Brief Introduction to Chatbots

Owned by haritha.kothapalem (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Feb 05, 2021 by sneha.tripathi
2 min read

With the increase in traffic on Support requests, a seamless and effective mechanism needs to be developed which can cater to various types of requests simultaneously. A chatbot is a one-stop solution to all business needs involving customer support to handle the queries, thus increasing organizational efficiency.

The arrival of chatbots has opened up new realms of customer engagement and new ways of doing business in the form of conversational commerce.

What is a Chatbot?

A chatbot is a conversational piece of software powered by Artificial Intelligence to answer user queries without the need for human intervention. It can be configured with most of the messaging applications making it to be accessible to use from an existing channel of communication and quick to configure.

The most interesting feature of the chatbot is that they learn from past interactions and become smarter and intelligent over time. Chatbots facilitate:

  • Engaging with the customers in a natural and friendly manner

  • Interactions through most of the popular messaging channels

  • Capability to outperform humans with the speed of handling customer queries

  • Improved efficiency with round the clock customer service

  • Easy to build and cost-efficient

Chatbots works in two ways- Rule-based and Artificial Intelligence-based.

Rule-based chatbots provide predefined responses based on the keywords used for the search. However, Artificial Intelligence based chatbots inherit their capabilities from NLP, Natural Language Processing, Understanding what users are asking and serving with required service or knowledge, and adapt their behavior based on customer interactions.

Uses of Chatbots

Chatbots can now be trained beyond human imagination with instant answers for customers 24/7 thus boosting the business. They can gather bits of data and provide ample information for the user and keep the customers more engaging. Above all, chatbots are not confined to a single language and can be trained to help the user in their preferred language for the convenience of the customer.

Chatbots are being used across all major industries and domains, such as:

  • Customer Service Management

  • Financial Services & Insurance

  • Healthcare & Life Sciences

  • Telecommunications & Media

  • Defense & Aviation

  • Hospitality

  • Manufacturing

  • Education