According to a Harvard Business Review study, the average cost of a live service interaction (phone, e-mail, or webchat) is at least $7 or more for a B2C company and more than $13 for a B2B company today. This is set to go even higher today with more and more services being moved remotely and a boom in more tech-experienced users.
What are chatbots?
Chatbots are computer programs designed to simulate human conversation through text or voice interactions. They use artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing (NLP) to understand and respond to user queries or prompts in a conversational manner. Chatbots can be deployed on various platforms, such as websites, messaging apps, and social media channels, to provide automated customer support, answer frequently asked questions, facilitate transactions, and engage with users in real-time. See: Wikipedia
There are two main types of chatbots:
- Rule-based chatbots: Rule-based chatbots operate based on predefined rules and decision trees. They follow a set of programmed rules to respond to specific keywords or phrases. While they are limited in their capabilities and require manual updating of rules, they are effective for handling simple and straightforward interactions.
- AI-powered chatbots: AI-powered chatbots leverage machine learning algorithms and natural language understanding to interpret and respond to user inputs. These chatbots can learn from interactions, improve over time, and provide more personalized and contextually relevant responses. AI-powered chatbots are more adaptive and versatile, capable of handling complex conversations and understanding user intent.
How They Work
The whole idea behind chatbots is to simplify the customer service process not only for the customer but the agents (or company) as well. Many trivial issues or questions are easily handled by chatbots as opposed to requiring a full conversation over the phone. This in turn saves money and time on both ends. Similar to FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) that you see on the internet or social media sites, chatbots invoke a chat conversation that appears and responds to you as though it were a human in an attempt to solve your problem or answer your questions. The beautiful part about this is the ability to inject other technologies such as AI (artificial intelligence which learns from your client’s questions), a sales funnel, or even the ability to connect to a live agent if the issue is deemed worthy. Albeit, when chatbots are not set up correctly or aren’t robust enough to answer questions they can be very annoying. This is obviously counterintuitive to the customer support process. This is why it is imperative that it is set up properly and tested before use.
Why Would I Want to Use One?
Besides the obvious fact that you and your employees will spend less time and money answering questions, giving directions, and scheduling appointments your clients will appreciate the speed in which they get these tasks done in your support. There is also something to be said about creating a consistent and reliable way of handling support for your clients. No grumpy agents on the phone reading a script, no account “verification”, no misinformation, no phone holding times, etc.
As younger and more tech-savvy generations get older, the expectation of companies using chatbots will massively increase to the point where they are a known utility. Compare them to the usefulness of the yellow and white pages in the phone book. Remember those! You rarely stopped to think about how useful they were, they were just *what* you used to find a phone number. A utility.
Sure, but we’re just a little mom-and-pop shop, we don’t need something like this. Right?
This couldn’t be more inaccurate. With very advanced technologies becoming more readily available at cheaper development costs or through SaaS companies, this is really a reputation boost for any business of any size. Not to mention it will save money that your small business needs by offloading these trivial tasks onto a bot. Of course, there is always that option to allow the bot to forward them to a human. But at least they get options! People love options, especially when they are easy.
Many Industries are Already Implementing Chatbots
Numerous industries have already embraced the use of chatbots to enhance customer service and streamline business operations. The Bank of America, for instance, is at the forefront of this trend with the introduction of Erica, an intelligent virtual banking assistant. Erica is poised to revolutionize the digital banking experience, providing customers with personalized assistance and support.
In the aviation sector, KLM, a Netherlands-based airline company, has adopted an AI-powered chatbot customer service solution developed by DigitalGenius. This innovative technology has significantly reduced the time and resources spent on addressing customer queries, allowing KLM to enhance efficiency and improve customer satisfaction levels.
LivePerson, a leading provider of AI-based customer service platforms, offers businesses a human agent model that leverages advanced AI technology to deliver efficient and effective customer support. This approach combines the benefits of automation with the personalized touch of human interaction, creating a seamless and engaging customer service experience.
China Merchant Bank, a prominent credit card issuer in China, has successfully implemented a front-end bot powered by WeChat, one of the country's most popular messaging platforms. This AI-powered messenger bot handles an impressive volume of approximately 2 million customer inquiries per day, showcasing the scalability and effectiveness of AI technology in managing high-demand customer service operations.
How Do I Get Started?
Option #1: Select a service. There are many.
Unless you are a very large enterprise there really is no reason to build your own. But the software or platform itself is not the hard part, these come dime-a-dozen:
. . . the list goes on forever. But our suggestions are bolded.
Option #2: Let us help you choose, and teach you to build it.
The tricky part about chatbots is setting the customer experience flows in a fashion that best suits your business and the client’s interest, and then tweaking them over time to optimize efficiency. Some of the best chatbots have a visual editor that allows you to map out the flow. This is particularly useful with complex support options. See example:
Option #3: Of course, we can just do it for you.
Here at Mondo, we build these all the time. Ours being one of them. We will ask you a few questions on how you would like your client’s experience to look (even if it doesn’t heavily lean on the bot itself) and we will build and embed/ link your bot anywhere you like! Oh and by the way, if you want us to handle it for you just schedule a time to talk with us by visiting our chatbot above.
Are you seeing the power of chatbots yet!? Their use cases are limitless.
Have more questions that we didn’t address? Ask our chatbot, Ozzie.
