Chatbots Development

Chatbots are an evolving technology with plenty of uses for consumers, businesses, and even the enterprise. We wrote this article to discuss what chatbots are, how they work, and why they're so important.

A chatbot is a computer program that conducts automated conversation through text or audio interfaces with one or more human users on internet-based applications such as messaging services or web pages. Some chatbots use artificial intelligence to simulate real-time conversation and develop dialogue. Depending on the sophistication level of the chatbot, users might not be able to distinguish between a human user and a chatbot.

Chatbots can perform a wide variety of tasks, such as answering customer questions, providing weather reports, ordering products online, and much more. Facebook Messenger alone has 30,000 chatbots.

Many businesses are adopting chatbots because they are an efficient way of providing customer service. Chatbots allow human customer service representatives to handle more calls per day by assisting customers with simple questions via automated messages.

Chatbot development is becoming increasingly popular among businesses because of its versatility and ease of use. Creating a chatbot requires minimal technical experience, often just basic programming skills.

Chatbots can be used as live chat support agents. Chatbots can perform such as answering customer questions, providing service information, and notifying customers of sales and promotions. With the right chatbot, businesses can save money and time on customer service without sacrificing customer satisfaction.

Businesses that adopt chatbots as a live chat support agent will integrate live chat into their existing websites and apps. Customers will be able to reach a real human via the website or app support section. All the customer has to do is select a topic and the chatbot will lead them through the process of reaching out to a human representative.

Despite their benefits, chatbots can't converse as fluidly as humans can yet. Natural language processing software has improved tremendously in recent years, but not all chatbots are equipped with advanced NLP capabilities. Business owners should be aware that chatbots won't be able to communicate like real people any time soon.

 

The Pros

Chatbots are becoming more popular because they are easy to use. You can create a chatbot in 3 to 5 minutes. Today's chatbots are generally programmed using the most basic of programming languages, usually including Visual Basic, C#, Python or JavaScript. A fundamental understanding of these programming languages is often enough to build the necessary scripts that the chatbot needs to interact with users. So most businesses don't need programmers who understand how to write artificially intelligent programs.

 

The Cons

Chatbots can't communicate the same way as humans. It may take some time for chatbots to become as conversational and intelligent as humans. It will take time for chatbots in general to develop natural language processing software in order for them to communicate in conversational ways that are understood by the average person.

Chatbots are supposed to be able to answer simple questions, but they can't answer more complicated queries. At this stage in the game, most business owners know the importance of simplicity. It's difficult for chatbots to perform tasks which require knowledge of different subjects, such as when making complex financial transactions or when providing legal advice. Chatbots are programmed to answer simple questions, not complex ones. For example, using a chatbot to buy a product or service requires that the business owner has programmed the chatbot to provide the customer with easy-to-understand instructions on how to complete the transaction.

At this point, most businesses can't afford to build complex chatbots which are able to interact with users in more intricate ways. Therefore, chatbots still work best when conducting simple transactions.

Some chatbots get confused when handling more complicated transactions. In some cases, a customer's question might confuse the chatbot so much that they can't respond to the customer in a reasonable amount of time. These instances lead to the customer becoming frustrated and eventually switching their attention elsewhere.

 

Conclusion

Chatbots can go rogue and spam your inbox with information you don't want to receive. Just like social media, chatbots can be misused and abused by their owners. The potential for a chatbot to be misused increases as the technology becomes more accessible to consumers and businesses. Because of this, consumers need to be aware that it's possible that they'll receive unsolicited messages from a chatbot. Some businesses might opt to send unsolicited messages via chatbots without permission from customers.