What Are Chatbots? – Business News Daily
Chatbots are much more than digital assistants. They can help your small business save money, close sales, and connect with customers in an increasingly digital world. Their popularity has grown steadily since early in the pandemic as many small businesses were forced to do more with fewer employees and resources. We’ll explore chatbot uses and explain how to find the right chatbot tools to grow your business.
Chatbots are an example of artificial intelligence (AI) tools transforming business. A chatbot is a software application that relies on AI to perform tasks humans typically carry out. Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri are popular examples of conversational bots. Other examples include ChatGPT, Facebook Messenger’s chatbot, SMS chatbots and social media bots.
Chatbots learn from user behavior, becoming more realistic and efficient over time. They can perform various business tasks, including approving expense reports, finding sales leads and connecting with customers online.
“For sales [reps], chatbots are a useful tool for information gathering on prospects so they can be better funneled and identified as a qualified lead,” said Jesse Wood, president and CEO of eFileCabinet. “For customer service, chatbots can be immense timesavers when a customer is looking for quick answers to simple questions, especially if they can do it right from the product interface.”
According to a Tidio survey, 62 percent of consumers would be happy to use a realistic chatbot online instead of waiting to speak to a customer service representative.
You can deploy chatbots in various areas of small business operations and across industries. New applications for chatbots are emerging at a dizzying rate. For small businesses, chatbots are most commonly used in the following capacities:
A chatbot should reflect your brand and reduce the workload for your team.
Add chatbot functionality to your website’s landing page to get visitors to engage with your company.
Here are some examples of tactics and styles small business owners can employ with their AI chatbot responses:
Use chatbots for in-house purposes, like AI-powered HR functions. For example, AI-powered chatbots can guide new employees through the onboarding process and explain employee handbook basics.
Chatbots are becoming ubiquitous as the world becomes more digital. Chatbot software prices are decreasing, presenting many opportunities for small business owners to implement this technology. But which software is right for you? Keep the following considerations in mind:
The best live chat apps — including LiveChat, Tidio, HubSpot Live Chat, and LiveAgent — include integrations with the best CRM software, multichannel support, analytics reports and management tools.
What might have once seemed like the future — outsourcing some of your most menial and most significant work to chatbots — is here now. While you can’t (and shouldn’t) source all of your tasks to bots, implementing them can save you valuable time while streamlining the customer experience. Look for a chatbot that addresses your exact use case, and you’ll be well on your way to leveraging a tool that makes all the difference.
Max Freedman contributed to this article. Source interviews were conducted for a previous version of this article.
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