Would you like to be able to contact the visitors on your site more efficiently? Are you interested in Chatbots but nervous about the security aspects? You might have read about Tay by Microsoft and are worried what kind of havoc chatbot users might be able to invoke on your website. Nevertheless you want to utilise artificial intelligence to further develop your online services. So how do you move forward?
In the middle of the Chatbot craze
At this point, it might be good to take a step back from the AI frenzy. We wrote earlier how a chatbot is simply part of the continuum of automation of various servicesUnfortunately, we are not yet at a point where a chatbot could answer any and all questions a customer might have. Everyone is talking about artificial intelligence and it sounds fun to have an intelligent bot on the website. But a chatbot can be built in a ”less-intelligent” way, that is, by starting with the basics and making sure the customer can complete what they came to the website to do. One way to do this is to offer ready-made answers via a chatbot.
The chatbot can be set up so that is suggests internal links to the website visitor, information about opening hours or location. The chatbot can be instructed to give tips or guide the use of the site without the customer having to ask anything in the chat. This type of solution is particularly useful, for example, in additional sales situations or when, based on the data, it has been identified that there is a usability problem in some part of the online service path. The chatbot therefore ”pops up” on the users screen, for example, when buying a bike to also remind them of a helmet and a pump. Many online service users perceive such additional sales as a service since they wont have to remember to buy accessories by themselves.
A chatbot is not the answer to everything
A chatbot is not a solution that allows all personal service to be outsourced. A chatbot always needs people to support it. If an online visitor asks the chatbot something that the bot has not been instructed on how to answer, the conversation is transferred to the customer service staff. Customer service staff can also monitor chatbot conversations and intervene if the chatbot does not know how to answer questions correctly.
Building a chatbot on the basis of ready-made answers is safe for the brand and profitable in terms of online service revenue. Then, when the ”un-intelligent” chatbot works well on the site, you can begin considering which aspects of artificial intelligence would be most useful in improving the customer experience.
If you want to read more on chatbots check out our other articles on, for example, what situations a chatbot is suitable for , or how to set up a chatbot. .