In the marketing sector, the practice of including chatbots for customer service has become increasingly widespread. They are already integrated into social networks like Facebook, and can also be found on the websites of many companies. There is no doubt, therefore, that artificial intelligence is here to stay.
The main advantage offered by chatbots from the point of view of customer service is automation. You can optimize human resources and manage conversations with users in a highly efficient way.
For example, if a potential customer sends a message to the company's Facebook page and no one is currently connected to service it, the artificial intelligence chatbots system can offer useful information about the business, such as prices or schedule, opening hours, etc.
In addition, the tool allows closing sales much more easily. Even if there is not a person connected at that moment, the potential client can resolve their doubts and decide to buy or suscribe at that moment.
Finally, another interesting advantage of chatbots in customer service is that all conversations are stored in easy-to-manage digital logs. This allows you to answer and handle all messages afterwards if necessary.
Immediateness
You have two options, to give or not to give immediate answers. Clientes prefer that you give the answers as soon as possible.
Now, a chatbot will evolve over time. You may start giving automatic responses to 30% or 50% of the issues, until you reach a percentage and can exceed 80%.
Sometimes, there are chatbots that guide you throughout the experience to give you an answer within the chat because it is technically possible, and others that indicate the easiest way to resolve the doubt if the previous solution is more complex.
Available 24/7
These conversational assistants can answer questions or questions from users anywhere and at any time.
Reduced costs
Chatbots eliminate the need for staff during online interaction with customers. This is obviously a great advantage for companies that receive multiple inquiries at the same time. In addition to saving costs with them, companies can design the chatbot with additional objectives, such as sales and internal processes.
Training and improvement
A chatbot is capable of improve over time. Just like a new employee, you have to train a chatbot continuously. You can use conversation logs and livechat information to train your chatbot over time and improve their performance
Managing multiple users
Humans can serve a limited number of clients at the same time. This restriction does not exist for chatbots, and they can handle almost unlimited requests simultaneously. This is one of the main advantages of using chatbot, since no customer is left unattended and their problems are being solved at the same time.
Consistend Brand Image
Each of us can have a bad day ... but this does not happen with chatbots. As the bot messages have been previously programmed, it is not possible for them to deviate or get tired or emotional, but instead they will give the answers as your brand has defined them.
The main drawback of the use of chatbots in this context is that the user can easily detect the presence of robotic anwers.
However, artificial intelligence has progressed a lot and chatbots have been perfected to get closer to human language. With proper planning of a marketing strategy and a good configuration of the bots, good results can be achieved.
Sometimes they don't get it
Reactive chatbots can easily get stuck. If a query is not related to something you it was trained beforeand, it will not understand it. This can lead to a frustrated customer and a poor user experience.
Installation costs
Chatbots are useful programs that solve the need for availability and serving multiple customers at the same time. But unlike humans, each chatbot needs to be programmed differently for each business, increasing the initial cost of setup. The training of a chatbot can take time and resources so have that in mind.
Also, it can cause a negative experience if you do not know how to correctly manage expectations (a chatbot does not do magic). So it is always a good idea state what the chatbot can and cannot do.
