{"id":830,"date":"2018-08-09T03:03:19","date_gmt":"2018-08-09T03:03:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kusuaks7\/?p=435"},"modified":"2023-07-25T16:33:01","modified_gmt":"2023-07-25T16:33:01","slug":"the-rise-of-chatbots-in-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.experfy.com\/blog\/ai-ml\/the-rise-of-chatbots-in-business\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rise of Chatbots in Business"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Customer service and support is an incredibly difficult channel to maintain and manage, despite being the least complex of business operations. At its core, the channel is simple and straightforward. You help customers with whatever they need to ensure they have the most pleasant and convenient experience possible.<\/p>\n

If a product or service they paid for isn\u2019t working, you deliver the necessary assistance. If they have questions about your business or offerings, you answer. If they have comments or suggestions, you listen, assess the importance and take action.<\/p>\n

To this end, you need an army of tireless, helpful employees and representatives to interface and interact with your influx of customers. But therein lies the problem, especially in today\u2019s landscape. Customers not only want a more contextually relevant experience, but they also want it whenever they\u2019re ready. In other words, your customer support channels need to be open and active nearly 24\/7 to accommodate customer and audience demands.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s just not possible, nor is it viable. As humans, we grow exhausted, bored and even irritable at times, which makes us treat others in various ways.<\/p>\n

One technology is transforming how this process works, especially in regard to reliability and efficiency: chatbots. You might not believe it, but automated chatbots and messaging tools<\/a> can supplement live support reps.<\/p>\n

How Chatbots Fit Into Modern Customer Support Strategies<\/strong><\/h3>\n

A variety of benefits go hand-in-hand with deploying chatbots<\/a> and communication tools of the like.<\/p>\n

For starters, chatbots are available 24\/7 and can hand off communication to a human agent as necessary. If someone connects to make some account changes, pay a balance or even ask a question, the bot can handle it, plus more. In fact, 64 percent of Americans<\/a> say that 24-hour service is the best feature chatbots provide.<\/p>\n

Chatbots also tend to be more accurate through messaging services like Facebook Messenger and Skype, in part because they have access to more advanced and comprehensive data stores. They\u2019re also powered by machine learning systems, which adapt and grow over time based on past and current customer interactions.<\/p>\n

In addition, chatbots can save businesses \u2014 especially smaller companies \u2014 a lot of money that they would otherwise spend on outsourcing customer support to a provider or hiring their own in-house reps. And just due to the nature of how they work, you essentially get more for less. You\u2019re not paying per hour or time spent with the chatbots in general, as opposed to wages that go to hourly associates and employees.<\/p>\n

The Darker Side of Computer-Based Automation<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Of course, not everything is on the up-and-up, so to speak. The widespread adoption of automation systems and tools \u2014 like chatbots \u2014 also brings up several ethical questions.<\/p>\n

Right off the bat, where do you draw the line in regard to what data and information is harvested? Amazon Echo devices \u2014 referred to as Alexa \u2014 have been known to record people\u2019s private conversations<\/a>, which can have some serious negative repercussions down the line. Yes, Echo devices are more consumer-oriented, but that doesn\u2019t make business- and enterprise-level systems any less concerning.<\/p>\n

Laws and regulations have been impacted<\/a> heavily by modern technologies, not the least of which from AI and machine learning \u2014 two major platforms powering chatbots.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also the major question of whether or not these types of platforms will replace human workers entirely. We\u2019re not at a stage today where humans will be removed from the equation altogether, but even supplementing these systems with chatbots lowers the demand for customer support reps and human counterparts. It\u2019s difficult to determine how, exactly, the change will affect the market over the long term.<\/p>\n

That said, such darker elements don\u2019t necessarily warrant avoiding the use of chatbots and automation altogether. Rather, they\u2019re a cautionary tale for factors we should consider going forward. How can we implement chatbots in a way that doesn\u2019t eliminate jobs and human responsibility? We\u2019re confident that with time, these things will not only be ironed out but optimized. But surely<\/a>, they must be accurate and reliable if they\u2019re being used to supplement or alleviate human reps, right?<\/p>\n

How Chatbots Are Growing Smarter<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Through the use of modern technologies \u2014 mainly more advanced forms of business analytics \u2014 chatbots are becoming more powerful and useful. There are the more obvious support technologies, like AI and machine learning, which work to boost cognitive computing. But other opportunities, like big data and customer metrics, are also shaping the way in which chatbots interact with the community at large.<\/p>\n

For instance, historical data pertaining to past purchases, customer interactions and even support opportunities can help inform a bot about a particular customer. When they reach out to communicate, the bot can offer personalized recommendations and support in an instant. Imagine a bot knowing exactly why you\u2019re getting in touch, for example.<\/p>\n

Over time, these bots even collect and generate data of their own about customer interactions. They might pinpoint a particular reaction or communication that’s making people frustrated and improve or eliminate it completely. Gone are the days of screaming into a phone trying to get a computer to understand what you\u2019re saying. This change also means they better understand natural and more human speech. Just consider the likes of Amazon\u2019s Alexa, Google Assistant or even Siri.<\/p>\n

As a better example, Google Duplex was recently rolled out<\/a>. It uses machine intelligence to deliver more accurate responses to queries and web searches.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s difficult to imagine where we\u2019ll be in the next five years or so, let alone a decade from now. But one thing is certain: These kinds of automated tools and communication bots are growing smarter every day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If your product or service isn’t working, you deliver the necessary assistance to your customers. To this end, you need an army of tireless, helpful employees and representatives to interface and interact with your influx of customers. In other words, your customer support channels need to be open and active nearly 24\/7 to accommodate customer and audience demands. Chatbots are transforming how this process works, especially in regard to reliability and efficiency:. You might not believe it, but automated chatbots and messaging tools can supplement live support reps.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":217,"featured_media":2522,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[183],"tags":[97],"ppma_author":[1745],"class_list":["post-830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ai-ml","tag-artificial-intelligence"],"authors":[{"term_id":1745,"user_id":217,"is_guest":0,"slug":"nathan-sykes","display_name":"Nathan Sykes","avatar_url":"https:\/\/www.experfy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/medium_5b077b8d-d190-4522-a96a-8144badf183b-150x150.jpg","user_url":"https:\/\/www.findinganoutlet.com\/","last_name":"Sykes","first_name":"Nathan","job_title":"","description":"Nathan Sykes is founder and editor of\u00a0\u00a0Finding an Outlet<\/a>, a platform for the latest news and trends in business technology.\u00a0"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.experfy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.experfy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.experfy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.experfy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/217"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.experfy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=830"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.experfy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29575,"href":"https:\/\/www.experfy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830\/revisions\/29575"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.experfy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.experfy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.experfy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.experfy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=830"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.experfy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}