How to Improve Your Customer Service With Chatbots.
From buying recharge cards to sending money, chatbots are opening up a new era of business-customer interaction. Before I have you wondering what is this one talking about, let me explain what a chatbot is.
A Chatbot (also known as a talkbot, chatterbot, Bot, IM bot, interactive agent, or Artificial Conversational Entity) is a computer programme that can respond to text or verbal commands and questions, providing advice in the place of a human staff member.
Now that we are clear on that, let’s continue. Chatbots are becoming a huge growth area, with tech research giant Gartner predicting that by 2020, the average person will have more conversations a day with bots than they do with their spouse, Lol. I can’t even defend the human race on this one because I know people are already buying sexdolls(bots). This rise is being driven by several converging trends like the popularity of messaging apps, the explosion of the app ecosystem, advancements in AI and cognitive technologies, conversational user interfaces and a wider reach of automation.
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Chatbots are gaining popularity in a number of industries as an important customer service tool, with financial services like Kudi.ai, UBA’s Leo using them the most in Nigeria. For businesses, using chatbots could not only free up the time spent dealing with customers directly, but also lead to visitors being better engaged with their websites, for example; chatbots could help to direct them towards the information or products they’re looking for.
Twilio conducted a global study and claimed that 66% of people would prefer to talk to brands on messaging platforms (namely native ones, such as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp) over any other medium. Also, Sprout conducted another study and the result was that almost 90% of messages that require a response are ignored by brands, with an average wait of 10 hours for those that do get a reply, even though consumers expect a reply within four. This is where chatbots come in.
Conversational marketing or customer service provided by chatbots is an effective way for brands to have an Improved Customer Service, Increased Customer Engagement, Monitoring Customer Data and gaining Insights. Better Lead Generation, Cost Savings.
The amazing thing with Bot development is you don’t have to be big to tap into this trend, with platforms like chatfuel, Microsoft Bot Framework, API.ai, etc. Any facebook user can use these platforms to create a virtual agent.
This is an opportunity for SMEs to increase their sales by making use of the opportunities that comes with Chabots. They need to start using automation bots to automate order, downloads, instantly allocate and fulfill orders, send order to the warehouse for fulfillment and shipping. The opportunities chatbots are bringing are limitless.
