One of the greatest advents of technology is Artificial Intelligence. A lot of people still think that artificial intelligence is still a scientist’s dream. What they don’t know is that this dream has come true. Artificial intelligence has not only been successfully created but is all around us. Example? Chatbots.
How many times have you opened a site and seen a small icon on one of the corners of the screen asking you if you need assistance? These chatbots are the perfect example of how commonly integrated AI is in our lives, without us even noticing.
These chatbots are everywhere. And the word is, soon they will be dominating the customer service that we experience.
Here are some statistics and trends that suggest the same.
Reduced Costs:
Utilizing chatbots for customer services can highly cut back on operational costs. Their simple adoption by a company, in the specific department, can help them save up to 30% of the operational costs. This is part of the reason why businesses are so readily integrating this part of AI on their online websites.
Since these bots allow cutting back of costs, there are more and more businesses that are willing to spend on it. Given the current investments, a total of about $5 billion is expected to be invested in these bots by the end of 2021.
Increasing Use:
The increased use of chatbots is not just a prediction or hypothetical. These AI features are very commonly found everywhere. Back in 2018, there were more than 300,000 chatbots on Facebook alone. The Blue-Bot functioned to send about 2 million messages to an audience of more than 500,000 in the same year. Let’s move forward a year and talk about 2019. It was estimated that at the end of the year, about a quarter of the world’s population was using chatbots for customer support. And that too on a regular basis.
That is the past. Today, an estimated number of 1.4 billion people are using chatbots. That may be more than the number of people talking to human customer service representatives.
If the current use of these bots isn’t enough to predict how rapidly they will take over, let us highlight that according to a study, about 50% of the current businesses plan to spend a greater amount on chatbots that they would on mobile applications. Another prediction says that by the end of 2021, most of the interaction that customers will have will be with chatbots.
Their Intelligence:
Artificial intelligence started out with a big question mark after its name. However, today, it has proven to be a lot better than people expected it to be. Again, a perfect example of that can be seen through the functionality of chatbots.
Customers are known to ask all sorts of questions while surfing online. Some of them make sense, while the others, not so much. Regardless of the kind of questions that people ask, chatbots are known to answer 80% of them correctly.
Not all of this intelligence comes in a day. Chatbots have been trained for the longest of time to produce the results that they currently do. With more training, they can answer all of the customers’ questions, without any problem.
Customer Preference:
Yes, it is true that businesses are taking a keen preference for utilizing chatbots for customer service. But this is not just because they can help in cutting costs or because they can answer questions well. Any social media agency Dubai hosts will tell you the importance of customer preference in these decisions.
Decisions made by businesses are not just, according to what they like more. A huge role is played by the customers’ preference as well. In addition, customers have come to like the services provided by chatbots. 37% of the customers online chose to use chatbot services for emergencies rather than calling a representative. Overall, about 67% of the customers have used chatbots while surfing through a site. In 2018, the interest that customers took in chatbots increased by 160%, leading to their widespread use in the years to follow.
About 58% of the consumers say that interacting with chatbots has changed their view of customer service. This positive impact is one that businesses just cannot afford to lose.
Given the fact that customers are choosing to interact with chatbots, and that they help in saving money, businesses are likely to use them more and more, until they have completely taken over customer services.
Availability:
Business hours may be restricted, but the internet is functional 24/7. Users browse through the websites day in and day out. And you never know when a customer may visit your site and need help. Having a customer service representative to be available 24/7 is not impossible, but it is costly. But being human, they do need breaks or just may not be as efficient with replies.
Chatbots, on the other hand, are quite the opposite. Having chatbot services available all day and all night would not cost you extra. And regardless of what time of the day it is, or how long they have been functional, they perform with the same incomparable efficiency. ^4% of the users that have utilized the services of a chatbot say that the best thing about these bots is their 24/7 availability. 37% of the users were able to access a chatbot for emergencies. And 35% of these customers had their issue resolved immediately, thus improving the customer service they received.
Conclusion:
We all remember times when we thought about future technologies and the great things that would come. Well, the future is now. We may not have flying cars, but our developers have come very far with artificial intelligence, and that is a great start.
AI in the form of chatbots has already started taking over. But not in the way that we see in movies. It has been utilized in helping improve customer services, and it is doing a great job at that. People are coming to love it, and so are business owners. Soon, chatbots will be dominating customer services entirely.
Rout Lita is a professional digital content creator, SEO, and editor having years of experience working for many different industries and recently working in the digital marketing agency at Digital Express Agency. In her free time, she loves to watch movies, read books, and play console games.
