Chatbots have now found their firm place in the digital world and are enjoying progressive and broad acceptance. Even though the technology feels like it's only been around for a few years, the roots of chatbots, and their predecessors, even go back to the 1960s. Today, self-learning chatbots solve much more than just mundane communication tasks and, thanks to continuous development, are light years away from their predecessors. In recent years, more and more fields of application have been developed and the range of applications has been expanded bit by bit. Today, virtual assistants are rapidly approaching the ability to interact with people. However, there are still requirements that a chatbot cannot meet and people remain irreplaceable — even in the long term.
chatbots support communication between customers and companies and are adapted to clients' needs with the help of software. Despite their comparatively short history, chatbots have become an integral part of the Internet. Since their first appearance, they have changed the websites of many companies, authorities, etc. and initiated lasting positive changes in communication with their target groups. Whenever processes are automated, this increases effectiveness and makes things easier. Chatbots are no exception. And in a world that is becoming increasingly complex and confusing, everyone is looking for something that makes life easier and offers increased efficiency. Regardless of whether it is a global corporation or a small and medium-sized company — every company has this goal — consciously or unconsciously.
What can chatbots do?
A lot has happened since the beginnings of chatbot technology in the 1960s. The state of the art has also come a long way from the first applications known as chatbots just under 6 years ago. The almost inflationary use of the term makes it easy to see what status or importance the function has. There are many ways to benefit from a chatbot and will continue to change in the future.
By the way: Chatbot ≠ Chatbot. There are now several types of chatbots. Two of them, namely the AI-based chatbot and the so-called Click bot, let's compare in this blog article.
Ideal for use in customer care
In its simplest way, the chatbot handles customer communication. The chatbot carries out simple, recurring inquiries and interactions with website visitors independently. A self-learning chatbot is even able to recognize patterns in the course of a conversation and anticipate follow-up questions based on previous experience.
It is available to the customer 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days a year. Especially in our closely connected world through digitization, in which customers and other target groups are no longer just in one area, it is crucial to always provide answers and information. Permanent availability is the order of the day. Having a call center employee or customer service available around the clock is not profitable from an economic point of view. However, the customer still expects to find the information immediately. A chatbot can solve exactly this challenge.
At the same time, it should be noted that a chatbot is usually trained on a perhaps large but always limited number of topics and therefore does not have a direct answer to every question in the world. If the inquiries are complex or unusual, this may exceed the chatbot's already acquired knowledge — and this is how these inquiries end up with customer service. However, due to the reduced number of inquiries due to the chatbot, this department can then deal with the forwarded request in much more detail.
The options for sales support
Even if a chatbot does not make personal acquisitions or customer visits, it is definitely able to take on tasks for the sales team. Businesses and buying processes are moving to the Internet at breakneck speed, while traditional retail and the associated face-to-face communication are becoming less common. Search engines deliver the desired information at the click of a mouse. The first contact between companies and the potential buyer usually takes place online, on the website. This is where the chatbot can be used for the first time and help. He offers his help and is available to answer any questions.
Chatbots answer simple sales inquiries instantly and filter prospects by asking questions when the sales team is busy or unavailable. Using a chatbot to generate leads is one of the best strategies that companies can pursue. As a result, the generated leads are also qualified by the chatbot.
The most modern chatbots are even able to use a “Human Takeover” to hand over communication in real time to sales and have them close the deal or at least take further steps. In addition, a chatbot in customer communication is also able to independently arrange appointments with the interested party. This ensures that it is not lost and that it opts for a competing product in the meantime.
For sales, on the other hand, there is enough time to prepare for the customer appointment based on the course of the conversation between man and machine. Another feature of chatbots is the easy connection to existing or new CRM systems, so that data from the chatbot is transmitted directly to the desired system.
How chatbots work in marketing
Data is much more than just the icing on the cake of digitization. Anyone who wants to be economically successful in the 21st century should pay appropriate attention to the topic and build a solid foundation. Anyone who knows who their customers are, what they want and how they can be reached has an unattainable competitive advantage.
Chatbots are a good source for collecting information about the target group/customers/website visitors. For example, a chatbot registers every request and prepares appropriate data based on the conversations: For example, which topic is asked very frequently and answered successfully. But topics that the chatbot does not yet understand, but which users frequently ask about, can also be registered and clustered (In moinAI, this is called dreaming). This gives companies the opportunity to find out more about what their website visitors are interested in, apart from the topics they already know.
And it is precisely this knowledge that can help you adapt a chatbot marketing strategy to send better, even more specific marketing messages.
Chatbots can also be easily integrated on social media channels. They can be used in various messaging applications, for example integrating and can therefore help customers more quickly.
This opens up new opportunities for you to increase sales. With chatbots, companies can attract the attention of their audience and learn from the interaction so that they can send relevant information about your products and services. Chatbots can also be used to increase engagement.
Instead of waiting for a pull action from the user, you can go into push communication, for example through quiz and quiz games or other advertising and marketing campaigns, such as Jaegermeister. The chatbot is available around the clock and allows companies to communicate with the target group at any time.
Of course, the functions of modern chatbots are designed to understand and speak multiple languages. This scalability removes potential barriers even before expanding into new markets and offers companies the opportunity to fully exploit their potential.
What chatbots can't
The possibilities that chatbots offer are quite impressive. However, there are skills that he does not master. A chatbot can only ever support people in its functioning, but never completely replace it.
When it comes to complaints and complaints, customers often remember an understanding and competent customer service that offered them a satisfactory solution, or a call center employee who addressed the customer's problems with empathy and represented the company competently. A chatbot will never be able to offer all of this.
When it comes to more than just FAQs and the procurement of banal information, the quality of a conversation with honest interest, compassion and emotion stands or falls. As already mentioned, a self-learning chatbot can also be used excellently as a virtual assistant in sales, but it can only help people and take on redundant, tedious tasks. The sales team is the important part of closing the deal.
Another challenge that cannot be denied: Chatbots are not comparable with everyday helpers such as Alexa, Siri or Bixby from Samsung. Many may well be aware of this. Nevertheless, many, especially less tech-savvy people, find it difficult to differentiate. Everything is quickly thrown into one hat at this point. Many of the chatbots, in fact even the majority of those in circulation today, do not have artificial intelligence. They operate on basic text recognition, which means that many simple chatbots can often frustrate the dialogue partner. These factors mean that users are no longer willing to use the assistant after a disappointing interaction with a “rudimentary” chatbot. The lack of technical understanding and the lack of opportunity to differentiate often mean that all chatbots are put in the same drawer, which is a great shame — because chatbot = chatbot, as already mentioned above.
In recent years, various solutions have been developed, some of which are based on KI and NLP, not others — because potential chatbot solutions are just as diverse as various chatbot solutions Use-Case. For entertaining marketing campaigns, a chatbot that is not based on AI is probably sufficient. Whereas an AI and NLP-based chatbot should be considered for large-scale use in customer communication.
Are chatbots worthwhile for your own business?
Even if chatbots aren't perfect and there are skills they don't master, the benefits clearly outweigh them. As mentioned several times, the functionality of chatbots allows an application on many levels. Chatbots are available to users around the clock to answer questions, answer recurring questions and increase customer satisfaction in the medium term. The software is easy to implement and the purchase costs pay off after just a short time. The fear that a chatbot will make people superfluous and one day completely replace them is unfounded. However, chatbots are very well able to support people, make everyday work and life easier for them overall.
And even though some chatbots are negatively affected due to bad past experiences, most people are positive about the technology. Because what happened with the User acceptance In the end, the most important thing is whether the user is actually being helped and whether he/she actually finds a solution to the problem. If a chatbot can do that, acceptance is also very good. Ultimately, it is not the medium by which customers are helped that counts, but whether they actually help.
Getting started with the self-learning AI chatbot moinAI
moinAI is an AI chatbot that noticeably simplifies customer communication and the required processes in the background. Companies from a wide range of industries can use moin.ai to equally increase the efficiency, productivity and profitability of their website and lead generation. What great results moinAI customers have already achieved thanks to the AI chatbot solution can be found in the Case studies Read up.
If you want to learn more about how moinAI can simplify your customer communications and operations through automation, take Feel free to contact us without obligation on to us. We are looking forward to your message.
