If you’re a modern-day business, you will likely already be using automation, in some way, shape, or form. There are lots of areas in which your business could be using automation, whether it’s to send out invoices in your finance department, to making use of chatbots for customer services.
The future of business will certainly involve the use of automation but how are chatbots contributing to that future? Well, they’re revolutionizing customer interactions, helping businesses to take advantage of all hours of the day to engage with customers – not just working office hours.
First impressions count, which is why your business should be doing everything it can to engage with its customers. The interactions your customers have with the business may determine whether or not they spend their money with you.
This guide will look at how chatbots have grown in recent years and how they are revolutionizing customer interactions in 2024 and beyond.
The growth of chatbots in recent years
If you’ve used a chatbot before, whether professionally or personally, you’ll not be surprised that they’ve grown considerably in recent years.
In 2021, AI chatbots saw a 45% increase in usage year on year. More recently in 2023, a study found that 69% of consumers with satisfied with their last interaction with a chatbot.
It just goes to show that chatbots are proving to be more useful than some would initially think. For any business that’s thinking of using them or has been put off by using them, there are some great benefits that will hopefully sway your decision.
Chatbots can be a great help for businesses losing control of their customer support services and finding the volume of queries to be too much for current agents to take on.
Benefits of chatbots for the purpose of automation
Chatbots are a great way to make use of automation technology and are a fantastic aid for businesses of all shapes and sizes. Particularly those that are seeing an upward trajectory in sales and interest in the company in general. Some companies may struggle to keep up with demand and chatbots are a helpful way of providing extra – digital – hands.
Here are some of the benefits of chatbots for the purpose of automation and how they can be used for your business in the coming years.
Helpful to provide your business with 24/7 availability
When it comes to customer interactions, the more present you can be as a company, the better. That means offering as much support as possible around the clock.
For some businesses, it’s possible to offer 24/7 support from real agents but for a lot of companies, that’s simply not possible from a financial or resource point of view.
The next best thing to real agents is chatbots. They give the business an opportunity to operate around the clock, 24/7, 365 days a year. No breaks are needed and as long as you have a healthy knowledge base of information for chatbots to draw information from, prospective customers interacting with the chatbots are likely to get the answers that they need.
Customers have the ability to access the support they need, whenever they need it, and that for any customer in a digital age, is a perk that does well for businesses who make use of it.
You can personalize chatbots
While some businesses will use the very basics of technology when it comes to chatbots, you can go that one step further by offering personalization through these digital agents.
There are a few ways in which you can enhance the personalization of chatbots in order to make the interactions more personable and engaging. These include:
- Natural language processing – Chatbots that are equipped with NLP can understand human language. Whether that’s intent, tone, or sentiment, it helps to create personalized responses as a result.
- Customer profiling – AI chatbots can collect and analyze customer data in order to profile the customer that’s speaking to them. From browsing behaviors to purchase history, it helps to tailor their questions and responses even more so.
- Dynamic content – Chatbots are able to generate dynamic content that’s based on the customer interactions had. Tailored product recommendations or services can be provided through the conversations chatbots have with potential customers and existing ones.
- Contextual conversations – Chatbots are able to remember previous interactions and reference them where needed or prompted.
It’s cost-effective
Being able to save money on any investments you make for your business is music to the ears of those who are limited on the funds available. While chatbots might come at a cost, they’re a lot cheaper than having to hire more customer agent staff to deal with the influx of customer queries coming through daily.
The chatbot service you introduce helps to reduce the cost of new hires. It helps in reducing operation costs which directly helps towards profitability for the business. From the 24/7 support to automating tasks that are taking up chunks of time from your real employees, there are savings to be made when choosing chatbot services for customer interactions.
Speedy and efficient
Time is of the essence and that’s the case for any business in this digital age. That’s why chatbots are a great use and investment because they provide assistance to customer inquiries in real-time and sometimes, quicker than many customer agents are able to depending on wait times and customer query volumes.
Chatbots don’t need much in the way of intervention from human beings, making them efficient for businesses that might limited by the team available to help. Swiftly resolving queries from customers means quicker resolutions and improved customer satisfaction as a result.
It’s scalable
Chatbots have provided a helping hand for many businesses that have struggled to take that next step up when it comes to growth. Scalability is an important feature that you should be looking at when it comes to finding new tools and services to help build your business.
With chatbots, they’re able to serve a larger customer base without needing to hire more staff internally to do that work instead. It’s a highly effective solution for those who perhaps don’t have the financial means to hire a dozen or so customer agents to keep up with the demand from customers.
Chatbots in general have helped make scalability for businesses looking to go upwards, the accessibility they need to make it happen.
Highly useful for data collection
Data collection is an important part of any business because the information and insights it provides, help to deliver the best customer service possible.
Having insights into your customer’s preferences, behaviors, and backgrounds, are all useful for the purpose of data and making better-informed decisions. Chatbots are able to collect this data as well as use it to help with all customer queries, no matter how common or unique those questions might be.
Data is a valuable asset for businesses to have nowadays and it should be collected by any means possible. The larger the knowledge base, the more targeted your chatbots will be when it comes to delivering the right information required by the customers.
Improved customer engagement
Ultimately, one of the biggest benefits of chatbot software is that it helps to improve customer experience and engagement. Getting the attention of your customers is not as easy nowadays as it once was, meaning more effort needs to be made to grab their attention away from other competitors.
Chatbots and the technology they utilize help to create better first impressions and are more likely to improve the experience your customers have. That means they’re more likely to come back and offer repeat business for your company time and time again.
When you’re trying to get customers interested in your brand, products, or services, it’s important to improve your efforts in engaging them in everything they see from the business.
Better brand image
Talking of branding, chatbot solutions can be helpful in building a better brand image for your business. While you want to have real customer agents operating during business hours, you don’t want to miss the opportunity to build your reputation.
With modern and innovative technologies like chatbots, they’re an assistance and help for your business in more ways than one. They’re a great representative for your brand when you and your employees are off the clock. It helps to show off your business in the best way possible through easy interactions and solutions to often simple queries from customers.
In the eyes of your customers, this does great things for the brand image you’re trying to present. Brand image is essential because it’s hard enough to be recognized, let alone kept in the minds of your customers for long enough.
The future of automation is worth taking note of as a business in this modern day. Use these tips to ensure your business does more with chatbots in the coming years for the benefit of customer service and support.
