Artificial intelligence (AI) has dramatically changed the landscape of business communication with customers. 80% of businesses will be using chatbots in some way or another.
The default questions many businesses ask are whether or not they can benefit from deploying a chatbot or will the return on investment (ROI) will be worthwhile?
By understanding what is a chatbot and how it works, more and more businesses are deploying bots to convert users to customers, drive sales, and improve the overall consumer experience.
Now you’re curious about them and the question “what are chatbots used for, anyway?” arrives.
Well—
Chatbots have hundreds of different use cases. Some are used more often than others, for example, customer support bots. And each of the chatbot use cases depends, first and foremost, on your business needs.
You can find chatbots use cases and examples across all industries and business functions such as customer service, sales, marketing, or even automating internal processes.
Here are the key use cases of how customers are getting the most out of chatbots.
1. Chatbot use cases in customer service
- Automate your website support
Deploying chatbots on your website boosts operational efficiency and offers convenience to customers. Bots not only streamline customer experiences at every stage in the service process but are also aids to the support agents.
Bots are proficient in resolving common queries while reducing the need for human interaction. 68% of customers say that they enjoy getting an instant response and answers to simple questions from a chatbot.
- Support customers inside the mobile app
Chatbots are increasingly being implemented in mobile apps, bringing more value to your company and users. It offers on-the-go support to the users without the need to resort to other channels.
Keyways conversational AI impacts in-app support:
1. Increases user engagement by addressing queries right inside the app
2. Provide real-time answers to simple queries and offers immediate customer service
3. Enable brands to send timely notifications and keep customers updated
4. Personalize interactions to create a better user experience
2. Chatbots help to collect customer feedback
Customer feedback is a great source to understand customer wants and align your products and services to match their expectations. It improves your overall business growth.
But how to ask customers for feedback?
Chatbots are a great way to acquire customer feedback. By following the chatbot best practices, you can generate a high level of engagement that encourages customers in completing surveys, thus creating a win-win situation for both companies and clients.
3. Bots help in order confirmation & tracking shipping
After placing an order, it is obvious that customers want to stay updated about the shipping information. Traditionally, email was the way to get the shipping number, then to go to the company’s website and enter the number in the delivery service section.
Chatbot for customer service is the best way to combat the traditional process and deliver an excellent brand experience. Customers can stay updated easily just by entering the shipping id.
4. Automate sales & lead generation
Lead generation chatbots can create exceptional conversational experiences for website visitors and qualify them at scale. The leads are then directed to the right sales rep for closing sales immediately or booking an appointment.
How do chatbots help in lead generation?
- Segment your audience: Bots enable you to identify the product interests, likes, and dislikes of visitors & customers, and segment them based on their responses.
- Qualify leads: Bots use the sales questionnaire to convert your website, visitors, into potential prospects and send them to the right sales representative for further follow-up.
- Hybrid chatbot: Most businesses do not automate chat. The best way is to correctly balance the bot support for simple queries and human support for complex issues.
5. Chatbot eases appointment bookings
Chatbots that are advanced and meet the latest artificial intelligence trends can enable automated appointment booking to help customers book instantly from your website or Facebook page or mobile apps.
They are also being used across industries like hospitality, health care, and personal services. Bots can be connected to the calendar to offer appointment slots to your visitors so they can book meetings 24×7 without human assistance.
Key features of an appointment bot are as follows:
- It allows visitors to self-schedule
- You can collect additional information
- Send calendar invitations
- Inform the account executives about new meeting requests
Chatbots Use Cases: What the Future Holds?
Chatbots augment customer experience without replacing it. Bots have been used widely across different business functions like customer service, sales, and marketing.
With bots becoming smarter, there will be new avenues where we can see more chatbot use cases for making the customer communication process seamless in startups as well as enterprises.
However, it is assumed that the use cases of chatbots will grow even more than it will:
- Be as efficient as human support by using predictive and sentiment analysis.
- Be able to provide solutions to complex queries without escalating for human assistance.