Conversational Bots: Is Your Business Ready?
Gartner predicts that “by 2022, 70% of office workers will interact with conversational platforms daily.”
Conversational platforms are becoming integral to the way that brands communicate their brand voice, improving efficiency and user experience.
From simple response platforms, conversational AI has continued developing to fit consumer needs. Chatbots.org in 2018 found that 22% of people viewed chatbots as not intelligent enough to fit their needs and requirements. Whilst 32% found chatbots unreliable when providing unpredicted queries.
Gartner says, “Customer service is the most important factor in business success.”
Since that study; Gartner predicts that the continual investment and development of AI technology will save customer support services an expected $8 billion by 2022. A drastic jump, compared to $20 million saved during the time the study took place.
How to use chatbots in business
Chatbots “define how people converse with your digital business services and data” (Gartner). They are a tool, allowing any business (B2B and B2C) to hold micro-conversations with customers. They offer those fast and easy solutions that otherwise wouldn’t be accessible online.
So is this the only benefit of utilising a chatbot?
Chatbots are 24/7 service, perfect for addressing and answering frequently asked questions. Programming chatbots to do these repetitive tasks increases productivity.
Meaning, your business spends less money and time on having to deal with preventable customer complaints. It shows, as “90% of businesses reporting faster complaint resolution with bots.” (MIT Technology Review).
It is also important to view conversational bots as a tool. Their job is to ease the stress of human contact centres, not to replace them.
Defining what you can automate as a business
Each business is different, a chatbot may not be the solution. So, your brand needs to define; what are the needs and necessities of your business? What are the complexities of the tasks that the user needs to undertake? How can a chatbot aid in their process?
Why chatbots
Chatbots are 24/7 service, perfect for addressing and answering frequently asked questions. Programming chatbots to do these repetitive tasks increases productivity.
Meaning, your business spends less money and time on having to deal with preventable customer complaints. It shows, as “90% of businesses reporting faster complaint resolution with bots.” (MIT Technology Review).
It is also important to view conversational bots as a tool. Their job is to ease the stress of human contact centres, not to replace them.
Defining what you can automate as a business
Each business is different, a chatbot may not be the solution. So, your brand needs to define; what are the needs and necessities of your business? What are the complexities of the tasks that the user needs to undertake? How can a chatbot aid in their process?
Chatbots are powerful tools that enable your brand to personalise to each consumer. Chatbots build and create authentic relationships and experiences with the brand. It is a representation of your brand's voice. So, it is important to underline how each style of bot should interact with the user.
Inject a human element into your bot. What is the tone? Emotion? Personality? How can a bot represent the brands' values and provide an authentic experience for the user?
To engage your customer, you must understand how they interact online with your brand. Chatbots can build and maintain relationships. So how can this style of bot provide a needed service to generate?
This requires continual bot training and development of your conversational strategy. Each conversational bot can collect and store data. It is about how you can interpret this data to develop and improve their user experience online. How can you keep and build their relationship with your brand online?
Restructuring the tone of your online brand. Providing instant 24/7 communication online. Enhancing user experiences through multimodal platforms. These are all plausible concepts and frameworks you can implement.
At VERSA we help businesses define their maturity and readiness for bots through our diagnostic workshop. Is your business ready?