How Can AI Chatbots Improve Customer Experience?

Customers these days are looking for a way beyond the typical product or the service they have paid for; they have been lounging for ‘Experience.’ The fact is, it is the experience provided by a brand that helps make a difference in this cut-throat competition because every supplier offers good quality of the product or service.

With the emergence of chatbots, it has been one of the trendiest ways brands interact with their customers. High-Quality chatbots have become the need of the hour, and the companies that have made use of chatbots, have seen positive changes instantly.

Customer experience is no doubt one of the biggest game-changer in the current times, and here are some of the stats that prove that:

1. Research conducted by the 2017 Gartner Customer Experience in Marketing Survey claimed that, by the end of 2019, almost 81% of the companies would be competing with each other based on the customer experience.
2. There was a survey carried out by Oracle which stated that 80% of the brands did plan to use chatbots by the end of 2020.
3. A study by Ubisent stated that 35% of the consumers today want to see companies using chatbots which are considered an effective way of interacting with the audiences.
4. A study conducted by PwC claimed that almost 80% of American consumers feel that the main elements for a positive customer experience are speed, knowledgeable help, convenience, and friendly service.
5. A study by Helpshift, a chatbot developer, claimed that 94% of the total 2000+ respondents “dread contacting customer support”.

With technology rapidly improving every day, the old and traditional methods of connecting with the customers are becoming obsolete. Customers today are impatient and do not wait to get a response for days or even hours.

They need companies to respond to them immediately, and this is where the significant role of chatbots comes into the picture.

There are already many big brands such as Starbucks, Sephora, Duolingo, etc., who make use of AI chatbots to communicate with the users and resolve their queries. Let’s understand AI and how it is helping chatbots to improve the experience.

AI Chatbots Refining the Customer Experience:

AI Chatbot uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) and machine learning to replicate human-like dialogues and then learn from these conversations over some time period.

Their reaction to a similar inquiry will vary across different clients. Building and implementing AI chatbots take time and effort.

Once it is implemented, then chatbots have the potential to assist customers in a better way and drive user experience. Thus, there are multiple benefits of using chatbots, and the primary one is that it helps in saving the company’s high cost.

This is because the staff appointed to chat live with the customers will be charging 10x times more salary than a company would spend on setting up a chatbot.

Here are some of the other primary benefits of using an AI chatbot:

1. Live Chats

Customers will never feel the difference of whether they are chatting with a chatbot or a human. This is because chatbots use very natural languages and methods to communicate with customers.

Chatbots can analyze the query of the customers and then respond accordingly, hence letting AI improve customer experience. Thus, it’s not much of a learning curve or any difference for the customers, and they can easily enjoy the seamless live chats and get instant replies.

2. Full assistance

One of the reasons why businesses have been investing and relying on chatbots increasingly is because they provide complete assistance to the customers.

Chatbots act as agents who are 24*7 there for their customers and make it easy for them by answering all their queries instantly.

With the emergence of chatbots, customers no longer have to wait to converse via emails or phone calls or raise their issues via different platforms such as social media. Just one conversation with the chatbot is enough to get their query solved.

That’s why chatbots are preferred for business growth and increased revenue.

3. Smooth journey without any stress

All customers want is an easy purchasing process, and this is what chatbots help them with. Chatbots can pop up on any of the products to offer additional information in images, text, videos, or discount coupons to the users.

Chatbots also helps the users gather all the relevant information, including the items they plan to purchase, the method of paying, the process of shipment, etc.

4. Collection of feedbacks

For any business, it is essential to collect feedback, and it constitutes an essential task.

It is important to assess for the business, to understand how their target audience feels about the product or service offered by them and whether they are enjoying the experience or not. In the current times, data is of prime importance, and chatbots help in gathering relevant data.

5. Final goodbye to IVR

One of the primary complaints which the customers have with the whole entire customer service process was the IVR (Interactive Voice Response) systems during the customer calls to provide customer support.

The chatbot is used very similar to that of IVR, but the only difference is that less IVR-induced frustration is used.

6. Product accessibility and navigation

Sometimes we face difficulty navigating and exploring our required product in an online site or commercial marketplace.

This is normally the situation with stores, especially those with an enormous inventory, where it sometimes gets hard to clear your way through plenty of alternatives and categories.

With chatbots at your service, your customers need to type in the product name, and the bot will help them reach their required product, thus simplifying the search.

7. Monitoring social media

For every organization, today, having a robust social media presence is of prime importance. Customers today make use of social media platforms, and companies are always on the go to grab the attention of the customers on social media.

Chatbots have lately entered the social media space. Chatbots that get employed on social media are known as social chatbots. These chatbots provide automatically generated messages.

Ending Thoughts

Chatbots have proven to garner great results. In customer services, chatbots are way more than just the wave of the future.

With the high influx of customer support requirements, there is a dedicated need for a support team. Maintaining such a large team will result in cost. Thus, chatbots have been allowing the vendors ample opportunities to engage with the targeted customers in innovative ways.