WHAT COMPANIES NEED TO KNOW ABOUT CHATBOTS

Featured article by Phil Collins

More and more companies are using AI-based systems for voice, messaging, or text communication with visitors to websites and online stores. Often, such chatbots are also used on platforms such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp or to respond to SMS messages. They are programmed to answer questions and perform tasks.

The acceptance of chatbots by customers grows with the quality of the conversation. Basically, chatbot dialogs save time, and companies can also relieve their customer support. Companies with a presence on Facebook are particularly likely to use chatbots in Facebook Messenger, as this enables a broad, scalable approach to customers and new prospects.

HOW A CHATBOT WORKS

A chatbot is an AI program for automated communication. It is a “communication robot” – not a machine made of metal, but a software or service from the cloud. Many readers will already have encountered chatbots, for example when communicating with Apple’s customer service or asking questions in an online store.

These users are shown a dialog box on the relevant websites in which they can enter their questions. The answers are then given by the virtual communication robot, the chatbot, rather than by employees from a call centre or help desk. The chatbots are being used in many types of support, in virtual casinos such as ChanCasino or other companies.

Chatbots often develop user profiles, as is known from the field of web analytics, in order to personalize their answers. In online stores, this is particularly easy, since a history of buying habits, time intervals, payment behaviour, etc. is available. Good chatbots are capable of learning; they are based on a form of artificial intelligence. Thanks to machine learning (ML), the answers are getting better and better, so that at some point users will find it difficult to tell whether they are talking to a machine or a human. Chatbots are thus becoming virtual online assistants and advisors.

HOW DO CHATBOTS AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE PLAY TOGETHER

Artificial intelligence (AI) remains one of the megatrends in the age of digitalization. Advances in machine learning, conversational AI and computer vision AI are at the forefront of software innovation, enabling convergent business and IT process optimization, prediction and recommendation, and transformative customer and employee experiences.

Advanced chatbots represent just such customer experiences. During a customer conversation, AI is used to constantly determine and evaluate how the voice robot should behave. Complex interfaces to back-office applications are used to obtain the necessary data. The most perfect possible communication with the customer or prospect can be controlled via dialog management.

In addition to chatbots, voicebots are increasingly being used, which allow people to talk to a software robot. With the help of speech recognition technologies (speech-to-text), spoken words are converted into text here and then interpreted in a machine-readable format by an AI system. With the help of speech synthesis (text-to-speech), the written text is transformed into an audio file.

CAN A CHATBOT DO MORE THAN ANSWER CUSTOMER QUESTIONS?

Chatbots can be used for many communication and organizational tasks. If they are combined with a request for action, for example for booking a trip, we also speak of so-called action-bots. This is where bots have the best prospects: they can help automate processes, offer advice on products and services, or proactively improve customer support.

CONCLUSION

To get your own chatbot you can contact the developer or the specialized agency. Developers and companies can use the Bot Framework and Azure Bot Service to program self-learning applications and bots that communicate with their users in a personalized way. 

So, it is easy to get a modern chatbot and provide a good, automated communication for your company. Well, there is an opinion, that in certain industries and occupational fields, chatbots will cost jobs. According to many studies, chatbots may sooner or later take over a good portion of customer service: 80 percent of major brands will introduce chatbots as customer service representatives. In the area of development and artificial intelligence, on the other hand, new jobs will be created if the trend toward increased use of chatbots is confirmed. However, much can be automated in the area of development as well.