How Leading Brands Use Chatbots To Drive Online Journeys

Have you ever thought about why there are so many different kinds of chatbots available? Some chatbots aid in sales and marketing, while others provide guidance and after-hour service and care that leaves clients completely satisfied. So, who exactly is creating these bots, how can one be obtained, and how can a business utilize various bot types to their benefit?

You might be perplexed by these questions, and since the market is ripe with changes and gives rise to new businesses of all shapes and sizes every day, it’s crucial to employ chatbots to automate the business process. But the only appropriate option is a straightforward chatbot that can respond to some FAQs. Yeah, that can work to a point, but if you want to provide your customers with a truly holistic experience, a straightforward chatbot that simply responds to the most crucial questions might not be the best option.

With the emergence of chatbots, we have entered the era of conversational interfaces. These interfaces will no longer require a screen or a mouse. Instead, they will be entirely conversational, and the communication will be just as natural as talking to our friends and family.

What are chatbots?

Chatbots are conversationalists and artificial intelligence systems used across businesses to execute automated interactions with customers, visitors, users, leads, and clients. The chatbots help do various tasks like lead generation, lead nurturing, customer engagement, appointment scheduling, and more. In simple language, chatbots are intelligent programs that can converse with humans most effectively.

Through the use of chatbots, which is a practical and convenient tool, businesses and organizations can improve their contact with users or consumers. These bots facilitate quick and effective responses to queries while also automating processes and transactions. Its capacity to provide prompt and efficient customer support, assist with chores, and improve the overall user experience has contributed to a recent rise in its popularity.

By integrating interactive, intelligent chatbots into their inbound marketing campaigns, forward-thinking businesses are transforming the way customers connect with their customer service representatives. Interactive chatbots enable businesses to respond quickly to client inquiries and deliver information whenever it is needed. You may improve user experience and customer service by integrating a chatbot into your website or Facebook page.

Use case-specific chatbots have emerged to handle a range of tasks. Expecting one chatbot to do all of the tasks is not practical because there are so many different enterprises and industries. The use of chatbot templates and chatbots tailored to certain use cases is essential.

Why are chatbots gaining so much popularity?

The way that businesses serve their clients is revolutionized by chatbots. They provide businesses with the opportunity to automate particular customer care duties and combine numerous apps for a more effective workflow. Customers can converse with chatbots in a pleasant and user-friendly manner.

Read More: SalesTechStar Interview with Niels Fogt, Director of Automation Solutions at Tray.io

How Are Chatbots Operated?

Artificial intelligence-based chatbots and rule-based chatbots are the two different types of chatbots.

1. Chatbots with rules

Only a small set of predefined options may be understood by a rule-based bot. The conversational flow of the bot is governed by a set of rules. Rule-based chatbots are easier to create since they understand user inquiries and provide suitable answers using a simple true-false logic.

2. Chatbots based on AI

Artificial intelligence, commonly referred to as an artificial brain, is present in this robot. It can comprehend open-ended inquiries and is trained using machine learning algorithms. In addition to comprehending commands, it is linguistically competent. The bot keeps getting better as it gains knowledge from its interactions with users. The AI chatbot analyses the language, context, and intent before responding appropriately.

What are chatbot templates?

Chatbot templates refer to pre-designed bots that cater to specific business needs and come with pre-programmed conversational flows. With a single-code program, these templates can automate tasks such as lead generation, customer engagement, and appointment scheduling. As the demand for chatbots grows, the variety and functionality of chatbot templates increase. To choose the ideal template for their specific use case, businesses must consider factors such as whether they want to automate customer queries or marketing and lead generation.

To address this demand for chatbots, a chatbot marketplace has emerged that offers businesses a wide range of chatbot templates to select from. These templates are built using top AI, machine learning, and NLP engines and offer customization options for businesses to tailor their conversational flow, add intelligent nodes, and train the chatbot in multiple languages. Once the chatbot is trained, it can be deployed across various channels, delivering highly effective and instant results.

What are the benefits of using case-specific chatbots?

Chatbots designed for certain use cases can help businesses in several ways. First of all, it enables them to customize their chatbot to their unique business requirements, ensuring that it is capable of handling the jobs they need it to. Because of the prompt, precise responses to their inquiries and the individualized experiences they receive, this can enhance customer happiness.

Second, use-case-specific chatbots can save businesses time and money by automating repetitive operations, freeing up human resources to concentrate on more complex tasks that need human involvement. Because of chatbots’ 24/7 availability and as they do not rest, they can boost productivity and efficiency.

Lastly, by examining the information they gather from exchanges, chatbots can offer useful insights into client behavior and preferences. This can assist businesses in deciding how to improve their products or services and customize their marketing plans.

So, use-case-specific chatbots are advantageous to businesses because they deliver solutions that are specifically adapted to their unique business needs, boost productivity, raise customer happiness, and offer insightful data on consumer behavior and preferences.

Why are use-case specific chatbots helpful?

If we look at businesses then everyone is under pressure to keep up with the constantly changing industrial requirements. A bigger chatbot industry has evolved to handle the numerous demands of the sectors that are always growing to stay competitive in the chatbot market.

The chatbot marketplace had roughly 30 templates when it first started, but 150+ bot templates have since been added, each with its own set of functions and use cases. All chatbot templates differ from one another and have various functions, even though they are all classified under the same industry or use case. The process of constructing chatbots becomes much simpler with easily available well-trained bots, leaving very little space for modification. For the convenience of usage, bot templates are categorized and curated based on their use cases.

What is a Chatbot Marketplace?

A chatbot marketplace is a bot-template store where you can select a use case, choose from a wide range of templates, view a demo, and unlock it to start building your chatbot instantly.

These chatbot templates use the best class of AI, Machine learning, and NLP engines, using a single-code program throughout all the templates. The pre-built templates consist of an existing conversational flow and make use of all the features and intelligent nodes needed. However, there is space for customizations where you can edit the conversational flow, use various intelligent nodes, give your bot a theme, and a name, or even make it multilingual to train it as per your accordance.

Once fully trained, your chatbot is ready to deploy to whichever channel your target audience lies, reaping tremendously effective and instant results.

The evolution of Chatbot Marketplace

Modern times has seen the arrival of intelligent machines. Bots refer to a wide variety of modern equipment and programs. Computer programs known as “bots” can facilitate human dialogue through text and voice chats, or perhaps both. Deep learning and neural networks are two examples of machine learning algorithms that are currently being developed. These algorithms assist in the execution of AI tasks such as natural language creation, speech recognition, text-to-speech synthesis, and image recognition. As a result, they have gained popularity and are now being used by people to perfectly meet their needs.

It’s amazing to see how much chatbot technology has advanced over time. Chatbots have come a long way, from ELIZA to Chatgpt-3, and have allowed us to look back on the development of chats in great detail.

1. ELIZA :

Joseph Weizenbaum at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) created what is regarded as the first chatbot in the history of computer science, and the word “Chatterbot” was first used in 1994. To react using these keywords from pre-programmed responses, ELIZA tried to recognize the words or phrases being input by the user. However, ELIZA was born in 1996.  For instance, if a human mentions that his friend cooks well, ELIZA will probe further around the friend.

ELIZA would always ask open-ended questions, which aided in giving the impression of comprehension and engagement with a real person through the automated process. It created a conversation-like environment using pattern matching and substitution techniques.

2. ALICE :

 Richard Wallace created ALICE in 1995. Compared to ELIZA, ALICE is different in some aspects. Because ALICE was able to use NLP (Natural Language Processing), more complex conversations were able to take place. It was a groundbreaking open-source chatbot that allowed developers to use AIML (Artificial Intelligence markup language) to build their chatbots that used ALICE.

3. JABBERWACKY :

It is a chatbot that British programmer Rollo Carpenter developed. Its expressed goal is to elicit stimulating, entertaining, and humorous conversations. This project was started to develop artificial intelligence that can pass the Turing Test. It is intended to simulate human interaction and carry out user dialogues. The learning technology was designed to be utilized as an amusement rather as a computer support system or a business representation, in contrast to standard AI programs.

The recent developments gave rise to a more scripted and controlled approach to sit on top of the general conversation AI. that aims to bring together the best of both approaches and still the use in the field of sales and marketing is underway. The ultimate goal was to move from a text-based system to a voice operation learning directly from sound and other sensory inputs. The creators of this tool believed that it ca be incorporated into objects around the home as a robot or a talking pet that can be useful and entertaining at the same time while giving people good company.

4. WeChat :

Tencent, a Chinese business, developed WeChat, which was originally made available in January 2011. While being primarily a messaging app, WeChat also has some chatbot features. The WeChat Official Accounts chatbot platform enables companies and organizations to build chatbots to engage with customers on the WeChat platform.

The usage of WeChat Official accounts for e-commerce, news dissemination, and customer support are just a few examples. The chatbot features of WeChat have developed over time and are still a key component of the application.

5. MITSUKU :

Steve Worswick created Mitsuku, a chatbot using AIML technology. This 18-year-old female chatbot hails from Leeds, England, and incorporates all of Alice’s AIML files, as well as additional content generated by user conversations, making it a constantly evolving project.

Mitsuku’s impressive intelligence allows her to reason about specific objects, such as determining that a house cannot be eaten because it is made of bricks. She can also entertain users with games and magic tricks upon request. In 2015, Mitsuku engaged in conversations over a quarter of a million times daily on average.

At the beginning of 2016, the first wave of artificial intelligence technology was implemented in the creation of chatbots. This allowed developers to build chatbots for their brand or service on social media platforms like Facebook, enabling customers to perform routine tasks within the messaging app.

The emergence of chatbots has brought us to the era of conversational interfaces, which will soon eliminate the need for screens or mice. Instead, the interface will rely entirely on conversation, and these interactions will be virtually indistinguishable from the conversations we have with our friends and family. If we see then AI has given rise to various conversational interfaces in machine learning and natural language processing. Over the last few years, there has been an exponential growth of tools to design, build, deploy, manage, and monetize chatbots.

Top Advantages of Chatbots in the Workplace

1. A better lead generation, qualification, and nurturing process

With social media and sponsored advertisements, many firms employ various methods to collect leads from their website. Even if a landing page or campaign is highly good at generating leads, many businesses still miss opportunities because they don’t follow up with or interact with those prospects quickly enough.

2. Cost reduction

Cost savings is one of the most compelling and alluring advantages of chatbots for any organization. While they take on the responsibility of handling all the tedious and repeated questions that typically makeup about 70% of customer queries, chatbots have become particularly known for being helpful allies to customer service teams and for your organization to boost your customer support results.

3. Increased Consumer Engagement

Consequently, chatbots offer yet another way to connect with potential clients. What truly makes them beautiful is their ability to function with many channels. A bot can interact with your audience via social media, our app, the internet, or messaging apps like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. As a result, they can be applied reasonably easily to improve customer contact in scenarios and across channels that were previously only available through expensive live chat.

Read More: Leveraging Smart Data for Better Sales Forecasting

Best Examples of SaaS-based Chatbots

Chatbots that are SaaS-based can be swiftly built and used without requiring a high level of technical knowledge. As a result, they are more affordable and can assist to cut down on the time and resources needed to develop a chatbot solution for organizations of all sizes.

SaaS-based chatbots are built to be scalable and can handle high user traffic without requiring major infrastructure changes or updates. They are thus appropriate for companies whose consumer demand fluctuates or grows quickly. They could be modified and come with several other benefits. Let’s examine the top SaaS-based chatbots and their advantages:

1. Tidio

The best chatbot creation tool without coding is Tidio.

Tidio differentiates itself from its rivals by giving you a tool that enables you to build your own chatbots without needing any coding experience. Making chatbots is as simple as a stroll in the park because of the abundance of themes and the user-friendly drag-and-drop builder that is provided.

This chatbot can be programmed with pre-written automatic responses to respond right away to client inquiries. Your upselling strategy can benefit from the use of these chatbots. With the help of Tidio, you can convert prospects into paying consumers by automatically recommending products and even providing a tailored discount.

2. ProProfs ChatBot

It is great for obtaining leads, streamlining the sales prospecting process, and enhancing customer service initiatives by providing quick responses to client inquiries. With the help of ProProfs ChatBot, your business may concurrently streamline its customer support, marketing, and sales efforts. With the help of this application, you may compile leads, converse with potential clients in a human-like manner, gather data, and react to frequently asked questions. This chatbot tool may be installed and configured without any programming experience.

3. Chatfuel

It is driven by artificial intelligence (AI), which enables you to automatically respond to the queries that your consumers ask most frequently.

Chatfuel was established in 2015 to make bot creation simple for everyone. It is currently the top platform for creating bots for websites, Instagram, and Facebook Messenger. It is one of the best-known chatbot software companies in the world.

Businesses can increase sales, create customized marketing campaigns, and automate customer care using Chatfuel. Small and medium-sized businesses and some of the best-known brands in the world are among Chatfuel’s clients. Adidas, TechCrunch, T-Mobile, LEGO, the Golden State Warriors, and many more are some of its biggest clients.

4. Landbot

Landbot is a powerful, straightforward tool for building logical chatbots. It’s yet another tool on the list whose users do not need to be knowledgeable in programming. As an alternative, you can create chatbots with a range of themes and apply them wherever you like.

Another area where Landbot excels is the automation of WhatsApp. The platform may be used to create engaging conversational marketing campaigns that will support you in providing first-rate customer service directly from WhatsApp.

5. IntelliTicks

Powerful chatbot Intelliticks provides companies with unmatched insights into client behavior. Customers can receive customized recommendations from it based on their unique tastes. It provides businesses with a comprehensive range of analytics tools that let them monitor client involvement over time. This includes in-depth analyses of consumer behavior as well as real-time analytics that offer a moment-by-moment view of customer involvement.

Even while your agents are asleep, it communicates with website visitors around the clock. It also keeps an eye on automatic chats and overtakes them when necessary or when a large lead is present. It enables AI to respond to clients’ repeated questions. By determining whether leads in the live traffic are hot, warm, or cold, intelliTicks Leads Prioritisation can be used. It provides a window into the author’s mind and is simple to follow.

6. Salesforce

Salesforce is the best at using AI-powered chatbots to automate customer service. When it comes to chatbots that are AI-powered, Salesforce will always be in the spotlight. Salesforce provides a customer service platform that lets you extend support with smart AI-driven chatbots. Thanks to these chatbots, you may offer 24/7 customer assistance even when there are no human employees present.

The chatbots can be programmed to reply to frequently requested queries, and a self-service option can even be developed to let your customers take care of their issues.

7. Zendesk Chat

A live chat platform called Zendesk Chat enables companies to offer real-time customer service via web, phone, and SMS channels. Live chat, discussion history, statistical visitor monitoring, statistics, and real-time data processing are all features of Zendesk Chat.

Minimize customer wait times with skill-based routing, which places the appropriate agent in front of the customer and enables chatbots to respond to frequent queries straight away. To recover lost clients and boost website conversions, use proactive triggers. Nowadays, enable chat with its help desk solution to automatically generate tickets from each chat encounter.

Any content management system, such as WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, Wix, and more, can be integrated with Zendesk Chat. You can automatically create tickets from every interaction in Zendesk Chat.

8. Botsify

The best platform for building intelligent chatbots for use in corporate or educational contexts is Botsify. The key advantages of Botsify are its accessibility, the ability to create a strong brand identity, and the fact that it does more than just respond to consumer inquiries.

Botsify is designed to be as user-friendly as possible for people with little to no experience in coding, programming, or creating AI chatbots. You can start building a customer service bot right away by simply creating an account and signing up. Also, 24 alternative templates are offered by Botsify for various industries, including travel agencies, HR, and sales personnel.

By saving their pertinent information and building a user reference list from it, Botsify’s integrations let you turn website users into potential customers. As people visit specific parts of your website, you may use this to communicate with them more quickly by sending them personalized messages.

9. Manychat

The purpose of ManyChat is sales and marketing. Using personalized interactions in Instagram Messages and Facebook Messenger, you may raise product sales and client retention, produce qualified leads, and provide immediate help.

It is a useful tool for marketing, sales, and customer service. It may be used for a variety of things because of its automation capabilities, targeted messaging, lead collection, e-commerce connectivity, and tracking features. This tool will be connected to well-known social networking websites and e-commerce platforms because of its omnichannel nature.

With ManyChat’s visual drag-and-drop interface, you can quickly create and automate dynamic conversations for Facebook Messenger and Instagram Direct Messages that foster connections and increase conversions. You don’t need to know how to code.

10. Tawk.to

Tawk.to is a free web chat application that enables you to watch and communicate with visitors on your website or from a page that is freely editable. This chatbot solution is used by more than 250 thousand businesses to offer their clients real-time assistance and support.

With a 98% customer satisfaction rating, Tawk.to is a widely used chat application worldwide. Live chat with consumers, a built-in ticketing system for tracking incidents, and the creation of a user-friendly help center may all be done without spending any money.

With Tawk.to, you can track and communicate with visitors to your website when they need it most, ensuring that you never lose another lead or transaction.

How Big Brands are making use of chatbots to drive online journeys?

Top companies are utilizing chatbots in a variety of ways to steer online journeys. Using chatbots to enhance customer service is a popular strategy. Brands may provide their consumers with 24/7 service by incorporating chatbots into their websites and social media channels. These bots can respond to frequent inquiries and help with transactions. Customers may be more satisfied and loyal as a result, and customer service expenses may go down. Let’s see more that where all chatbots are being used by the top brands and how it is making the customer experience meaningful:

1. Customer Support:

Customer service departments are using chatbots in a variety of ways to guide customers through their online experiences. First off, chatbots may offer clients round-the-clock assistance, enabling them to swiftly and conveniently acquire answers to their inquiries and solve problems. As a result, businesses may experience higher customer satisfaction and loyalty as well as lower costs.

Moreover, chatbots can help users with everyday problems like password resets, purchase tracking, and product information. Chatbots can free up customer care representatives to solve more complicated situations that need human intervention by automating these chores. Personalized recommendations are another way that chatbots are being used in customer service. Chatbots can improve customers’ shopping experiences by making personalized product and service recommendations based on consumer information and interests.

Chatbots can offer proactive support by getting in touch with users before they experience a problem. To remind clients of forthcoming meetings or to inquire if they require assistance with a recent purchase, for instance, chatbots can send automated messages. In general, chatbots are enhancing customers’ online experiences and contributing significantly to customer service. Chatbots assist businesses to improve the customer experience and forge closer bonds with their customers by offering individualized, practical, and effective service.

2. Enhancing the online Buying Journey:

Enhancing the online buying experience is another another way that firms are utilizing chatbots. Chatbots can increase conversion rates and increase sales by giving clients personalized recommendations and assisting them in navigating product catalogs. Moreover, chatbots can be used to streamline operations, such as making a reservation or placing an order for a product, making online shopping more streamlined and practical.

3. Marketing and sales

Also, some companies are adopting chatbots for marketing. Chatbots can inform customers about products or services, discuss specials or discounts, and even generate leads for sales staff by conversationally conversing with them. By interacting and posing pertinent questions to website users, chatbots can assist businesses in generating leads. Chatbots can offer customized recommendations and direct customers toward completing purchases based on the comments.

Chatbots can be created to converse with clients while informing them about goods and services, sharing special offers or discounts, and responding to frequently asked inquiries. Increased consumer involvement and loyalty may result from this. Based on the customer’s browsing and purchasing history, chatbots can offer tailored recommendations. This can help to enhance the consumer experience and raise conversion rates.

Customers can make purchases right within the chat interface by integrating chatbots with e-commerce platforms. Customers may find the purchasing procedure to be more simple and more convenient as a result.

Which brands are making effective use of chatbots to improve customer experience?

Let’s look at some of the top brands that are making use of the chatbot interface and how effectively they are making the complete experience of the customer meaningful and satisfying:

1. Amazon:

Amazon uses chatbots extensively to create a seamless online purchasing experience for its consumers. To assist customers in receiving prompt replies to their inquiries, Amazon has incorporated chatbots into their customer support system. Customers can get assistance from chatbots with basic problems like tracking orders, handling returns, and changing passwords.

Machine learning algorithms that evaluate user data to deliver customized product suggestions fuel Amazon’s chatbots. Customers may find new goods that are suited to their needs by doing this. By posing pertinent inquiries and directing users to the most suitable product listings, Amazon’s chatbots can help buyers find things. This can help to enhance the customer’s online experience and raise conversion rates.

Alexa, an Amazon voice assistant, uses chatbot technology to enable a variety of operations like processing orders, reminding users to do things, and playing music. The chatbots on Amazon can be used to assess user reviews and give businesses advice on how to make their products better. Overall, Amazon is utilizing chatbot technology to create a successful online customer experience. Customers may now more easily search for and buy products. Also, Amazon is enhancing customer care and forging closer bonds with customers by including chatbots into their customer service system.

2. Microsoft:

Microsoft has included chatbots in its customer service system to assist customers in receiving prompt replies to their queries. Customers can get help from chatbots with common problems including product support, billing questions, and technical assistance.

Machine learning algorithms are the brains behind Microsoft’s chatbots. Cortana, Microsoft’s virtual assistant, uses chatbot technology to do a variety of functions, including creating reminders, booking appointments, and sending emails. Microsoft is utilizing chatbots to create productivity tools that can improve user productivity. For instance, chatbots that may help with project management, scheduling, and other activities are integrated with Microsoft Teams. The Microsoft Zo chatbot can be used to educate kids about STEM principles. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering, and math.

So, Microsoft is utilizing chatbot technology in several ways to enhance the online customer experience. Microsoft is making it simpler for customers to complete tasks and learn about new items by offering personalized recommendations, establishing virtual assistants, and building productivity tools. Also, Microsoft is assisting in preparing the following generation of students for the digital age by utilizing chatbots in the classroom.

Growth Of the Chatbot marketplace:

In 2022, the estimated global market size for chatbots was USD 5,132.8 million, and it is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 23.3% from 2023 to 2030. This growth is primarily driven by the increasing adoption of customer service automation by businesses to reduce operational costs. The demand for chatbots has increased in recent years due to the need to provide 24/7 customer service and reduce operational costs by delegating tasks to chatbots, as well as the growing preference of consumers for self-service options.

Chatbots designed for integration with messaging apps are expected to see significant demand in the future. The solutions segment, primarily driven by the adoption of in-house chatbot technologies, is projected to account for a leading share of nearly 62.0% of global revenue. Following the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020, many organizations incorporated chatbots to respond to customer queries and provide additional information, due to a shortage of customer service staff working remotely. The mobile application segment was expected to hold the dominant market share of 42.57% in 2022, while the social media segment is growing rapidly and is projected to register a CAGR of 23.8%.

In terms of business function, the sales and marketing segment dominates the market with a revenue share of over 39.5% in 2022. Chatbots can personalize customer conversations based on their preferences, purchase history, and other data, improving customer engagement, building trust, and boosting sales conversion rates. Chatbots can also provide support and answer customer inquiries 24/7, even outside of business hours, increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty. The finance segment is expected to have the fastest CAGR of 24.0% from 2023 to 2030, driven by the increasing use of chatbots to cut operational costs in the finance department.

Chatbots can handle a large volume of inquiries without requiring additional staff, reducing customer support and service costs. So, we can see that the chatbot market is expanding and growth prospects can be attributed to the significant benefits it offers.

Final Words:

Ultimately, chatbots give businesses the chance to improve their customers’ online experiences by offering individualized, practical, and interesting interactions. chatbots give organizations the chance to enhance their marketing and sales efforts by facilitating individualized, practical, and interesting interactions with customers. Businesses may enhance customer interaction, generate leads, and boost sales by utilizing the power of chatbots.

Chatbots are used in so many domains like travel, e-commerce/shopping, education, news, finance, games, HR, and a lot more. Chatbots help to smoothly transition your internet prospects from the initial exchanges to the closing conversions. These conversational chatbots can be found on websites, messaging apps, and on other platforms.

Chatbots are handy technologies that allow businesses and organizations to interact with their users or customers. Chatbots have gained popularity recently because of their ability to provide quick and efficient customer assistance, assist with household tasks, and improve the overall user experience.

**The primary author of this article is our contractual staff writer – Sakshi John.