It can be counterproductive for any of your employees to spend a lot of time answering the same set of questions several times. The total time wasted in answering calls could be used to handle more important and urgent tasks. As a solution to this challenge, Bing came up with chatbots several months ago.
A bot is a program that interacts with users using natural language. The idea is to provide the chatbot with a database of answers to frequently asked questions. This will take the repetitive call answering task off your employees so they can focus on their core responsibilities and this also save you some cost.
In the process of answering calls, some chatbots can also do a little bit of digital marketing. Not only that, chatbots respond instantly and internet marketing requires quick response to inquiries as prospective customers are usually very impatient. They require an answer as quickly as possible.
A chatbot will never be tired of answering the same question over and over again. Some businesses now use chatbots not only to answer customers’ queries but to also do some internet marketing by upselling their products. For instance, if there is a promotional offer on a certain product and a prospective customer makes an inquiry on the product. After answering the question, a chatbot can chip in statements like… “do you know that if you buy 4 you will get an additional one for free?” In fact, quick and explicit response to prospective customer’s question is a major part of digital marketing.
Now, what if the chatbot does not have the answer to the question being asked? It will respond by providing the customer with the business phone number. After that, it will reach out to the business owner for an answer. Once the answer is provided, it is stored in the database so when another customer asks the same question after that, the chatbot will be able to provide the right answer. This is exactly how the database of chatbots is being updated regularly.
After a study, it was discovered that four major factors led to the recent drastic increase in the demand for chatbots. The factors have been discussed below.
Popularity of mobile messenger
People now prefer to communicate via text. Customers will rather communicate with chatbots via text than make phone calls. This is why more enquiries are made via mobile messenger plaforms. Studies also show that messenger apps are more popular than social media apps. For instance the most popular app is WhatsApp, a messenger app. It has more than a billion users.
App fatigue
Users are now getting tired of downloading and installing app that they will continue to update. This may be because people now make judicious use of their mobile data and storage facility. An average user has about 30 apps on his device and constantly uses about 5. So, customers will rather chat with your chatbot than install your mobile app.
Support and promotion of bots by Microsoft, Facebook and other IT giants
The support and awareness created about bots by technology giants have also increased the popularity of chatbots.
Drastic drop in the cost of bot development
Major software companies have released a lot of development tools, research data and frameworks for the development of chatbots and this has forced down its cost. A lot of medium enterprises that could not afford it are now coming up with their chatbots.
While large corporations also need them, chatbots will make more impact in small businesses where employees have already been stretched to capacity with tasks.
