Technology-Watch - Chatbots

by: Simon Hughes
date: Friday, Mar 22, 2019
category: technology-watch chatbots clientwire

A number of my clients are working in the state of art technology, and two of those areas are AI, and Chatbots. Today lets take a look at what chatbots are, and what value they can add into your business.

Of course, chatbots don't really look like the image above. A chatbot is a computer program that is capable of taking input from a user and performing some limited actions based on a known set of questions. Typically this interaction could be via SMS, Facebook Messenger, Slack, WhatsApp even Twitter.

Some of the current and predicted use cases for chatbots include:

• Getting a quick answer to a specific question
• Resolving a complaint
• Making a reservation, or booking
• Paying a bill
• Renewing car or home insurance policy
• Transferring funds

The business drivers behind the technology can include:

• Saves the organisation time and money
• Generate leads and drives increased revenue
• Provide support over extended period of time (out of hours)
• Provide a unique engagement model
• And most importantly drive better outcomes for your customers

Even though the technology is compelling, and the business case solid, the technology landscape is still a mess. There are literally hundreds of differents platforms all with very different USPs. For some reason businesses have been slower to adopt chatbots than expected. But by 2022 it is estimated that chatbots will help businesses save over $8 billion per year.

Below are a few interesting articles around the art of the possible in chatbot land.

• Chatbot 2019 Trends and Stats
• The Ultimate Guide to Designing a Chatbot
• AI Technology to Make Chatbots More Intelligent
• How to Build a Chatbot with Azure Bot Services

If you think your business could benefit from having a chatbot or you need to integrate chatbots into your applications, feel free to contact me, pick up the phone or drop me an email.