Customer experience is a fundamental part of any business. In the digital age, consumers expect a seamless customer journey. Gone are the days of businesses keeping customers in the queue to speak to a salesperson or support staff. Modern companies have to use the necessary tools and communication technologies to deliver high-quality support to their customers and make the overall customer experience more enjoyable. The AI-enabled Chatbot is one such tool that can simulate conversations between customers and virtual assistants. Primarily implemented on websites or social media pages, AI chatbots provide a personalized experience during customer service.
Chatbots can do things like answer basic questions about your company and suggest other products to try. Chatbots also provide a more personalized and effective experience for customers by learning from their responses and providing tailored solutions for them that will lead to greater customer satisfaction, higher conversion rates, and greater profitability for your business.
What are AI chatbots?
An artificial intelligence-enabled chatbot is an app designed to simulate a human conversation with a person. A chatbot can be a customer service representative, a virtual assistant, or an information-gathering tool. Chatbots include an inbuilt screen-reading software that can read information from computers. They can answer specific questions or perform specific tasks. Today, chatbots are able to do anything from making restaurant reservations to giving you the weather forecast.
Functions AI chatbots can perform include:
- Chatbots can answer customer service questions, serve virtual assistants, and automate repetitive tasks.
- AI chatbots can schedule appointments, handle customer support inquiries, and more.
- Chatbots can respond to simple requests, including order status updates, website information, and tracking.
- AI chatbots can respond in more meaningful ways to complex inquiries. For example, chatbots can also retrieve documents from databases and help with solving billing issues.
- Leveraging artificial intelligence (AI), natural language processing, deep learning, and computer vision technologies, chatbots provide information, answer questions, and even make product recommendations.
- Providing customers with product information, purchase options, and live price quotes to expedite the conversion process.
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Turning towards AI chatbots
Conversational AI is the next big application of artificial intelligence. Conversational AI is software that automates conversations with customers. Live Chat Bots are one of the ways in which conversational AI is used. It involves developing chatbots that are programmed with natural language processing capabilities to have conversations with humans. They provide information, answer questions, or even sell things.
With AI-based chatbots, businesses can communicate with their customers and offer one-click solutions. They reduce customer service costs and improve online conversion rates by providing instant answers to customer queries using CRM chatbots. It’s no accident that technologies like Amazon Alexa, Apple Siri, Google Assistant, Microsoft Cortana are all blending into our lives. From customer service to healthcare, Conversational AI is changing everything.
A bot is a software that runs over the internet and does tasks on behalf of humans. On the other hand, Chatbots are a kind of bot that interacts with humans through text or voice chat. Chatbots are slowly becoming more advanced and capable of performing complex tasks that were previously only possible for humans. Instead of having to wait for customer service reps, you can be sure that your customer will be promptly attended to and have all your questions answered in a very short period. A chatbot can help salespeople stay on top of new leads, resolve customer issues faster, and cultivate stronger connections with customers.
Chatbots are transforming the way brands interact and engage with their customers. Today a good number of enterprises deploy chatbots on their online channels. 78% of organizations said they use AI chatbots for self-service in simple scenarios.
There are several reasons why businesses are turning to chatbots. Let us have a look at some of them:
Comfortable UX
AI-based chatbot solutions are accessible and intuitive. They’re simple to set up and really easy to integrate into your existing IT infrastructure. Customers are able to interact safely and securely with brands they’re already familiar with — instead of engaging with a brand via email or social media for the first time. Businesses can redesign their contact us pages on their website and social media pages with chatbots.
Reduces workload of the sales teams
Replacing an entire sales team with a reliable chatbot may not sound like a viable solution, but businesses can get the most out of their salespeople with chatbots. With the impressive capabilities of chatbots, customer service teams can focus on improving the customer experience rather than on administering a specific task.
Conversation automation
Bots assist customers rather than being just a point of contact. Rather than offering a customer service line, which is often challenging and time-consuming, the chatbot walks the customer through the steps necessary for a request.
Marketing automation support
Marketing teams benefit from AI chatbots because they’re easy to integrate into the marketing automation strategy. A chatbot has the ability to deliver a personalized experience for customers at all touchpoints of a relationship.
Extract cognitive responses
The automated conversations with chatbots are customized to the individual’s needs, so they feel like they’re talking to an empathetic friend. They offer an unprecedented level of personalization while also capturing emotional and cognitive responses to identify customer pain points and provide better service to them. And this is what differentiates chatbot interactions from text-based email exchanges.
Real-time response
Chatbots can not only answer questions but also predict what you might want next. In addition to being able to recognize emotions and cognitive responses in real-time, chatbots can also use natural language processing (NLP) to understand what the customer is saying and respond accordingly in real-time. For example, if the customer inquires about a dress and mentions an event date in the conversation, the chatbot would know to change its response based on this new information.
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Data security
Customers have to share sensitive information about their accounts, products, services, personal data, etc. during the customer support process. The chatbots come with inbuilt encryption, data security modules and access controls that prevent any unauthorized intervention during the chat and the conversation remains secure.
How can AI chatbots boost customer satisfaction, conversions & profitability?
AI-based chatbots provide an enjoyable and intuitive customer service experience, which boosts customer satisfaction and conversions. Finally, it’s worth noting that chatbots have the potential to reduce costs and increase profitability because there’s no human labor involved in handling repetitive tasks.
Customer satisfaction
Chatbots have been so successful in the customer service industry because they provide a better experience for customers. Chatbots can deliver engaging content to customers in a much more accessible and easier-to-read way. Sometimes customer support executives aren’t able to resonate with the customer queries due to a lack of data or inability to quickly retrieve the info to respond properly. On the other hand, Chatbots can access and analyze an incredible amount of user data in real-time, which can be highly beneficial when it comes to enhancing their responses. This leads to faster and accurate customer service and enhanced customer satisfaction.
2020 State of Conversational Marketing Report concludes that 87.2% of consumers have neutral or positive experiences with chatbots.
Conversions
AI chatbots are able to answer FAQs frequently asked questions without the assistance of a human agent. Chatbots are designed to boost conversion and customer engagement in many business applications, including customer service, sales, and lead nurturing. Chatbots can deliver invaluable leads to sales departments, quickly gather data, and recommend appropriate next steps to customers shortening the sales cycle. AI chatbots are an easy way for sales teams to use their customer data to influence customer buying decisions more effectively.
Profitability
Chatbots are one of the most attractive and cost-effective customer service channels for businesses. Chatbots allow companies to provide 24/7 customer service to their customers without having to hire more staff. Customer service experts have found that chatbots are four times faster than humans when handling certain tasks. They also reduce workloads and result in increased productivity and higher sales levels.
By 2022, Chatbots are projected to save $8 billion for banking and healthcare services alone.
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Conclusion
AI is a rising trend in the market that will continue to impact customer service, advertising, marketing, and sales. Chatbots are becoming increasingly popular with businesses of all sizes. Chatbots assist businesses to meet rising customer expectations and offer many benefits for companies, including boosting customer satisfaction, conversions, and profitability.
As more businesses deploy chatbots as prime customer service applications, the possibility of their use in various areas will only increase. Customers will benefit from the increasing use of AI in their businesses, and businesses will be able to handle customer needs better and expand their customer bases.
Web developer and SEO specialist with 20+ years of experience in open-source web development, digital marketing, and search engine optimization. He is also the moderator of this blog "RS Web Solutions (RSWEBSOLS)".
