Chatbots aren’t just a way to show off how modern and tech-fancy your business is. These digital assistants are much more than that. They simplify mundane processes, improve customer experience and even bring massive cost benefits in the process.
To make it better, the chic, creative code behind this tech keeps evolving. And investment keeps growing.
With never-ending advances in AI and mounting progress in NLP (Natural Language Processing), investment in data-driven customer experiences are set to be amongst the biggest digital transformation trends hitting 2022.
And chatbots are a big part of that.
Stats by Statista reveal that:
- The global AI software market is set to reach around £91.7 billion by 2025.
- The total worldwide revenue made through NLP is forecast to reach over £31.3 billion in 2025 (a giant leap from £2.2 billion in 2017).
Chatbots essentially create, improve and maintain enhanced customer experiences.
Which is essential, considering the demand for immediacy and our shortening attention spans. Also, being that excellent service has a direct impact on loyalty, revenues and retention, it would be wise to consider the benefits of making practical use of a chatbot in any organisation.
Forget What a Chatbot is? No Worry
Short for ‘chat robot’, chatbots are interactive programs that simulate human conversation.
In the same way that we use language to communicate, these bots are able to artificially recognise and replicate speech patterns from human interactions and ‘communicate’ back to us.
[What is a Chatbot? (And How Do They* Work?)]
With traditional chatbots, answers get programmed in for the bot to respond to. Making it very useful where automation and high demand are concerned.
However, as AI and it’s umbrella technologies continue to evolve, so do the capabilities of the chatbot.
The use cases and rewards? Endless.
Benefits & Use Cases of the Bots
With AI optimising this creative tech, now areas like Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing (NLP), Named Entity Recognition and Augmentation each play a role in a well-functioning chatbot.
With APIs thrown in the mix, making for seamless integration between your chatbot and a vast ocean of platforms and partners becomes easier than ever. Bookings, orders, aggregations and so much more sit at the user’s fingertips, giving any organisation a supernatural edge over their competition.
If the potential of that tech isn’t enough to convince you, then the ROI just might.
Cut Back On Operational Costs – A study by Juniper research indicates that the operational cost savings from chatbots in banking will reach £5.3 billion by 2023 – that’s a 3,400% increase from 2019’s £152 million.
Reduce Customer Service Costs – Organisations are able to reduce traditional customer service costs by up to 30% by making use of chatbots and other virtual agents.
Increase Revenues – Figures by Statista reveal that the global revenue generated from the chatbot industry reached around £60 million in 2021 and will grow to roughly £330 million by 2027.
And Bots Are Being Used Everywhere
Many iconic brands make great use of chatbots. And in very interesting ways.
Western Union
Financial services company, Western Union uses their Facebook Messenger chatbot to give users the ability to send and track their money on the go and with ease. It even has a customer care option for users to get help faster.
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal also makes great use of their Facebook Messenger chatbot to provide users with daily news. Users can even personalise the bot to give them their preferred news categories.
BabyCentre UK
The BabyCentre UK website, a resource for pregnancy and childcare, uses their Facebook Messenger bot to communicate with parents and share useful advice, as well as content.
When they compared their email marketing efforts against the chatbot, the bot had an incredible 1,428% higher engagement rate than their email funnel.
Lego
The famous toy brand Lego uses their chatbot, Ralph, to act as a shopping assistant for users to find the best deals on their merchandise. Their bot worked so well, in fact, that it has driven 25% of social media sales, reached 2.96 million users, had 1.2 million engagements and 50,000 conversations, and decreased the CPO by 65%.
Chatbots allow organisations to market, upsell and offer greater value to their users. They create an environment that is highly convenient for the user and their overall experience.
Further Growth In NLP (Bigger, Better Chatbots)
With the ongoing investment and growth in NLP, chatbots are becoming increasingly better. This year, we’re going to see more efficiency, understanding and capability come out of the AI and NLP space.
According to Analytics Insight, some of the popular trends coming out of the NLP space in 2022 are going to be around:
- Automation in customer service (improved chatbots).
- Transfer learning (smarter machines that require less data).
- Reinforcement learning (better feedback loops for machines to learn with).
- An increase in low-code tools (more user-friendly software to develop with, requiring less code knowledge)
- Safer online environments (improvements in sentiment analysis to curb things like scamming, fake news and hate speech).
With powerful APIs like GPT-3, which makes human-to-machine and machine-to-human understanding seem nearly flawless, chatbots are going to see some incredible improvements in 2022.
Get Your Big Bot Over Here!
Our primary goal is to encourage businesses to use artificial intelligence. We aim to help them scale their organisations, make better decisions, create better experiences and become digital natives.
Especially in an increasingly digital and data-driven world.
If you understand the impact that AI and this world-class technology will have on your business, then you’re in luck.
Whether it’s a robust, engaging chatbot that you need. Cloud Migration. API integration. Or powerful ML models. We have the experts to give you momentum on your AI, data-driven journey.
