What is a chatbot and why is it important for customer experience?

A chatbot is an Artificial Intelligence software that can trigger a conversation with a user. 

Many industries like banking, entertainment, healthcare, news, fashion, etc., have adopted chatbots to chat with their customers. In 2020, 85% of customer interactions were done by chatbots. Chatbots are the main difference for brands that provide a good customer experience versus the rest.  They are changing how companies interact with their customers, and the changes are usually positive when the chatbot is of high quality. 

A Ubisent study found that 35% of consumers want to see more companies using chatbots, which is interesting since the practice is still quite new. Companies like Duolingo, H&M, Sephora use chatbots to offer their services. The H&M chatbot plays the role of a personal stylist. When the conversation ends, the chatbot recommends an outfit based on the customer’s style. 

In the banking sector, Bank of America launched its chatbot called ‘Erica.’ Erica helps in making payments, checking balances, and also educates customers, and saves money. 

7 Ways to Improve Customer Experience using Chatbot

1. Impactful business insights

Businesses can collect valuable data from chatbot conversations. With the help of these data, companies can find out early issues regarding UX or any roadblocks that customers are facing. By finding out problems early and resolving them, similar issues can be prevented in the future. Using advanced customer feedback analytics tools like Thematic, companies can analyze the data from these conversations. They can interpret insights by theming and interpreting verbatim using AI free-text analytics. 

2. Reduce wait time

Chatbots solve your customer’s queries quickly and reduce their wait time. This provides better customer service to your customers. 

3. Always-on customer service

Chatbots always offer 24-7*7 customer support. They are an affordable and reliable way to provide basic support. Chatbots are trained better by using historical conversations, which can take some action on some of the common tasks such as answering basic questions and amending an invoice. In some situations, chatbots can even tell human emotions like happiness, anger, and confusion. If the customer is angry, the chat or will transfer the interaction to a human support agent. 

4. Personalized human interaction

Depending upon the user, chatbots can also personalize the customer experience. Chatbots gather data from their conversations. Through this data, support reps. Use the information to personalize their interactions with customers. The information can be provided to the agent in real-time so that the agents can provide relevant solutions based on the previous conversations and current needs.  

5. Encourage employees

AI can also be used to encourage staff to focus on more challenging tasks. AI can mimic human behavior perfectly, and employees may fear their jobs are at risk. To reassure them, companies should show their employees what’s in it for them. Chatbots are used to support employees to focus on more high-value activities rather than routine tasks. Like, sales reps can use AI to make a better offer on a renewed contract, insurance policies can be sold more when they offer more personalized advice. 

6. Seamless live chat

Many chatbots now use NLP methods to analyze the customer’s questions and respond to the customer’s needs. 

Chatbots can also be seamlessly integrated into the company’s website or mobile apps, which saves the customer time searching the company’s online resources for the answers they need. Customers can talk to the support reps. Anytime without leaving their messaging apps like Whatsapp or Facebook Messenger.  

7. 24/7 customer service

Chatbots are available 24 hours every day to solve your customer’s queries. Customers often need help outside of business hours. They need a way to seek out answers to vital questions at times when customer service staff members aren’t available. Chatbots offer your customers the opportunity to get their queries solved at any time, and they don’t have to wait for voicemail or emails. The best chatbots can also offer your customers the feeling of chatting with a live operator at any time. 

(Using a chatbot allows you to offer a 24-hour service | Source)

See how chatbots help some great brands to offer a premium customer experience

1. Lyft

From Lyft’s chatbot, you can request a ride via chat or voice. The chatbot will also let you know your driver’s current location with the car model and license plate.

2. Fandango

Fandango’s chatbot lets you watch movie trailers, find local theaters, and see what’s new. To get started, you will have to enter your city or ZIP code, and the chatbot will show you what’s playing nearby and send you to a page where you can buy tickets.

3. Spotify

Spotify’s chatbot makes it easy for you to listen, search and share music. You can also get playlist recommendations based on your mood or any genre of music you want.

4. Whole Foods

With the help of the Whole Foods bot on Facebook Messenger, you can always search for recipes. You can also search by an emoji to search for those recipes, and it also lets you filter your results if you have any special needs.

5. Sephora

By chatting to Sephora on Kik, you’ll get all types of makeup tutorials. The chatbot also shares product reviews and ratings when you are shopping in a store.

6. Mastercard

Mastercard’s whatnot makes it easy for customers to check on account transactions. Like, asking ‘how much did I spend on restaurants in May?’. With Masterpass, customers can also buy from Mastercard partners like FreshDirect, Subway, and Cheesecake Factory.

7. Staples

Staples have an intelligent, easy system which makes customer service very easy. It dined in partnership with IBM’s Watson. The chatbot can answer common customer questions, which tend to be about orders- tracking and returns ABC whether the particular items are in stock.

8. The Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal Chatbot makes it easy to stay on top of big news and stock quotes with Facebook Messenger. You can also customize alerts according to your needs by simply typing basic commands, and you’ll get live stock quotes, company information, and key financial metrics.

Conclusion

In various cases, chatbots have proved themselves by yielding good results:

Companies have reported a reduction of up to 70% in chat, call, and email inquiries after implementing the chatbot.

Brands also reported an increase in their customer satisfaction and a 33% saving per voice engagement. 

Chatbots are changing the way companies interact with customers. Now’s the best time to put chatbots in use. If you have already, let us know in the comments if that’s working for you.