The chatbot is an important element in companies’ web marketing strategies. It is particularly involved in customer services. In addition to triggering the purchasing process, the chatbot makes it possible to complement the usual systems within the commercial departments of B2B and B2C . This system seems complex, but this article helps you see it more clearly.
Chatbot: what is it?
A chatbot is a computer program that simulates a textual and vocal conversation . It is a conversational robot that interprets a message and formulates an answer accordingly. As part of a voice message , it is called Voicebot.
The chatbot is the point of contact between a company and its customer. It aims to respond to the latter's problems. It is deployed on various platforms: Facebook Messenger, website, mobile application, Skype, Trello, SMS , etc. Voicebots are more used in the Amazon Echo, Google Home, HomePod .
The chatbot intervenes on two major axes: transactions and knowledge . When the conversation platform is transactional , it concerns all reservations and purchasing tasks. In this case, its capacity for understanding and interaction must be raised. The conversation is based on pre -established patterns . It is necessary to test a maximum of scenarios .
For a knowledge-driven platform, the tooling is different, more complex. It generally meets the needs of customer services and must be able to answer a considerable volume of questions . Chatbots are then equipped with artificial intelligence in order to carry out operations depending on the context and the interlocutor.
How was the chatbot developed?
Chatbots have experienced a steady rise since their creation. The first form of this program was designed by a professor at MIT in 1966 . But its current form came out in 1995 with the Artificial Linguistic Internet Computer Entity . This program is, in fact, capable of simulating a useful conversation with a human interlocutor.
In 2005 IBM designed an artificial intelligence program called Watson capable of answering questions on a natural language . In 2010, major brands like Apple, Google, Microsoft and Amazon launched their own user interfaces . But it is Facebook which revolutionizes the chatbot with Messenger in 2016. Indeed, Messenger makes it possible to develop robots which interact with its users . This will contribute to the democratization of the concept.
How does a chatbot work?
The chatbot works by identifying keywords or “vectors” inserted in Internet users’ questions. To decipher a sentence, it is based on the notions of intentions and entities .
Intent serves to emphasize the client's goal. It is identified by words or pairs of words used in a sentence . For example, for the sentence “I would like to make a reservation for a table of 2 people for tomorrow evening at 8 p.m.”, the intention is recognized with “ make a reservation ”. Other words would have been categorized in the same theme: reserve a table, make an appointment, book a table, etc.
The entity is the variable element used to provide more precision to the initial request. It may include one or more pieces of information . In this same sentence “I would like to make a reservation for a table of 2 people for tomorrow evening”, three entities are recognized: the date (tomorrow evening), the time (8 p.m.), and the number of people (02) . Here too, other words could have been used.
Chatbots use decisions in their operations based on scenarios and predefined dialogues. The more powerful chatbot rely on artificial intelligence , and recognition of natural language .
How to integrate a chatbot into your system?
To set up a chatbot, the essential step is to define the objectives and center of interest of your customers. For this, it is necessary to determine the friction points in the customer journey , recurring requests to customer service, and an anticipation of their problems.
The chatbot must be part of the company's ecosystem. It receives and shares information with other communications channels.
Why use a chatbot in customer relations?
The success of chatbots cannot be explained only by the evolution of technology. But the fact that it is as useful to consumers as it is to businesses in their customer service. users are satisfied with the speed of responses. Companies maintain both customer satisfaction, but also a winning ROI .
Indeed for companies, they allow to automate part of the customer relationship . Faced with the growth in competition, and the evolution of consumer behavior , companies must improve the quality of their reactivity . customer service implies additional investment at the risk of engorgement. The solution therefore lies in the automation of responses .
Those who have a strong impact for the customer can constitute a recurring request for the company. This is the case with a password reset or a package monitoring for example. The automation of this type of request therefore makes it possible to relieve the customer and to focus the attention of customer service to more complex requests . The chatbot thus reduces the contact rate . By reducing this rate, companies restrict expenses related to customer service .
Statistics show that 60% of Internet users shop in the evening and on weekends while French companies available 24/7 only represent 50%. This gap demonstrates that the implementation of continuously available and automated customer service is necessary to avoid losing opportunities.
The chatbot gives the possibility of personalizing the interactions between the company and its customer . During the first exchanges, the chatbot collects data on customers who enrich their profiles .
The chatbot is now part of the digital landscape with 80 % of the companies that use it in 2025. It is a major strategic issue.
