Remember the last time you bought a new item and found out that there is something wrong with your item? What did you do? Surely you went to the brand’s website and look for customer support. Then a small box pop out asking if you need any help. Since you really need immediate support, you engaged. Do you know that you are communicating with a chatbot?
Chatbots are famously used by businesses today, to instantly aid their customers and elevate their Digital Experience (DX). Whether it is retail, travel, health, finance or whichever industry, chatbots are now heavily used because of its efficiency to answer repetitive customer questions, empower the workforce and provide support like customers are talking with a person.
What are Chatbots?
A chatbot is an Artificial Intelligence (AI) program that’s sole purpose is to automate answering customer queries based on programmed key phrases and text-based signals. Chatbots are often used in customer service that are integrated with social media and instant messaging apps. They are also often integrated in company sites and any channels customers are often using.
Gartner predicts it that by the end of 2020, over 85% of customer interactions will be managed by a robot. It is also report by Chatbot Magazine that companies can reduce costs by up to 30% by using conversational chatbots.
According to Econsultancy, chat-based support has the highest satisfaction level for any customer experience channel with 73%. Email and phone only received 61% and 44% respectively.
To better understand the positive impact of Chatbots and AI, here are some reasons why you should employ chatbot support for your business:
Available Support 24/7
With robots, you do not have to worry about staffing your support team with agents that are available 24/7. Since conversational chat support is automated, customers can contact you whenever they like. Which is a positive customer experience for them because they can reach out when they need you the most.
Remember, expect services today to be fast, and chat bots satisfies that expectation.
Save Time and Money
Phones and emails are the main channels that customers use, but chatbots are comparatively cheaper to operate.
Because chatbots are fully automated, you do not need a lot of agents. Frequently asked questions are already answered and filtered by the AI, so calls that run through the voice support will be fewer. To add, chatbots can also answer multiple questions at once, which saves time, labor, and money for the company.
Improve Accuracy
The human workforce is prone to human errors, but with automated chat support, customers can instantly and accurately find the information they need. Bots are intelligent enough to understand user’s questions and suggest the right answers.
Elevate Customer Digital Satisfaction
Because of the instantiations and accurate response of chatbots and AI-based support, customers will have higher customer satisfaction. This will eventually turn customers into loyal fans and would advocate your brand via word of mouth.
As Jeff Bezos Founder & CEO, Amazon said, “if you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful.”
Customer Engage Better
Because they can ask questions at their own convenience, they engage better to each question. Studies have proven this digital experience solution boost sales because of engagement, 24/7 support and lower costs.
Note, however, that despite the intelligence of chatbots, agents should be available to pick up questions that a chatbot cannot discern properly. Redirecting customers to a voice call at the end of a chat conversation will further improve their digital experience.
The list of the positive effect of chatbots to any business is endless and if you do not want to miss out of the growing number of customers who prefer to communicate through chat than the traditional support channels, then it is high time to look into these modern CX technology to further improve your customer experience.
