TECHNOLOGY:
Chatbots are your new best friends
IF YOU recently had to deal with customer services online, there is a very high likelihood that you might have talked to a chatbot. Or while travelling over the holiday season you perhaps encountered a self-checkout chatbot. Some of them even sound like Elvis!
Perhaps you followed the craze this past Christmas season and bought a voice-controlled smart speaker like Alexa, Amazon Echo, Google Home or Apple HomePod, which are all equipped with a chatbot that will play music on your request or do searches on your behalf.
But what is a chatbot? A chatbot is a computer program devised to credibly imitate human conversations. They are particularly valuable to enhance customer service, make the shopping process easier, automate recurring tasks, customise communication, and increase response rates.
Mainly due to advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, chatbots and virtual assistants are increasingly being used on a broad basis, far more than they have ever been in years past.
Chatbots also became much smarter over the past few years, constantly collecting information about their target audience to understand precisely what people want or need.
Whether the purpose of the chatbot is to converse with customers or just to assist with some tedious tasks, the recent improvements are remarkable. There is no doubt that in 2019 we will be moving closer to a world that is operated, at least in part, by AI chatbots.
One of the areas where chatbots recently became very popular is in omnichannel customer service centres. Due to the significant cost savings and 24/7 availability, this tendency is growing exponentially. Gartner predicts that by 2020, 85 percent of customer relationships will be managed without human interaction.
Recently, these customer relationship chatbots have been enhanced tremendously by the introduction of AI algorithms that can assess the emotional state of a customer during the conversation. The assessment is done by carefully considering word choice, phrases, punctuation, tone, reply time and pitch across various spoken and written communication channels to assess in real time the emotional state of the customer – a process that is called “sentiment analysis”.
When a negative emotional interaction is encountered, the chatbot will take immediate action by changing the channel or method of communication. For chatbots to be able to recognise the finer nuances of humans they are conversing with, they had to learn human psychological behaviour in its finest detail.
Another major enhancement in chatbots has been brought about by the advancements in natural language processing (NLP). NLP makes chatbots more human-like and interactive.
In the past, people were able to immediately recognise that they are talking to a machine, but now it is indistinguishable due to NLP.
NLP is a special kind of programming that enables the chatbot to answer in full sentences that flow naturally. Through the use of more specific dialects, pauses and small sounds like “um”, the chatbot puts the customer at ease by creating the impression that they are talking to a real person.
Furthermore, the new generation of chatbots are multilingual. In the past, chatbots could mostly speak only one language. But now chatbots are able to speak hundreds of languages. Just think of the advantages to international business platforms like Airbnb, as well as small and medium businesses that will be able to overcome language barriers at low cost and go global.
In 2019, people will more and more use an AI chatbot to communicate internally and externally, arrange their calendars and events, order food and plan vacations. Using AI solutions in the daily business operations can help to grow sales, improve customer experience and minimise labour costs.
And as the chatbots are learning our habits, speech and behaviour based on our search results, clicks and questions, the quality and value of the service will improve and the chatbot will become your new best friend, knowing exactly what you need before you mention it!