Shashank Pandey, Co-founder ConveGenius is a social entrepreneur with 10+ years of experience in building and implementing EdTech solutions across 16 states in India. He is a passionate driver of systemic transformation in education, with deep faith in personalised and adaptive learning methods to bridge the learning & skill gaps at the bottom of the pyramid. He co-founded ConveGenius, an EdTech social enterprise, in 2013 with a vision of making quality education accessible to the bottom 100 million learners in India. Over the last seven years, ConveGenius has partnered with multiple state governments and low-fee private schools to deliver personalised, effective, and engaging teaching-learning models at scale.
AI chatbots are becoming one of the most powerful tools in the current business landscape. They are emerging as a superpower transforming how we interact and live. They have a vast potential to simplify the adoption of new technologies and efficiently serve their customers. Customer-facing chatbots will significantly increase in the next few years as the global chatbot market is expected to reach over $994 million by 2024. Implementing AI-powered, vernacular chatbots will enable businesses to gain new growth, productivity, efficiency, and personalization.
But what are chatbots, and how do they work?
Chatbots simulate natural human conversations and talk to users via chat or voice message. The chatbot interprets the consumer’s words and intent and gives an instant answer. It leverages natural language processing (NLP) to communicate with a human, processes a consumer’s request, and suggests personalized options based on historical data trends. For instance, if a buyer asks for ski shoes, the bot could recommend top-rated ski shoes sold by leading brands in the selected geography. The bot can also suggest woolen socks based on the latest trends and purchasing behaviors.
Businesses are shifting to these automated response systems and providing end-to-end consumer experiences assisted by bots. The chatbots can handle repetitive queries and concerns more efficiently and help enterprises engage in other value-adding activities while saving time.
The rise in the deployment of chatbots results from online traffic. 82% of the consumers expect a response within ten minutes, and chatbots can guarantee 24X7 support for most consumer pain points. Chatbots are helping organizations understand their customers and anticipate their needs. A salesforce survey suggests that 50% of consumers switch brands if a company doesn’t understand their needs.
Why have chatbots become so popular?
Pandemic has forced different industries such as education, finance, travel, HR, etc., to make long-term investments in chatbots. New use-cases are emerging every day as AI-powered automated solutions are helping different industries to thrive and achieve their business goals efficiently.
The chatbots enable consumers to conduct self-service in different scenarios such as health, banking, and shipment inquiries by interacting with them and streamlining the operations. The goal is to reduce pressure on contact centers and handle routine requests such as delivery inquiries and payment info, leveraging customer data to suggest recommendations in an innovative, automated way to enhance the consumer experience.
For example, a chatbot can efficiently handle bulk visa application-related queries in the travel sector, including visa categories, contact information, payment procedures, rules and regulations, and other optional services.
The chatbot also radically transforms employee communication and enables organizations to manage the workforce, reinforce organizational work culture, and manage personalized interactions with employees by integrating different tools and technologies in hybrid work culture.
Let’s take a closure look at the latest stats from different industries:
- Chatbots are helping businesses to save on customer service costs by speeding up response time and answering up to 80% of routine questions
- 47% of people are choosing to buy via chatbots
- 2/3rd of the financial service companies are using chatbots in their apps
- Chatbots are expected to generate $112 billion in sales in the retail industry by 2023
- Real estate profits the most from chatbots and AI solutions
- 85% of retail and consumer products already use AI intelligent automated solutions for the supply chain management.
Summing up
AI-powered chatbots are revolutionizing the entire consumer-tech landscape by taking the customers’ conversations to the next level and managing personalized interactions. 74% of the organizations consider conversational assistants an essential factor for customer engagement.