology, please contact us.

Source: Salesforce What Is A Chatbot