Introduction
We can’t dispute that these bots are on the increase, and we’re not keeping up as quickly as we should. As AI develops further and disruptive technologies become more accessible, any business may now use an AI chatbot to help them compete. The global chatbot market size is expected to reach USD 2,485.7 million by 2028, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc. The market is anticipated to expand at a CAGR of 24.9% from 2021 to 2028.
They are being used by businesses across various sectors, such as e-commerce, healthcare, education, travel, etc., to provide instantaneous responses to customers’ inquiries, reduce operational costs, increase sales conversions, and enhance customer satisfaction. For example, Sephora, a leading beauty retailer, uses a chatbot on Facebook Messenger to offer personalized product recommendations, beauty tips, and booking services to its customers. Similarly, Babylon Health, a digital healthcare provider, uses a chatbot on its app to provide medical consultations, prescriptions, and referrals to its users.
These include ensuring the security, privacy, and ethics of chatbot interactions, maintaining the accuracy and relevance of chatbot responses, and overcoming the technical and organizational barriers to chatbot adoption and integration. Therefore, businesses need to adopt a strategic and holistic approach to chatbot development and deployment, taking into account the needs and expectations of their customers, employees, and stakeholders. According to a report by Backlinko, 67% of consumers worldwide used a chatbot for customer support in 2020.
Conversing with them has changed the face of customer service due to its broad adoption. According to Gartner, 38% of companies have plans to introduce a chatbot within the next two years. That’s a forty percent rise in IT adoption.
What is a Chatbot?
Simply said, it is an AI computer that can interact with customers in a way that seems natural by human standards. The purpose of a chatbot is to provide a kind, helpful response to consumers and potential customers anytime they interact with the organization, regardless of the channel they choose to do so. In addition to submitting support requests, communicating with live staff, and sending emails, customers can do all of these things with them.
A primitive example would be a time where you are talking with a telephonic customer service number and had to choose an option to continue, as per your demands. Modern chatbots do the same thing by holding a conversation with customers. This conversation may be in the form of text, voice or a hybrid of both. Based on a recent survey, it was also found that almost 88% of people have at least had one conversation with a chat bot and know what chatbots are.
Chatbots have also become more diverse and specialized over time, thanks to the availability of various platforms and frameworks that enable chatbot development and deployment. Some of the platforms and frameworks that are used to create them include cloud computing services, application programming interfaces (APIs), software development kits (SDKs), chatbot builders, etc. Some of the examples of these platforms and frameworks are Amazon Lex, Google Dialogflow, Microsoft Bot Framework, IBM Watson Assistant, Facebook Messenger Platform, etc.
They have also become more integrated and ubiquitous over time, thanks to the proliferation of various channels and devices that enable chatbot interaction. Some of the channels and devices that are used to interact with chatbots include websites, mobile apps, social media platforms, messaging apps, voice assistants, smart speakers, smart watches, etc. Some of the examples of these channels and devices are WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack, Skype, Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant, etc.
Industry Adoption
Many industries are evolving its customers’ experience by introducing chatbot services in their operations.
In the modern era of customer service environment, messaging a chatbot is intended to give consumers a similar experience to messaging a sales assistant. However, some of these applications are more advanced than others.
We can see that there is a significant rise in the use of chatbots as they are known to lower the load on humans and give better outputs.
