Communication is an integral part of any business operation. Whether it is marketing, sales, or customer support. And if you are not able to streamline communication with current market needs, advanced communication protocols, and user preferences then you are bound to lose business.
This is where chatbots play a crucial role and are considered as a great tool to enable smooth communication. Further, using AI, you can automate conversation and add an extra layer of intelligence to get much more business benefits than just having a conversation with customers. What are all those business benefits of using AI-powered chatbots? In this blog, we are going to explore those in detail.
1. Information Gathering
An agent invests a significant portion of his time collecting the data from a wide variety of sources like FAQs, Blogs, White Papers, Case Studies, Documents, Spreadsheets, etc., to process customer’s queries.. Moreover, keyword-based searches often do not lead towards the right contextual data that is sought. This increases the average handling time (AHT) and impacts employee productivity and efficiency. On the other hand, AI-powered chatbots process tons of data (both structured & unstructured) in real-time and deliver contextual data quickly. Chatbot automation thus significantly reduces AHT, enables faster resolution, and helps boost employee productivity.
2. Detect User Intent
The number of tickets closed is a vital quality parameter in the customer service industry. But not all the times an agent needs to personally act on tickets, for e.g. there are several instances like when the user sends a mail to thank, and a ticket gets opened. In such scenarios, no human touch is required to process such requests. Still, an agent’s productivity gets hampered significantly. AI-powered chatbots can help enterprises to understand the intent behind users’ responses and assist in deciding whether to open that ticket or not. The AI bot platform thus saves employees time to focus better on more valuable tasks.
3. Gauge Customer Sentiment
What if we tell you that there is a technology that can help you gauge the emotional state of mind of a customer in real-time. Isn’t that great? AI-powered chatbots can calculate users’ emotions and give you a numerical score of current emotions. It helps the agents to check the mood of customers. Whether he/she is feeling positive, negative, or neutral, you can be aware through virtual assistants. Chatbots can help you detect emotions like happiness, sadness, frustration, etc. This extra information empowers agents to provide the right response, that too in the most desired messaging style to win over them.
4. Useful in Training
Whenever a new agent joins the team, he/she needs to go through rigorous training to understand the nitty-gritty of the customer service world. For example, product/service knowledge, soft skills, company’s mission & values, key KPIs, scenario-based responses, FAQs, etc. All such things and much more require human resources and it incurs significant costs. But with the help of AI chatbots, you can reduce that training cost. RPA bots are capable enough to train your resources anytime and anywhere. They are extremely helpful in constant learning and provide the required knowledge base to agents for better performance.
5. Generate Leads
Automated chatbots for a website are helpful to achieve this important business objective. You can smartly integrate virtual assistants not just to streamline customer service work but also to generate leads. Whenever a web visitor asks for any details or requests for accessing key marketing collaterals like White Papers, Case Studies, E-book, etc., you can smartly ask for their personal details in return to get access to such valuable content. As visitors get the sought data, they do not mind sharing their personal information. Such data can then be utilized for lead nurturing and advancing lead generation outcomes. Moreover, AI chatbots are capable of asking the right questions and persuade visitors to make quick purchase decisions.
6. Save Operating Costs
AI chatbots help enterprises to save huge amounts of money that is required to run customer service operations. With RPA bots in place, you can save costs at different levels like:
- Salaries
- Training
- Infrastructure
Moreover, chatbots integrated with RPA operate 24/7 and 365 days a week, without any break or leave. Therefore, they prove more cost-beneficial for companies. That too by providing enhanced customer experience.
7. Helpful in Conversational Marketing
Conversational marketing is a way to improve sales outcomes by exploring the power of real-time customer interactions. AI chatbots perfectly fit as a solution to play a crucial role in conversational marketing. How?
- Chatbots provide immediate response
- No waiting time
- Enable personalization
- Smart chatbots guide visitors traverse the right web pages as per their buying journey
- AI-powered chatbots know when to ask for form fill-up (lead data gathering)
- Keep track of past interactions thus provide a better customer experience
8. Better Insights
AI-powered chatbots are capable of processing tons of data to provide you with meaningful insights. They can help you understand patterns to make better business decision-making. Chatbots assist in understanding consumer behavior and in gauging which stage a customer has reached as per their buying journey. Even if a visitor jumps off from the website without buying anything, it can process past interactions and help you come to the conclusion behind such action. Such information is crucial in retargeting such prospects. They also process feedback received from visitors and help you know where you need to improve.
9. Scale Support Anytime
All seasons of businesses are not the same. In some seasons, sales are higher than in others. Sometimes enterprises know in advance about peak seasons and sometimes it is totally unexpected. This is where chatbots can help. They ensure to scale the support and handle any traffic surge (like the festive season or peak hours) without any extra investment. AI chatbot platforms enable enterprises to manage any volume of customer service demands immediately. That too while maintaining efficiency and precision.
Final Words
Intelligent chatbots are in great demand and their usage is expected to grow further in the coming times due to these popular business benefits. The global chatbot market size was estimated at $430.9 million in 2020 and it is expected to grow at a CAGR of 24.9% from 2021 to 2028. If you are facing challenges to communicate with your customers or facing hurdles to win over them, it is a high-time to switch over to AI-powered chatbots.