The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic brought the world’s fast advancement to an abrupt halt. People now feel more at ease using technology, if there is any good to come out of this disaster. Technology is being quickly embraced even by elder generations who are less tech adept. If firms are looking for automation, it should be concentrated in the customer service verticals (helpdesk and support portals).
Since they were initially developed, chatbots have advanced significantly. In 2016, Facebook gave companies the ability to use chatbots on its Messenger platform to give automated customer service, e-commerce advice, content, and interactive experiences. Chatbots have developed into AI-driven Virtual Assistants that can do anything from schedule appointments to respond to simple questions. Chatbots are here to stay because of the diversity of problems they can tackle. By 2025, it is anticipated that the chatbot industry would grow to $1.25 billion.
Let’s take a closer look at some of the most important issues that make customer service chatbots so important right now.
1. The Need to Save Resources, Time, and Money
The lengthy lock-downs have had a significant impact on the financial flows for the businesses. This is the ideal time to incorporate chatbots, which can do repetitive jobs and free up human workers for more difficult ones, into the organization to manage it with constrained resources and budget. Chatbots are being offered for reasonable pricing and even as monthly subscription services.
2. Improve the experience of digital customers
People had trouble getting necessities during the early stages of the COVID pandemic. Customer complaints and inquiries came in large numbers. Businesses have trouble handling them. In these circumstances, AI-driven chatbots are quite helpful in identifying the issues and offering pertinent answers.
Customers that use voice-enabled customer support chatbots receive a human-like experience, which helps provide a personal touch to a digital setting. Chatbots powered by AI or machine learning, as opposed to command-based chatbots, may respond to unclear inquiries. Chatbots are adapting based on the responses and will eventually be able to give more accurate responses. NLP chatbots will advance the digital customer experience, a key competitive advantage for companies today.
3. Promote Brand Loyalty and Customer Engagement
Keeping current consumers and clients interested and fostering trust with them is one of the major problems with lockdowns and social isolation. Due to consumers’ increased attention to companies that offer the greatest services, it has been difficult to maintain brand loyalty. Even in these crucial times, well-known brands with sizable customer bases risk failure if they stick with legacy systems and conventional business practices.
Organizations will need to interact with consumers in order to maintain a profitable business.
The data that bots may gather through their AI skills can be utilized to re-engage with clients. Bots can remind customers about the items from their wish lists that they haven’t purchased, suggest products to pair with the chosen ones, collect feedback, and more, particularly in the e-commerce sector. When times are tough, consumers remember brands that offer good services.
4. Addressing Workforce Issues in the Modern Era
Lockdown made it urgent for firms to make sure that operations with remote labor ran smoothly. The problem also included maintaining open and honest communication with the internal workforce, or workers.
Communication issues with their employees throughout the world were particularly difficult for larger firms and MNCs. For instance, not every employee may be reachable by the HR department. Due to this, chatbots that can answer some of the simpler questions are required. 70% of white-collar professionals will use conversational platforms everyday by 2022, according to Gartner’s prediction. Helpdesk automation is becoming more and more popular as a result of the present epidemic.
5. Lead Creation
It will be challenging for the business development and sales teams. How can you generate leads given the economic downturn? Due to the inability of sales representatives to meet customers in person, many businesses are converting to digital marketing.
Cold calling and email marketing are quickly losing their relevance in the B2C market. In order to find leads, the circumstance necessitates interacting with others. While interacting with prospects and assisting businesses in their outreach, bots can offer data on the backend. increased sales conversions are thus made possible.
How Do Chatbots for Customer Service See the Future?
Millennials and Gen Z, who together make up 2 billion people (27%) and 1.8 billion people (24%) respectively, are examples of contemporary customers. They favor self-service portals greatly and expect a prompt responses to their inquiries. Workflow-integrated chatbots may access past consumer information and provide appropriate recommendations for solutions.
Self-service customer assistance is already being used by businesses like Uber and Amazon, which not only relieves the burden on contact centers but also caters to the rising need for convenience. A recent Salesforce poll found that chatbots are a key enabler for the adoption of self-service portals by 60% of enterprises.
