Chatbots are an important element in companies' web marketing strategies, particularly incustomer service. In addition to initiating the purchasing process, chatbots complement the usual methods used in the sales departments of both B2B and B2C. This system may seem complex, but this article will help clarify things.
Chatbot: what is it?
A chatbot is a computer program that simulates a text and voice conversation. It's a robot conversational that interprets a message and formulates a response accordingly. When used for voice messages, it's called a Voicebot.
The chatbot is the point of contact between a company and its customer. Its purpose is to address the customer's issues. It is deployed on various platforms: Facebook Messenger, websites, mobile applications, Skype, Trello, SMS, etc. Voicebots are more commonly used in the Amazon Echo, Google Home, and HomePod.
The chatbot operates on two main axes: transactions - and knowledge. When the conversation platform is transactional, it handles all booking and purchasing tasks. In this case, its understanding and interaction capabilities must be high. The conversation is based on established patterns. It is necessary to test as many scenarios as possible.
For a knowledge-based platform, the tools are different and more complex. It typically addresses the needs of customer service and must be able to handle a considerable volume of questions. Chatbots are then equipped with artificial intelligence to perform operations based on the context and the user.
How did the chatbot develop?
Chatbots have seen steady growth since their inception. The first form of this program was designed by a professor at MIT in 1966.However, its current form emerged 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 developed an artificial intelligence program called Watson capable of answering questions using natural language . In 2010, major companies like Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon launched their own user interfaces . But it was Facebook that revolutionized chatbots with Messenger in 2016. Messenger enabled the development of bots that interact with its users , contributing to the widespread adoption of the concept.
How does a chatbot work?
The chatbot works by identifying keywords or "vectors" inserted into users' questions. To decipher a sentence, it relies on the concepts of intentions and entities.
The intent serves to highlight the customer's objective. It is identified through words or pairs of words used in a sentence. For example, in the sentence "I would like to reserve a table for two for tomorrow evening at 8 p.m.," the intent is recognized by " make a reservation ." Other words would have been categorized under the same theme: reserve a table, make an appointment, book a table, etc.
An entity is the variable element used to provide more detail to the initial request. It can contain one or more pieces of information. In the same sentence, "I would like to reserve a table for two people for tomorrow evening," three entities are recognized: the date (tomorrow evening), the time (8 p.m.), and the number of people(2). Here again, other words could have been used.
Chatbots use decision trees in their operations, based on predefined scenarios and dialogues. chatbots More powerful rely on artificial intelligenceand natural language processing.
How to integrate a chatbot into your system?
To implement a chatbot, the essential step is to define your customers' objectives and interests. This requires identifying pain points in the customer journey, recurring customer service requests, and anticipating their potential problems.
The chatbot must be part of the company's ecosystem. It receives and shares information with other communication channels.
Why use a chatbot in customer relations?
The success of chatbots isn't solely due to technological advancements. It's also because they're as useful to consumers as they are to businesses in their customer service. Users appreciate the speed of the responses, while businesses maintain both customer satisfaction and a positive ROI.
Indeed, for businesses, these technologies allow them to automate part of the customer relationship. Faced with increasing competition and evolving consumer behavior, companies must improve the quality of their responsiveness. Maintaining a customer requires additional investment and risks overloading the system. The solution, therefore, lies in automating responses.
Requests that have a significant impact on the customer can be recurring for the company. Examples include password resets or package tracking. Automating these types of requests relieves the burden on the customer and allows customer service teams to focus on more complex inquiries. Chatbots thus help reduce the contact rate. By reducing this rate, companies expenses customer service.
Statistics show that 60% of internet users shop in the evening and on weekends, while French companies available 24/7 only reach 50% of these customers. This discrepancy demonstrates the need to implement a customer service continuously available and automated to avoid missing out on opportunities.
The chatbot allows for the personalization of interactions between the company and its customer. During the initial exchanges, the chatbot collects data on customers, enriching their profiles.
Chatbots represents a significant strategic challenge.
