Chatbots are everywhere today – many tech experts believe that we have merely scratched the surface in this field – in fact, some are convinced that by 2020, 85% of customer interaction will be handled by chatbots. 

According to Statista.com, the worldwide chatbot market size is poised to grow rapidly and is likely to generate US$ 1.25 billion in 2025. Just three years ago, this figure stood at only US$ 190.8 million. 

But what’s a Chatbot? 

The definition is in its name – a chatbot is a robot that chats or exchanges texts with you. In other words, a chatbot aims to give people information through a message application. 

Chatbots make accessing information a lot easier for visitors to your website, as opposed to having them rummaging through the website and wasting precious time. Chatbots are typically of two types – Rule-based Chatbots and AI Chatbots. The former is more precise with preset answers, while the latter is more conversational with natural language processing abilities.

Chatbots – Then & Now

Just like the evolution of man, chatbots showcase an equally fascinating evolution. And there’s still a lot to explore! 

Long, long ago, way before Siri and Google Assistant came into our lives, we had ‘ELIZA’. Dating back to 1966, ELIZA was a chatbot developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Joseph Weizenbaum and it was devised to simulate a psychotherapist. 

Decades later, with several additions and breakthroughs in technology, chatbot applications have grown exponentially. In the 90s, ALICE came into the picture, followed by Jabberwacky. Most recently it was Mitsuku who, in 2015 alone, could converse over a quarter of a million times daily.

Today, with customers on digital platforms growing exponentially, it’s important to keep up with and maintain customer happiness. With chatbots, customer support strategy goes to the next level. So if you don’t have a chatbot for your business, then you’re missing out on a lot.  

 agents, chatbots are trained to deliver better engagement and therefore better customer experience. By understanding the user’s intent, these conversational agents also help businesses analyze data.

In spite of being around for a long time, most businesses are understanding the benefits of chatbots only now and incorporating such advancements to their sites and social media. According to the case study on five chatbots by Venture Harbour, when a well-optimized chatbot is integrated into a company’s website, it affects the rate of conversion in a positive way. 

How Chatbots Benefit Your Business 

There are many benefits of chatbots, but here are some that really stand out:

• Scalability is a lot more efficient with chatbots in the picture. With a software code in place, a chatbot can focus on customers and assist them at all times, which allows businesses (small and large) to save costs on investing in people to do the same job. 
• Chatbots help company employees to focus on the more productive aspects of their job. For instance, in the event of a company facing many requests, instead of reaching out to teammates or setting a template, a company can resort to letting their well-built chatbot carry out customer support related activities. 
• Standardization is one of the main benefits of a chatbot for businesses. Post designing and programming, a chatbot does not require additional training or grooming to get used to the procedure. Saving enough time, a chatbot can directly start handling customer support without going through a training period and serve a greater number of people while increasing the company’s productivity.
• Chatbots perform tasks seamlessly, following the same routine 24X7. With an uninterrupted flow, they make little to no mistakes and become the most reliable choice for customer services and support. 

It makes a difference to entrepreneurs and organisations when they manage to provide a good customer experience which translates to increased loyalty and retention, while also improving more revenue with services personalized for each customer. All of this is possible thanks to chatbots. 

While chatbots were first introduce

Chatbots and Your Business – Enhancing User Experience

It’s safe to say that a typical user’s expectations on any app or website have grown and continue to rise, prompting companies to add more elements to their business model to continue to improve user experience. 

Often referred to as conversational five decades ago, they are still considered fairly novel as they continue to evolve and have grown to become an integral part of the user experience. Moreover, for customers to perceive your business as a tech-savvy organization and one that’s ahead of competitors, it is important to implement chatbots and reap in their various benefits. 

At CloudNow, we help take your communication to the next step which will improve your business’ overall efficiency. Get in touch with us today and have a chatbot developed for your business, equipped with faster processing, answers, and results!