Nowadays, such notions as artificial intelligence, machine learning, augmented reality, etc. are no longer far-fetched and incredible. Moreover, they are widely used in various fields besides programming. Digital marketing doesn’t stand on the sidelines too. The role of AI tools in digital marketing is vital today. Application of such tools enables to rethink the manner how to interact with the audience, helps drive traffic, engage more customers, and provide prompt support. The leading position in the list of such tools is taken by chatbots. Being online, you can meet them almost everywhere, from social networks to websites offering various services. Chatbots are powered by artificial intelligence and are able to detect conversational cadences so that sometimes it’s even hard to identify exactly whether you deal with a human being or with a bot. That’s why today they become almost irreplaceable with their ability to provide customer support anytime.
About chatbots
So, let’s puzzle out what is actually a chatbot. First of all, we would like to clarify that employment, integration, and use of these tools have become possible even if you don’t have special technical or programming knowledge or skills. To make a long story short, the tools are computer programs intended for communicating with humans. Today they are widely used for responding to users’ questions, directing purchasing processes, giving instructions, providing support, and even teaching. They are embedded into websites, applications, etc. They can appear both on desktop and mobile versions, to act like a human being, and interact with users. Bots use artificial intelligence, especially such types as machine learning and natural language processing. As far as you know, artificial intelligence is a type of machine programming aimed at machine intelligence developing to perform close to human operations. Machine learning is a branch of AI based on the system’s ability to learn through data, analyzing information and making decisions. Natural language processing is a type of artificial intelligence based on a system’s ability to process and analyze a large amount of human language data. But as it was already mentioned, you don’t need to have special and deep knowledge and understanding of the technical side to create a chatbot yourself.
Chatbot types
There are a lot of different types of chatbots based on their abilities and functionalities, but there is no official classification.
According to their abilities, tools can be divided into the following types:
- Menu-based chatbots are organized like decision making structures, including questions and clickable elements to choose one from the multiple options.
- Keyword recognition-based chatbots use AI and keywords to customize appropriate answers to users’ questions.
- Contextual chatbots – advanced tools that use machine learning to memorize conversations and learn from the context aiming at finding out users’ intends.
Business chatbots can be grouped as follows:
- Support chatbots are aimed at carrying out one function – answering questions and guiding users through tasks.
- Skills chatbots fulfill commands, don’t need much context.
- Assistant chatbots – conversational tools that can provide a little information on various things.
Ways to use in business
Now you have a certain idea about these tools, let’s turn to the ways how they can be used in businesses so that you could follow these examples to move with the times and improve your activity using these innovative techniques.
Guiding customers through the purchasing process
Assistant chatbots can offer an alternative and interactive way to place an order. It can be even less difficult than an ordinary mobile way because a bot is very helpful and can provide all the necessary information to purchase without effort.
Boosting sales of new products
Chatbots can plunge users into augmented reality and show off new products with an opportunity to “try” it. Also, it can be possible to provide feedback or to reach out to human customer support.
Displaying your content
Chatbots can offer a chance to display your content, for example, previews of films, movie trends, etc. with the possibility to purchase tickets.
Sharing music with friends
Chatbots can offer to create playlists with friends and send songs right on Messenger. The option is very easy-to-use, and it can save a lot of users’ time.
Planning trips
Bots can be programmed to help users find places to go and things to do, booking tickets and hotels, etc.
Keep in mind that chatbots are aimed at initiating conversations. Communication is a crucial part of business running, so why not ease and improve the process of interaction with your clients by using such an innovative and entertaining tool? Moreover, providing instant assistance and constant support for your clients, chatbots can help you save your time and money. The tools are becoming smarter day by day, offering more opportunities for improving the presentation of your services and make it all the way to be the first point of contact between customers. It can be said that this technology is an upcoming big thing in customer service and generally in digital marketing.