The Rise of the Chatbots

A chatbot is a software that conducts a conversation via auditory or textual methods. It either identifies certain words and responds with the answers recorded and stored for those particular keywords –  or are programmed to formulate their own answer by learning over time through the string of words fed to it via the conversation!

The work on the evolution of Artificial Intelligence is in full swing, and with the demand for more intuitive Chatbots, a mass of developers have started trying their hand at creating the perfect ‘product’.

The introduction of popular chatbots like Siri, Google Assistant, Cortana, Alexa, Engagely, and Bixby into a person’s everyday life has changed the way people use their electronic devices. Some people have become extremely reliant on the ease of using these chatbots offer. From calling a person from your contact list to playing the music of your choice to help schedule meetings, these bots do it all.

They even have witty answers to questions one may ask for their amusement!

Some other applications of Chatbots are as follows.

1. To improve customer service.
2. To guide customers through an ecomm purchase.
3. To monitor and record a customer’s / employee’s satisfaction.
4. To help book through travel services faster i.e. flights/trains/buses.
5. To enable easier booking at a restaurant for orders or takeaways.
6. To improve the response rates. Eg The Automated reply feature on Facebook.

With the sudden rise in the demand for personalized attention in customer care, the use of these chatbots has solved so many problems.

Chatbots are programmed to be quite adept at collecting information about users while giving responses to the customer’s inquiries. Some of the other uses are as follows:

1. Providing assistance or access to information quickly and efficiently.
2. For entertainment purposes or as someone to converse with if you are lonely.
3. To improve conversational skills.
4. To get news feeds and reminders customized to your liking and schedule respectively.

Many companies have incorporated chatbots into their website, online, or call services to answer simple doubts of the customers. The customer is only diverted to a real-life assistant if the problem cannot be solved by the chatbot. This saves a lot of time and is a more economically viable option for companies. AI Chatbot also enables companies to offer a 24/7 customer support service that eliminates the chance of human error and is customizable to the requirements of the company. These factors lead to better customer engagement.

It has been forecasted that about 83% of all customer interactions will be handled without a human by the year 2020.

Will chatbots one day make the human customer care service obsolete? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.