How Chatbots Can Optimise Your Business Operations
Chatbots are the new tech making waves in modern business! From revolutionising the data centers to playing an integral role in FinTech sector, chatbots are creating new opportunities in many areas of business.
Chatbots are not completely new, they have been with us for almost a decade now, but it is only lately that organizations have started exploiting the usefulness of chatbots from a business point of view.
As per a recent report, more than 80% of the companies would want to integrate chatbots by 2020. This is undoubtedly a huge number to digest. So, what makes chatbots such an important element of businesses today, and how you can actively optimise your business operations through chatbots? In this article we will be discussing the answers to these questions.
But, before we delve deeper, let me explain what chatbots are.
What is a Chatbot?
As the word chat implies, a chatbot is an automated computer program designed to conduct an interactive conversation through textual or auditory methods. It was initially designed to describe conversational programs but nowadays, it is used for various purposes like entertainment, research, business and they are an active part of various social platforms as well.
A few familiar chatbots platforms include Facebook’s Bots for Messenger, Telegram bots, Microsoft Bot Framework, ChatScript, Pandorabots, and others. They all have been doing great and boosting the customer-centric experience of the businesses. Let’s see in detail as to how you can make the most out of your business through chatbots.
Marketing
Chatbot can help you effectively market your products. This is because chatbots are well equipped to handle sales queries. Further, they also have the ability to convert the respective sales queries into sales.
Once the customer is directed to the chatbot, it can handle customer queries and redirect the customers to appropriate pages. Additionally, it can also collect feedback and leads for future contact with the customers as well.
Chatbots can also be integrated with email system to connect with the people who show interest in your product. This way they can help you in generating leads for your business. Chatbots can also set up appointments via email conversation for clients.
Sales
Chatbots prove extremely useful in understanding consumer preferences and suggesting customised advice and recommendations to them.
In fact, chatbots are finely equipped to handle high volumes of conversations. They can also be used to follow up with the customers who could be potential future buyers.
These days, customers look for an instant solution for their queries. And, with chatbots, those problems are almost solved. It has become extremely easy to connect with visitors and engage them in conversation as well.
Human Resources
One of the best features of Chatbots is that they can be used to help recruit people. They can help you in filtering the best candidates for the job. You can use them to collect data to reduce the attrition rate of your company. In fact, with Artificial Intelligence, it becomes easier to map an employee’s behaviour, and this could prove useful in enhancing the work culture of your company.
COIN developed by JPMorgan Chase is a brilliant example of how chatbots can help an organization handle its backend operations by parsing email for employees, handling common IT requests and the likes.
Customer Care
Chatbots can also help you in increasing customer satisfaction, creating a lot of selling opportunities, collecting feedback about various products, finding out customer queries and other related tasks. Erica is one such chatbot developed by Bank of America which helps the customers in making banking decisions.
As you can see, the number of applicable situations where chatbots can be leveraged to streamline business and decrease ongoing costs is great. We expect to see an ongoing and significant increase in this type of technology in the near future and beyond.
Originally published at viewport-tech.com.
