How Chatbots are changing Customer Engagement?

Remember Her? The movie 'Her'?

For those who have not seen the movie, it is a SciFi movie, released on the Valentine Day of 2014 in India.

'Her' is a story set in future LA where Theodore, a lonely and introvert man upgrades his OS which came with AI virtual assistant named Samantha, designed to adapt and evolve. Theodore gets hooked with his AI and his discussions on love and life take him on a journey where he falls in love with Samantha.

The story touches the point of 'Can a human being have an authentic relationship with an inhuman entity?' In the age when the human experience is enshrouded and infused with technology, it forces one to think about how Artificial Intelligence (AI) can impact human behavior or consumer behavior, in the case of businesses.

Today, companies are using chatbots to engage customers and retain them with better customer satisfaction. Chatbots are tools to simplify the interaction between a human and computer in natural language through messaging apps, websites or mobile apps.

In 2014, the chatbot market accounted for $39 million. Now, fast forward to present, this AI has become a rage among businesses and the entire market is worth a whopping $17.17 billion in 2019 as per the research study of Mordor Intelligence. That's a big 238% growth year-on-year. The industry is projected to reach $102.3 billion by 2025.

You might think that chatbot is based on some new technology. I beg to differ. And, here's why. The idea of chatbots was conceived in 1950 when Alan Turing published his Turing Test, which speculated the possibility of creating machines that can think. However, in order to pass the test, the computer must be able to carry on a conversation that was indistinctive from a conversation with a human.

It should not come as a surprise that the habits and expectations of customers are changing with the ever-increasing influence of technology. We are expecting services that are more personalized and immediate, which can be accessed at any time of the day. Unsatisfied customers cost a lot of money to businesses every day. In fact, studies have shown that around 80% of customers will switch companies after one poor service experience.

I had the privilege of speaking with Mr. Pratik Jain, Co-founder of Morph.ai who takes pride in having big clients like Manchester City and HSBC Bank. He considers this conversational intelligence as the new means of communication in this age. According to him, this technology is here to stay and it is up to us how we can use it efficiently.

Companies are using chatbots for many purposes such as data collection, flight booking, order placement, etc. Chatbots are creating personal conversational experiences for customers which cannot be achieved with websites or apps. Chatbots are being built with two different tasks as its core, i.e. it performs request analysis or returns a response. Chatbots are gaining more traction from the businesses due to the following reasons:

• It can deliver efficient customer service round the clock
• It creates a personalized experience for different customers
• Due to lack of emotion, it does not retort to sarcasm or abusive behavior
• It is faster than humans and can instantly react to customer's behavior
• It can monitor the user data and gain insights
• It can engage 100% of customers visiting the website or app
• It can generate high customer engagement by giving relevant offers to customers
• It can be used to generate leads by capturing contact details of customers

Are you also looking to make your own chatbot? Tidio has released its 3-step guide to making a chatbot.

I think most of us will agree that chatbots cannot fully replace humans. However, they can certainly be an excellent first point of contact for customers who needs a helping hand towards reaching their goal.

The adoption of Chatbots had been slow and the industry has seen increased customer satisfaction with time. According to Mr. Jain, the customers had unrealistic expectations during the early phase but with increasing awareness, those are reducing now and resulting in enhanced customer satisfaction.

Dialogflow (Google) and Amazon had been the pioneers and are major players in this industry. With Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp as the most popular means of communication in this world, companies are integrating chatbots on these platforms to engage customers on a whole new level.

But, just when we are getting accustomed to engaging ourselves with these wonderful chatbots, Samsung's Star Labs launched its first 'Artificial Human' named Neon at CES 2020. With the issue of emotions, empathy, and ethics into question, it's going to be both exciting and scary to see what the future beholds.