Communication has a significant role in the development of science, technology, and human society. It is the intrinsic human desire to communicate that guides the development of chatbot technology.
Chatbots are artificially intelligent applications that can communicate with people. Chatbots use machine learning and natural language processing to talk like humans.
Chatbot Technology
1) Rule-Based Chatbots
Rule-Based Chatbots (Linguistic Based) can communicate within defined rules and patterns. They have a narrow scope of knowledge and communication ability.
2) AI Chatbots
AI Chatbots (Machine learning) chatbot is more intelligent, employing deep learning algorithms to talk naturally. They also learn from past communications with their clients. Thus continuous communications make these chatbots more intelligent and powerful to speak and answer questions and solve problems.
The rapid advancement in chatbot technology is the result of two vital factors.
A) The need to handle monotonous tasks, reduce administrative costs, provide better customer experience, increase business and profit.
B) Colossal business groups like Facebook, Amazon, Google have shown interest and invested handsome sums in the research and development of chatbot technology.
Chatbot platforms like Facebook Messenger, Slack, Telegram and Skype are achieving prominence, use, and pan-industry application.
Use of Chatbots in Various Industries
‘Health is wealth,’ the old age dictum has gained added significance in the fast-paced competitive world. Additionally, the Covid-19 pandemic has enhanced peoples’ concern about their health and wellbeing. These factors have spurred ever-expanding use of virtual health assistants. These chatbots or virtual medical support provide a variety of services.
The Florence chatbot keeps track of your medical appointments. It reminds you about medicines, so you never miss your dose.
Europeans use the ADA Health as a standard diagnostic tool. ADA Health converses with you, asking simple questions to understand the disease symptoms. It then runs the data through thousands of possible answers to furnish an approximate evaluation of your health conditions suggesting treatment, procedures and connects you with local medical professionals.
Forksy is a nutritional chatbot that guides your eating habits. It updates you on a balanced diet, the nutritional value of different food items describing their benefits and risks to health.
CancerChatbot by CSource deals specifically with cancer. It provides updated information about the type of tumors, their causes, procedures, and prescribed drugs. In addition to medical knowledge, it assists friends and family members of cancer patients in coping with the emotional stress and how they should treat and take care of their loved ones.
Chatbot-like HealthTap providing timely medical aid and guidance has proved a boon, especially in remote areas. It has saved thousands of patients’ life keeping them alive till they reach hospitals.
The use of chatbots has reduced nursing time, simplified information exchange procedures during shifts, facilitated online consultation with doctors. The result is increased medical efficiency for the medical staff and decreased medical costs for the patients.
The E-commerce industry is growing tremendously. The pandemic has functioned as a great boon to the E-commerce sector. The frequent lockdowns, the need to follow social distancing have compelled people to order everything online. The result is the unprecedented expansion of the E-commerce sector.
E-commerce stores like Amazon, Walmart have seen double-digit growth by using chatbot technology. The great E-commerce boon demands a larger workforce, faster delivery, quick conversations, and superior customer experience. Chatbots have achieved it all through the application of AI deep learning and natural language processing.
When you search on Amazon, you find products offer; products brought in combinations, products you may like. Such messages are a result of your previous search. They make customer purchases more straightforward and quicker.
Chatbots have proved great conversational tools in solving peoples’ queries, answering repetitive questions, easing monotonous tasks, and guaranteeing an enjoyable customer experience.
Benefits of Chatbots In
E-commerce
- reduced customer acquisition costs
- lower service costs
- decreased retention costs
- chatbots work 24×7
- greeting customers
- eliciting positive responses
- reminds & encourages customers to purchase items in the abandoned cart
- collecting and quantifying data
- stimulating lead generation.
These remarkable functions that chatbot performs for the
E-commerce sector have encouraged even medium-sized businesses to adopt them.
Fashion brands like Burberry, H&M clothing and sports brands like Adidas, Nike use chatbots. These examples testify that chatbots have a significant role to play in the expansion of the retail sector.
The crux of the hospitality industry is personalized experience and customer satisfaction. The travel, tourism, and hotel industry have integrated various chatbots to enhance customer experience, which results in brand loyalty and customer retention.
Hello Hipmunk is a travel chatbot that converses with the user suggesting flights, hotels, vacation trips. The bot recommends vacation ideas based on user preferences, interests, and budget. It also provides the latest information on booking prices.
Booking.com, kayak are online travel agencies that have introduce bots to facilitate the conversation with customers.
Hotels and resorts also depend on chatbots. For example, the chatbot called Rose exemplifies the personality of the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas.
Aloft Hotels, Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, Accor are other examples. They have an integrated chatbot technology that purveys a unique customer experience. The hotels claim that their customers enjoyed their chatbots and used them profusely for different functions.
Fast-food chains like Domino’s, Burger King, Taco Bell utilize chatbots for streamlining the ordering process. Chatbots present menus to customers, help them choose their favorite food items, suggest combinations, inform them about coupons and discounts. Customers admit that conversing with Taco bell’s Tacobot is pleasing. Customers get adequate and correct information in a limited time frame resulting in more business.
The hospitality industry offers round-the-clock service. It implies 24×7 hotel bookings, travel reservations, vacation planning etc. Chatbots ensure that travel companies and hotels do not lose business. The result is an enjoyable experience for the customers and more business for the hospitality industry.
Gaming on the internet has become a favorite pastime. People need to wait in long queues at the bus stop, in hospitals or for other reasons. Smartphones serve the useful purpose of killing away time.
The prolific usage of Mojihunt via Facebook Messenger is a beautiful example of how chatbots have transformed entertainment and peoples’ interaction on social media.
The Haptik bot caters to customer queries and customer FAQ for the Dream 11 boosting business during the IPL.
The media and news industry employ chatbots to provide news as per customers’ tastes. Bots save you the time and energy spent browsing through apps and shifting through web pages. You can set the bot and manage news activity through them. The bot also engages people on news sites.
The Washington Post bot features the top news stories. You can ask the bot to filter the desired news content for you. During American elections, bots help you with zip codes and keep you updated on the latest election results for each local area.
The Inspection Chamber is an interactive sci-fi comedy-drama of BBC. Users can access it through Amazon’s Alexa or Google Home assistant. The exciting feature is that the audience can converse with drama characters and become a part of a truly futuristic experience.
Marketing and advertising campaigns for books, movies, TV shows, events and others have gained new highs with the application of chatbots.
The success of Game of Thrones on major platforms like Mashable, CNET, Verge points at the bot efficacy holding 20,000 conversations with more than 15,000 Game of Thrones fans.
Chatbots have lubricated conversational channels. A human representative will not answer the same question with the same zeal to every customer, but the chatbot can do so without getting bored. It means every customer receives a pleasant and informative reply fostering customer satisfaction and brand loyalty. The zeal and sweetness with which the AI-trained chatbots converse has a dual impact on its users, increasing conversions and business.
Other Industries
Chatbots have made their mark across the industrial field. They are omnipresent. Some essential industries that make significant use of chatbots includes
The real estate industry uses chatbots to connect buyers and sellers. They function as information providers and help buyers collect in-depth knowledge about a particular location, apartments, amenities, and other essential details.
Aisa Holmes chatbot detects the different questions arising in the minds of buyers and sellers and provides suitable answers.
Just by typing your location, you can ask the Trulia chatbot for real estate updates and issues related to a number of beds, prices, and other things.
Banking and financial institutions use chatbots to converse with customers and keep them updated about account details, deposit schemes, investment options, and bank facilities.
Bank of America’s Erica chatbot has been of great assistance to customers. It has relieved the banking staff from answering mundane questions. Customers experience increased interaction leading to engagement while dispensing banking functions.
The legal field is quite intricate, using complex legal terminology and vast piles of paperwork. JPMorgan launched the chatbot Coin to handle contract analysis, screen thousands of documents, and deal with redundant legal claims. Legal firms are using chatbots for hiring employees, managing onboarding, administrative management, and routine conversations.
Chatbots are functioning as virtual insurance agents. They talk with clients, understand their needs and fears, then suggest insurance policy options, payment methods, and many other related queries. Magda is a revolutionary chatbot that offers an enjoyable and hassle-free insurance experience to customers.
Teachers, institutions, training centers, and several companies offering diverse educational products use chatbots for various functions.
- mainstay (AdmitHub) uses a chatbot for students transition into college.
- Language barriers are broken with chatbots like Duolingo,
- Jill Watson is a teaching chatbot.
Chatbots provide a personalized admission process, undertake employee assessment, guide language training, collect students’ feedback, and much more.
Conclusion
It is a safe conclusion that chatbots have a bright future. They have streamlined processes across industries releasing humans to attend to innovative tasks and functions. Natural language processing abilities empower chatbots to offer a real conversational experience. It delights customers who, despite knowing that they are conversing with bots, rejoice at the bots’ efficacy and information-providing ability.
The important fields of healthcare, E-commerce, travel & tourism, social media, education, and several others have witnessed transformation through the adoption of conversational assistants and chatbots. In a nutshell, chatbots have a shining tomorrow and will serve humans in different ways to enhance and enrich human life and society.
ContentSculptor.com 