In this article, you'll learn everything you need to know about chatbots. We'll explain what a chatbot actually is, what the advantages of chatbots are, in which areas you can use them, which chatbot providers are available, and which one we think is the best. Let's get started!
What is a chatbot?
A simple definition for chatbots is as follows: "A chatterbot, chatbot, or bot for short, is a text-based dialogue system that allows chatting with a technical system. It has an area for text input and output, via which one can communicate with the system in natural language.". Still not understood? We'll explain it in a little more detail below!
A chatbot is an application that typically uses artificial intelligence (AI) to converse with people in natural language. Users can easily ask the chatbot questions, which it answers in natural language. Depending on the chatbot, questions can be asked via text input, audio input, or both. Basically, a chatbot is a robot that you can talk to, as the name suggests. Chatbots are often used in conjunction with an avatar to give them a personality. Alternative terms for chatbot are virtual assistant, digital assistant, or conversational agent.
Most chatbots use natural language recognition features to recognize what users are saying. This is also known as Natural Language Processing (NLP). In addition, AI can determine what a user really wants to know. These two technologies use machine learning to learn from interactions and improve the resulting recommendations and responses.
What are the advantages of chatbots?
Process automation
With the help of chatbots, some processes can be automated. This saves time and money and can also reduce error rates. Process automation naturally leads to increased efficiency.
Improved User Experience
Websites are often packed with information, and visitors spend ages trying to find the answers they need. This can be super frustrating! A chatbot can help by serving up the answers on a silver platter and guiding users through the website.
Increased Customer Satisfaction
An improved user experience leads to happier customers. A chatbot can solve customer problems in seconds, so they're not stuck on hold on a phone line or waiting for a support agent to deal with their issue.
Increased Retention Rate
A better user experience and increased customer satisfaction lead to a higher retention rate. This rate shows the percentage of customers who return to your website or shop after a certain period. If customers have a good experience with the chatbot on your website, they'll be happy to come back!
Increased Availability
A chatbot doesn't clock off or take vacations. It's available 24/7, all year round. Plus, it can handle tons of requests at the same time. Your customers can visit your website or shop anytime and get instant answers to their questions via the chatbot.
Where can chatbots be used?
Chatbots are super versatile! They can recommend products, help book tours, hotels, theater tickets, and restaurant reservations, provide weather info, or even assist with internal company processes. But in this article, we'll focus on three key areas: Customer Support, Sales, and Marketing.
Chatbots in Customer Support
Chatbots improve overall service quality and make it easier to analyze customer conversations. This means you can respond even better to your customers' needs. The best part? Customers get help quickly and effectively. They get answers to their questions ASAP, and your support staff don't have to lift a finger – it's a win-win!
So, the obvious benefits of chatbots in customer support are increased availability and automated answers to user questions. This saves a ton on support costs and resources.
Chatbots in Sales
These digital assistants are also super helpful in sales. They're perfect for acquiring new customers or boosting sales. Chatbots can support your customers before, during, and after a purchase. They can also recommend products, answer questions about products, and guide customers directly to the right items.
Chatbots in Marketing
Besides taking the load off support and helping with sales, chatbots can also be part of your marketing campaign. For example, they can offer discount codes, highlight current deals, or even be part of a contest. Chatbots are perfect for incorporating into your brand building and storytelling. This not only generates more leads but also maximizes your conversions.
Which Chatbot is the Best?
Basically, any chatbot that helps users with their problems is a good start. As long as the chatbot is based on NLP and uses AI, it can fulfill this purpose. These technologies help the chatbot not only understand requests but also match them to the correct topic or answer.
Still, with so many chatbot providers out there, you need to distinguish between the really good ones and the not-so-good ones. An important factor is whether you want to handle the setup and maintenance of the chatbot yourself or prefer to hire pros. Many companies offer platforms that let you build and maintain your own chatbot. Some of these are more complicated and require IT skills, while others are simple and easy for anyone to use. At the same time, many companies offer chatbot setup and maintenance as a service, so you can sit back and relax. Of course, they charge a higher price for this. As with most things in life, you need to weigh the effort against the cost.
However, we'd like to introduce a chatbot platform that we used for our chatbot on our website. This platform is called melibo.
What is melibo?
melibo describes itself as an "intuitive AI tool." Creating a chatbot with melibo is actually quick to learn, and you don't need any IT skills. The tool distinguishes between Q&As and Chat Flows. A Q&A is a simple question-and-answer setup, perfect for FAQs. A Chat Flow, on the other hand, is a bit more complex. It lets you create a direct connection from one chat to the next. This way, the user can be guided through a multi-stage dialog to, for example, gather more information or define a problem more precisely. So, a Chat Flow is especially helpful when a dialog can't be ended with a single answer.
The way you create a chatbot with melibo is special, but it's not the only thing that sets it apart. What really makes melibo stand out, in my opinion, are the features that the tool offers in addition to chatbot creation. In my view, the most important is the Ticket Center, which is presented in the following melibo video:
In the Ticket Center, all requests that the chatbot couldn't answer are recorded and forwarded directly to support. This saves our customers and leads the hassle of describing their issue again through another channel. Plus, information gathered in a Chat Flow can also be converted into a support ticket. At the same time, the chatbot can be maintained and optimized using the insights and the so-called Bot-Gym. In addition to the ticket system, a live chat is also available, but we're not currently using it.
melibo is currently offering a two-month free trial. If you also want to relieve your support team, just follow this link.
