Chatbots can help businesses in a big way. Aside from being one of the forefronts of AI technology, chatbots also have the potential to bring in new clients, save your HR team time and ultimately save or make your company more money than it would have just depending on human employees. Here are five benefits chatbots can bring to your company:
Chatbots give employees an outlet to ask simple questions, such as "How much PTO do I have?" without having to call or email an HR staff member to confirm. If your company provides this information online, the chatbot can still redirect employees to the appropriate venue to find the information they are looking for, as well as guide them through any technical questions they may have. This frees up your HR staff to deal with bigger-picture problems and saves them time.
A chatbot that responds to a person looking at an online sales page can help move those potential customers on to providing their information so a salesperson can contact them. Chatbots also give potential customers the ability to ask questions and find out if your company is what they are looking for right off the bat.
Since chatbots tend to mirror human behaviors thanks to AI, potential customers will still feel like they are getting one-on-one interaction to ease their concerns, while not taking up an employee's time on a lead that may be a dead end.
Nobody likes waiting forever for someone in customer support to answer the phone when they have an urgent problem. A chatbot can go through FAQs with customers to try to solve their issue as quickly as possible. Since chatbots can work 24/7, they're able to answer customer questions any time of the day or night. While a chatbot cannot replace real customer support, it can supplement it so that your actual humans can provide excellent service without leaving customers feeling like they've been on hold without help for long periods of time.
For companies selling items directly via their websites, a chatbot can act as customer support, marketing and a salesperson all rolled into one 24/7 hub of information. For example, Taco Bell recently unveiled TacoBot, a chatbot that works with Slack to allow users to order menu items right from their Slack group! This way these restaurant chatbots can deliver better customer experiences, while improving margins.
This technology isn't just good for ordering tacos; it can translate to many industries, particularly those dealing in retail sales. A potential customer can say, "I'd like to buy this t-shirt in medium," and a chatbot can facilitate the sale. While it may be simpler in this example to just put the shirt in an online shopping cart and check out, a chatbot offers the opportunity for those who are not tech savvy or who are having issues locating a particular item to still make a purchase.
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While having this powerful tool for your company, it is also important to strike a balance between the automated and the human involvement. A chatbot can make a good first point-of-contact tool, but there are some complex tasks that only a human will be able to carry out. Therefore, it is recommended to have an option for a potential customer to speak with a real person, should they desire, easily and readily available.
Unlike multi-platform apps, chatbots take a significantly shorter amount of time to create. Since there are a variety of chatbot templates available already (Facebook, Microsoft, etc.) from developers that are big names in the IT industry, a chatbot can be built relatively quickly within the parameters of Facebook Messenger. For example, PayPal uses a chatbot through Facebook Messenger to help users keep track of their recipes. Of course, the amount of time a chatbot takes to complete depends on what specifications the client has. However, a simple chatbot can be quickly and affordably set up.
Is your company using chatbots? If not, it should be! If you wish you to learn more about chatbots implementation, talk to our experts for help: