Today, we live in a constant digital transformation world. True, we could see evidence of AI, or Artificial Intelligence in nearly every environment, from interactions with virtual assistants to chatbot conversations. Chatbots are only one component of the AI technology, and they’re appearing faster in the field of communication.
The simple bots help answer questions, as well as accomplish repetitive tasks on behalf of organizations so employees could become as productive as possible, and customers get to enjoy better service. The most advanced bots are AI-powered, which help to comprehend complex requests, boost interactions over time, and personalized responses.
In custom application development, the technology still is in its infancy. Thus, most bots adhere to a set of rules that are programmed by a human through a bot-building platform. A bot is a software, which could simulate a conversation or chat in a natural language through mobile apps, messaging apps, websites, or via phones.
With more and more organizations wanting to integrate these bots into their processes, the demand for custom application development services that build bot solutions is on the rise.
Chatbots can Immediately Replace Mobile Apps
The escalation of bots started in the early part of 2016. In just short of six months, major tech giants launched their chatbot development platform or built their own or both. Today, 85 percent of customer interactions are managed without human interaction.
It’s not a new concept about bots replacing mobile apps. The tech field is always undergoing important transformation, and bots are one of them. Today, bots’ creation in a custom software development company has become a trend.
The trend started when browsers replaced the desktop OS, as the new platform. In the same way that websites have replaced client-server apps, messaging chatbots soon would replace mobile applications. How and why do chatbots replace mobile apps right away? Let’s find out.
Mobile app growth has become stagnant
Since Apple launched its store in 2008, mobile apps had a great run. As apps are fast and convenient, they seeped from smartphones to tablets, laptops, watches, and TVs as well. They’ve become the main interface via which people interact with all smart devices.
Since many smartphone users became exhausted and have no desire to increase their current usage level, the use of the app has become a plateau. Apps however are not yet quite obsolete, but the explosive growth of new apps simply is not able to extend. The usage time for apps grows, but not diversity.
It’s predicted that only a handful of apps will survive. They would become the main channel through which we play, communicate, and work.
An Interface that’s Unified
In evaluating the various elements of User Interface, all mobile apps and websites simply become a collection of information. This could be packed in a single messaging application wherein a bot could provide all services. Chatbots could replace mobile apps and do various tasks with conversation as a major form of interaction.
Benefits of Chatbots
- Keeping up with the trends: Customers prefer to interact with brands through chat since it’s faster and easier to use. Now, they have the opportunity to have a wider customer reach via chatbots, while staying trendy.
Users have core apps such as Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp, thus they no longer look for new ones. Thus, integrating your bot into one of the popular platforms that customers use daily is better than creating a new app, which also saves time and money.
- More Customer Engagement: Keeping customers engaged with your brand is important. Companies that engage their customers on social media could boost customer spending by 20 to 40 percent. Chatbots could contribute by making a more interactive engagement.
Bots don’t bore customers with unnecessary and irrelevant information, keeping customers longer on your platform. Furthermore, they also keep the content flowing through maintaining a conversation.
- Enhanced customer service: Bots could provide real-time assistance the same way a salesperson does in a real store. Moreover, they could also offer interactive communication wherein they ask questions as well to understand the true problem. Bots could be programmed to provide automated answers to repetitive questions right away and forward the request to a real person in case a more complicated action is required.
- Monitor consumer data and gain insights: Bots are terrific communication tools. With the feedback, they could collect via simple queries, could make enhancements on products and services, and could even optimize a website through adjusting pages with low conversion. Moreover, bots could also be used to keep track of buying behaviors and patterns via user data monitoring.
Brands could keep tabs on the commands and responses given by users to that bot, predict the responses based on the language of the consumer, and direct the bot to suggest a different provider or service or a more convenient one.
- Cost Savings: It is much cheaper and faster to have thoroughly functioning bots than creating a cross-platform app or hiring employees. Organizations have various options, from ready-made software solutions developed by Microsoft, or Facebook, as well as other custom application development service providers.
Being automated solutions, bots allow companies to handle many customers at once in a simultaneous manner. By employing chatbots that complement human staff, a brand could save on salary expenses, and avoid issues that could be caused by human errors.
- Easier global market approach: Bots could help resolve customer care issues, 365 days a year, 24/7, and in various languages, whether your brand is already international or a local one but ready to do business globally. You would be able to scale up your operations to new markets with no need to worry about handling a lot of incoming requests.
- Better lead generation, nurturing, and qualification: Bots receive consumer information, making personalized messaging possible, which helps consumers on their journey. Chatbots could ask the related and necessary questions, convince a user and generate leads for your brand.
Furthermore, they also ensure that the flow is in the right direction to acquire higher rates of conversion. Chatbots, aside from notifying the sales teams and generating prospective customers, could also help determine unqualified leads through KPIs identified, like for instance budget, relevance, timeline, resource, and more. Also, bots prevent you from having to deal with leads that consume a lot of time.
Conclusion
Using chatbots for any business has a lot of benefits. These days, managing business using bots and live support is a whole lot better. Bots could engage customers by answering basic questions. Boost your customer experience with a hybrid support approach, providing the best of both worlds.