Send WhatsApp messages in bulk
Automate your WhatsApp marketing
Collaborate on a shared inbox
Multiple chat apps on one website widget
Drive sales to your Shopify Store
Drive sales to your EasyStore site
Broadcast messages in bulk
Automate your WhatsApp marketing
Connect your chat apps in a shared inbox
Multiple chat apps on one website widget
Drive sales to your Shopify store
Drive sales to your EasyStore site
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Chatbots have become the new customer assistants of our time.
They are present in every company’s customer service, e-commerce, and sales functions. They have been a huge help in improving business communications and response times to customers.
With chatbots rising in adoption, let’s look at what chatbot trends will emerge and continue this 2022.
Chatbots are quickly becoming more commonplace in our lives, with over 67% of consumers interacting with a chatbot in 2021, according to Invesp’s Statistics and Trends.
They have streamlined not only business processes but also everyday life. Consumers are turning to chatbots for various services, from ordering food to booking a hotel room.
Venture Beat reported that 300,000 bots, including chatbots, are active on Facebook Messenger this year. Consumers have also been using WhatsApp chatbots more habitually — such as to receive reminders and confirmation texts.
Likely, chatbots will increase as more companies integrate them into their own apps. Grand View Research forecasts the chatbot market to grow to a $3.99 billion industry by 2030.
One of the biggest trends to look out for is the rise of voice AI in chatbots. In recent years, voice recognition revolutionized how people shop and do daily activities.
Virtual assistants such as Alexa and Siri have become a part of people’s lives. A similar function can be incorporated in chatbots to enhance the communication experience.
As human-like interactions improve, another chatbot trend that will dominate the year is using rich and engaging media in conversations.
Each chatbot conversation will focus on a richer experience instead of leading the consumer to independent pages. Bots will use GIFs, images, and videos to make the conversation more engaging.
Chatbots have changed the way e-commerce platforms serve their customers. As more people become receptive to chatbots and with the 24/7 response, they will expect to complete the purchase using a chatbot.
With this market need, more businesses will begin to automate payments and allow users to use chatbots for payments and other transactions.
Aside from taking over sales and payment, chatbots will have the ability to engage with consumers even after purchase. As virtual assistants, chatbots will be able to inform consumers of their order status: shipping, on the way, and delivered.
After delivery, the chatbot can ask for the after-purchase experience and encourage the consumer to leave a review.
E-commerce brands rely on positive reviews but sometimes forget to ask for them. With the rise of chatbots, asking for reviews can be automated after the sale has been completed.
Aside from e-commerce, more businesses are expected to streamline internal business processes.
One chatbot trend that will emerge is the automated human resources service desk. Managing candidate and employee queries can be processed through chatbots.
Aside from HR, internal services such as IT help desks will let chatbots handle common queries. Software engineers and developers who attended coding bootcamps will have expertise in designing chatbots for this particular use. In turn, more employees will have a fast and timely response to their requests without disrupting the day-to-day operations of the company.
While chatbots serve as virtual assistants, companies can also use them for predictive analytics and gather data on consumer insights and preferences. This will help dictate future customer behavior and trends.
As they interact with customers, the chatbot can log systemic records of data and metrics to provide intelligent and more personalized responses.
Companies can also use chatbots to get a sense of customer sentiments and design a customer experience strategy around that. This means you can see what your customers say about you, whether it’s positive or negative.
By analyzing all this information, you can make informed decisions about how to manage your relationship with the customers.
Chatbots are no longer just a tool for customer service — they are now a driving force in business communications. While there are many chatbots in the market now, most of them are still very rigid and unable to respond in a natural way.
The future of chatbots lies in developing more human-like chatbots that can engage with users, understand their needs, and respond accordingly. Chatbots will thus become increasingly human, with their tone and personality improving every year.
Chatbots are a great way to engage with customers and drive business growth, but they can also be challenging to work on. Many companies have struggled to create chatbot experiences that are intuitive and engaging, with the right combination of features and capabilities.
Here’s a quick overview of some of the challenges and opportunities that can influence chatbot trends.
While development teams increase efforts to make chatbots more intuitive, there are customers who only test chatbot functionalities to make fun of it. Some customers ask meaningless questions to chatbots instead of using them as a tool to solve problems.
Creating your own chatbot from scratch can be expensive and time-consuming. It also requires the right expertise to reduce a lot of experimentation along the way. If you’re starting out using chatbots for your business, you can choose many chatbot services, such as messaging chatbots on Telegram.
Chatbots are not human yet are built as a tool to make the customer experience better. With this, chatbots would need constant updates and maintenance in their knowledge base and in how they communicate to simulate a human experience.
Data science bootcamps often have courses on feeding information and meaningful data to AI, which can be helpful for chatbot optimization.
While chatbots make life easier, it’s not a replacement for live agents and real people who can answer customer queries that need deeper thinking.
However, many companies neglect this fact and rely on chatbots to handle such customer queries. Therefore, companies should look more into chatbots as a transition to live agents when available.
With human interaction, the context of conversation can rapidly change. As an AI, chatbots may have a hard time keeping up with the customer. They may not fully understand what the customer needs at the moment.
As a customer service tool, chatbots need to have an accurate recognition of the problem. With nuances in communication, chatbots will need better improvements to address different customer scenarios.
With chatbots, there are plenty of possibilities to make life easier for customers and businesses of all sizes. While some challenges are present in chatbot implementations, there are also promising opportunities that come with the latest chatbot trends.
Study them closely and see how they can help your organization change how you do business in the future.
For more of such tips and advice, check out our blog!
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