Digital innovation and continuous evolution in the technological field are leading to concrete developments in Chatbot, that is conversational services based on Artificial Intelligence, which are starting the way for a new era of Customer Experience and will improve Customer Service.
INDEX
1. What is a Chatbot?
2. The Artificial Intelligence that is the basis of the Chatbot
3. Chatbot for Customer Service
4. Pat's Chatbot
What is a Chatbot?
Starting from the basics, we will now define what a Chatbot is: Chatbot, or simply bots, are software based on Artificial Intelligence (AI), developed to simulate and reproduce human conversations through textual dialogue, via chat.
They can be defined virtual agents (or virtual assistants) or conversational systems, as the dialogue with the user/customer can take place in the form of a written conversation.
The aim of Chatbot is to allow users to communicate more easily and quickly with companies, simplifying the relationship between the customer and the company, automating some processes, facilitating the finding of information and simplifying requests for assistance.
From a business perspective, Chatbot offer important advantages: from the optimization of management times and costs, to the simplification of some procedures, up to the improvement of corporate reputation.
Chatbot can follow the customer throughout his "Customer Journey" facilitating decision-making and brand choice processes. In fact, Insider Intelligence research has predicted that Chatbot purchases will reach $ 142 billion worldwide by the end of 2024.
The statistics of the use of Chatbot, according to which in the last year 60% of people have used a Chatbot at least once, indicate how highly useful and practical these tools are for customers, and therefore increasingly lead companies to adopt them as contact channel or additional support.
The Artificial Intelligence that is the basis of the Chatbot
The research and development of systems based on Artificial Intelligence (AI), in recent years, have been gaining ground and this is confirmed by both the investments made and the numerous start-ups that are created to expand this sector.
In a recent research by the Startup Intelligence-Polimi Observatory, an interesting awareness of new technologies emerges, which is also growing in our country: the Artificial Intelligence market in Italy grew by + 27% in 2021, reaching 380 million euros, a value doubled in just two years, for 76% commissioned by Italian companies (290 million euro), for the remaining 24% as export of projects (90 million euro).
Among the various sectors, AI is widespread in particular in banking and finance (25% of the market), manufacturing (13%), utilities (13%) and insurance (12%).
The main investment shares (28%) include Natural Language Processing and Chatbot/Virtual Assistant systems capable of understanding natural language and possibly providing answers to an interlocutor.
But why are we talking about Artificial Intelligence? How can we define this technology and the consequent development of Bots, a real trend for some years now?
To define Artificial Intelligence, let us take up the motto of the recognized "father" of this concept, the mathematician and scientist Alan Turing, who cites:
"A machine is intelligent when it is able to make a man believe he is human."
This definition, despite dating back to the mid-1900s, expresses a technological reality of today and in fact, with AI, modernly all those functions are defined that make a device or software capable of carrying out actions based on what is commonly distinctive of human intelligence, i.e. reasoning, learning, image recognition, understanding of a text and the ability to elaborate a new one.
Artificial Intelligence can be applied to a series of technological activities, including Chatbot, automatic systems (robots that communicate via chat) based on Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Machine Learning, which can understand the meaning of human language, they evaluate it and contextualize it to ensure a relevant dialogue.
Chatbot are definitely the trend of the moment: they are talked about with great interest because every person nowadays uses messaging to communicate on a daily basis and this trend is also being assimilated in the company/customer interaction.
By chatting, brands have the ability to communicate with customers in a more direct, authentic and natural way.
Chatbot for Customer Service
One of the most successful areas of Chatbot application is Customer Service, that is, in all those scenarios in which companies must provide assistance and ensure real-time and possibly proactive support.
As Forrester states:
"72% of customers prefer to solve their problem independently, without having to contact assistance for help".
In this context, the Chatbot is the simplest, fastest and always available vehicle to help the user solve the problem quickly.
Not only that: Chatbot are spreading in the Customer Service field in various markets, from retail to tourism, but also in internal company departments. Gartner predicts, in fact, that in 2022 70% of employees will interact daily with conversational platforms, since the use and habit of interacting via chat is increasingly frequent even in the workplace. Human resources will also have interactive services and immediate and constantly updated digital connections at their disposal.
The crucial element of the effectiveness of Chatbot is the immediacy of the responses. The dependence on technology makes users increasingly impatient in the face of slow services, and chatbots can help address this challenge by eliminating the waiting times associated with a human operator response.
Chatbots can start the conversation, request why a customer is asking for information, and be able to respond by following flows of rules and semantic analysis.
In the event that a more in-depth response is required, the Chatbot can transfer the request to the dedicated Customer Service teams, ensuring that all background information is available to the operator, in order to provide adequate support.
Nowadays, consumers interact with brands and services primarily in self-service and if they need to learn more, they frequently do so through Bots.
Some examples of Chatbot can automate services such as booking a table for dinner, making a medical appointment, helping with online purchases or responding to various types of information, all in the form of chat conversations simulating human textual interactions.
The Chatbot used in these contexts bring obvious advantages both for the customer-consumer, who can quickly get an answer or a solution to what they are looking for, and for the company that speeds up and improves the service offered.
Some interesting statistics on the benefits of Chatbot, which highlight in particular how the "time" factor is decisive for a customer in obtaining the answers they are looking for:
· Chatbot have a faster response time than the human operator
· According to 68% of consumers, Chatbot are a popular channel because they provide quick responses
· Another feature appreciated by consumers is that a Chatbot can be available and guarantee support outside of standard business hours. The main advantage is to guarantee 24/7 support.
· Chatbot help reduce Customer Service operating costs by an average of 30%.
Pat's Chatbot
The Engagent platform is Pat's innovative chatbot that allows you to communicate with your users in real-time, one-to-one and cross-channel mode.
Engagent improves the Customer Experience thanks to Machine Learning technologies, understands the requests that are submitted and processes the most suitable responses in natural language, ensuring a better quality of service for customers and greater savings for the company.
The Engagent Chatbot manages to make sense of what was said, understand the intent and generate an adequate response, making the interaction much more natural. In addition, Engagent, thanks to Machine Learning, can become more and more educated to respond adequately to a greater number of conversations.
According to direct experiences of our customers, Pat's Chatbot is able to correctly answer 80% of the questions that are asked.
The Engagent Chatbot is simple to configure: the player can be applied on a website, mobile app and customized with the characteristics of the brand. Engagent bases the interaction on the textual component, but it is not necessarily a text-only system: you can use a wide range of visual models to facilitate the flow of the conversation. Depending on the characteristics of the platform, Pat's Chatbot can alternate the textual form with buttons, carousels, forms, customized windows, forms and other elements that can encourage a stimulus for interaction with the user.
After a simple set of rules, useful for business, it can be used to answer the most frequently asked questions of customers, streamlining the work of human operators.
Available in human only, virtual only or hybrid mode (transfers conversations to the most suitable operator), Engagent is able to quickly offer complete assistance, proactive dialogue and a totally self-service and real-time experience.
Engagent is available both in Cloud and On Premise to cover the different needs of medium and large companies.