Tuesday, 24 April 2018

AI Chatbots: From Rudimentary To Revolutionary Functioning

Since its first development 50 years ago, chatbots today have come a long way, although they are still in a rudimentary stage. But the recent developments in artificial intelligence (AI) and advances in machine learning have introduced a new generation of chatbots that are revolutionizing the world of customer service.

A survey conducted by Forrester Research revealed that more than 30% of private firms are using chatbots for customer service, and the trend seems to be picking up. AI marketing is the next big game in the domain of the industry and app marketing automation is rapidly picking momentum. Let us find out why exactly is this happening? What are the benefits a company can get using chatbots?
In a nutshell, the striving for efficiency by both consumers and businesses are leading this revolutionary movement concerning chatbots. Most of the consumers are reluctant to contact customer support as a good number of consumer spend more than 20 mins just on hold in a week. Nobody enjoys waiting especially when the very purpose of the call is to accelerate various processes. Phone trees are automated when customers are asked to hold and it is extremely difficult to navigate.

These inquiries have traditionally been outsourced to call center service providers, but the drawbacks in this type of processing are evident. With costs that are overshooting company budgets, alternative solutions are the need of the hour.

Chatbots are not doubted the best alternative solutions for the problem of inefficiency that haunts companies today; they are always available, prompt, and consistent in their service, which may not be possible with humans. With chatbots, there are no more holding calls to get the right response to any customer’s queries; this will certainly ensure higher customer satisfaction and hence a better online reputation.

Thursday, 11 January 2018

Chatbots Vs Artificial Intelligence (Ai) Bots – What’s The Difference?

The use of chatbots have become a common practice for businesses today. Extensively being used for delivering effective customer support and building better customer relationships, the potential of chatbots are being much realized in today’s competitive business environment. The latest in this technology is what’s called Artificial Intelligence (AI) chatbots. Unlike the previous models, these new generation chatbots utilizes AI technology to deliver higher efficiency and functionality.

The primary difference in the functioning of a regular chatbot and an automated chatbot (AI bot) is in its decision making ability. Unlike a chatbot which has a monotonous and rule based response, an AI driven chatbot can respond based on the aptness of the situation, making the conversation more relevant and engaging. 
Rule based chatbots are simple to build and provide a very linear solution; a single dimensional support. Such a bot answers queries based on specific rules that it’s been taught and developed on. But the bots are incapable of responding to queries that are out of their recognition pattern. These bots are less scalable, less robust and require a specific architecture and infrastructure to function. Although chatbots of this nature requires less investments and very little liability, there are lots of potential downsides.

AI bots on the other, though similar in function, differ in its fundamental concept. You can think of AI bots as a person with the conscience of right and wrong. AI bots offer far greater functions that rule based bots can ever provide, but it requires more intensive groundwork. These bots use machine learning algorithm which enables them to learn from past experiences without human intervention; saving much time and energy.

Such bots are able to frame responses in a smart way, making conversations more relevant and engaging. And the potential application of this technology is making it the next big thing in the world of chatbots.