The Rise of Chatbot: Chat, but?

What is a chatbot?

You’ve probably interacted with a chatbot whether you know it or not. Have you ever experienced being on your computer researching a product, and a window pops up on your screen asking if you need help or perhaps you’re on your way to a mall and you use your smartphone to request a ride via chat. Or you might have ordered your dinner from McDonald’s and received a response telling you when your order will be ready and what it will cost. These are all examples of scenarios in which you could be encountering a chatbot. Could you still imagine a world without chatbots?

Chatbot is a program designed to have a conversation with a human over Chat. You can train/configure your chatbot to answer to your customer on your behalf. A chatbot can understand the human language and respond accordingly.

Chatbots in the Digital Era

Our society now is a “mobile-first” population. As messaging applications grow in popularity, chatbots are increasingly playing an important role in this mobility-driven transformation that’s changing the way businesses and customers interact.

Chatbots allow businesses to connect with customers in a personal way without the expense of human representatives.

There are a significant number of automation possibilities through Chatbot, including some of them below.

• FAQ – create a bot to automate your frequently asked questions

• Order Tracking/Shipping – let bot answer the order/shipping status

• eCommerce – train your bot to engage your website visitor and convert them into customer

Image Source: shutterstock.com

How do chatbot work?

Driven by AI, automated rules, natural-language processing (NLP), and machine learning (ML), chatbots process data to deliver responses to requests of all kinds.

Value of chatbot for your business

Chatbots boost operational efficiency and bring cost savings to businesses while offering convenience and added services to internal employees and external customers. They allow companies to easily resolve many types of customer queries and issues while reducing the need for human interaction.

With chatbots, a business can scale, personalize, and be proactive all at the same time—which is an important differentiator. For example, when relying solely on human power, a business can serve a limited number of people at one time.

By contrast, chatbots allow businesses to engage with an unlimited number of customers in a personal way and can be scaled up or down according to demand and business needs. By using chatbots, a business can provide humanlike, personalized, proactive service to millions of people at the same time.

Consumer research is showing that messaging apps are increasingly becoming the preferred method for connecting with businesses for certain types of transactions. Delivered through messaging platforms, chatbots enable a level of service and convenience that in many cases exceeds what humans can provide. For example, banking chatbots save an average of four minutes per inquiry compared to traditional call centers. The same capabilities that help businesses achieve greater efficiency and cost reductions also deliver benefits to customers in the form of an improved customer experience. It’s a win/win proposition.

Want to Create a Chatbot? It’s Easier Than You Might Think.

There are many widely available tools that allow anyone to create a chatbot. Some of these tools are oriented toward business uses (such as internal operations), and others are oriented toward consumers.

Creating a chatbot is like creating a mobile application and requires a messaging platform or service for delivery. Beyond that, with all the tools that are easily accessible for creating a chatbot, you don’t have to be an expert or even a developer to build one. A product manager or a business user should be able to use these types of tools to create a chatbot in as little as an hour.

Here are chatbot builder that offers free service:

1. MobileMonkey

2 Botsify

3. Chatfuel

4. Flow XO

5. Wit.ai

Locally, there are Filipino chatbot builders as well:

1. BES

2. ChatbotPH

3. Chat Buddy

You see, the world is changing drastically and we have to go with it. Eventually, every person can have a fully functional personal assistant right in their pocket, making our world a more efficient and connected place to live and work.