The Future of Chatbots
2020-07-01
Chatbots have grown exponentially. Chatbots docked to FB messenger increased from 30,000 in 2016 to over 100,000 today. Many big brands like American Express & H&M implemented chatbots and 60% of the youth uses them on a regular basis.
You will be surprised to know that the popularity of the search term ‘chatbot’ in Google Trends has increased over the years.
Chatbots are transforming the way business interact with the customers. The aforementioned stats prove that Chatbots have become the new gen-tech. Now, no more waiting for the right time to make Chatbots a part of your business.
1. Everyone Wants Fewer Apps
Individuals use apps to do tasks at a quicker pace. Over the past decade, the marketplace has been flooded with plenty of apps. Mobile app developers have created apps for shopping, commuting, socializing, dating, music, and the list is quite long. It is always good to have different apps, but nowadays, people have started relying on old apps and not interested in downloading new ones.
Today, there are apps for everything and anything. Before developing the app, ask yourself, who needs it? For example, if someone wants to book a flight, that person will first have to download the app and the book. Users don’t like to download the app every time they book a trip, purchase shoes or anything else. The problematic constant switching among different apps is very irritating.
This is where chatbots shine. You never have to download them and they can resolve issues hassle-free.
2. Apps Have Become A Challenging Business
As per Statista, there are approximately 2 million iOS apps and same is for Android till December 2018. With these stats, it becomes challenging for a new app to reach a wide range of users.
Apps are not websites so it is important for business owners that they should update it at regular intervals. It is better not to compete with the apps because you can choose the easier way by switching to chatbots.
3. Chatbots Make Customers Happy
Everyone loves exploring technology. Do you know approx. 44% of US consumers prefer chatbots over humans for customer communication? If you really want to be successful, ensure that your chatbots are bug-free, aligned to the brand, provide linguistics and that works effortlessly on multiple platforms.
4. Chatbots Cut Operational Costs
Do you know that every year approximately 265 billion customer support requests are made and this straightforwardly costs businesses $1.3 trillion to service them? Yes, this is true as per the 2018 report of Chatbots Magazine as they help business save up to 30%.
What will you do when there are 100 people messaging you at the same time and everyone has a different question? Hire customer support people? It is better to build a chatbot instead. Configure the chatbot in a way that it understands what the user is asking and answer the same intelligently. Bots also can scale your brand more than apps or websites.
5. More Marketing and More Sales
E-commerce chatbots help you buy products, food chatbots can order meals and trading chatbots deal with finances, content chatbots offer content you find interesting and the list goes on and on. Streamline your business operations for the better to improve marketing and sales.
Chatbots promote sales by keeping customers updated about products or services. Posting on websites or FB wall won’t raise that much engagement compared to a mail sent to the clients.
Chatbot gathers information from the customers and personalizes their responses. They help users choose the products, process payment data, enter a shipping address and complete the order.
Word of Advice
Give Your Bot A Personality!
Creating a chatbot that succeeds comes down to one thing: Planning. Figure out what you want your bot to be good at. Will that help customers to navigate the inventory?
Business is all about reaching the relevant audience! Chatbots are predicted to deal with approximately 90% of the customer inquiries in the upcoming 5 years. By 2022, it is expected to cut the business cost by $8 billion.