How AI Chatbots Can Help You Beat Competition
Tags: ai
Published: 2021-06-03 14:44:04

Chatbots are essentially software applications that try to mimic human conversations to carry on a chat with a customer. Chatbots have come a long way since ELIZA, the first chatbot, came into existence in 1966.

With advancements in AI, chatbots have become smarter and more intuitive. They can now automate tasks, carry on intelligent conversations, make decisions, and take actions.

Conversational AI is quickly becoming popular among businesses that want to increase their customer satisfaction. Chatbots are important tools and increase the efficiency of the company by automating repetitive tasks. With almost 1.4 billion people and business already using chatbots for website, there is no doubt that an [AI chatbot](https://wotnot.io/conversational-ai-chatbot) is a must-have.

But have you ever wondered how these bots function? Chatbots are applications that have application layers, APIs, databases, and conversational user interfaces. These work in tandem to help the AI chatbot understand the customer’s queries and provide a relevant answer.

**AI Chatbots and Rule-Based Chatbots- How are they Different?**
 
**Rule-Based Chatbots**: These chatbots recognize certain keywords in the query and then respond depending on these keywords. These are mostly used for providing answers to common FAQs. The answers are known and recorded beforehand. These retail chatbots can only answer those questions which are already in the database.

**AI-Powered Chatbots**: These are cutting-edge AI chatbots that combine the best rule-based chatbots with neural networks to solve customer issues. These customer support chatbots use machine learning, artificial intelligence, and natural language processing to create a  [conversational AI](https://wotnot.io/conversational-ai-chatbot). It can understand user preferences and even remember the previous conversations to have a better context for each query.

**11 Ways AI Chatbots Can Help Your Business Beat Competition**

In this world of cutthroat competition, customer satisfaction is necessary to retain existing customers and attract more.

Conversational AI can give your business the extra advantage you need to get ahead of the competition. Wondering how? Here are a few pointers.

**1. Conduct Market Research**

It helps you understand what the customers want, the current trends, what your competitors are doing, etc. This information can guide your business strategy.

However, gathering this information is a repetitive task that takes up a lot of person-hours.  AI chatbots can constantly look up information on the internet at fixed intervals and conduct surveys.

The customer surveys by chatbots do not make the customer feel like they are filling up a long online form. Instead, you can design it to feel more like a conversation. Such conversational AI chatbots can be deployed on Facebook Messenger, Twitter, Whatsapp, or Slack.

Since most of your customers will be spending a significant amount of time on these platforms, you can collect information from the customer without requiring them to log in to another site or even open a new window.

2. Personalize the Website Content by Understanding Customer Preferences
Every customer or visitor to your website has different needs. When you provide a personalized experience, the customer is more likely to return to the website as they find the content more relevant.

To provide a personalized experience, you need to collect data about the customer’s likes and dislikes. The best way to do this is to deploy an AI chatbot. The chatbot will interact with the customer and gather the information needed to personalize the experience.

Over 80% of the customers are more likely to purchase a business that tries to provide a personalized experience. This shows the power of personalization.

**3. Get Feedback on the Website**

Your website is often the first thing a potential customer sees about your business. A smooth website with stunning visuals, ample information, and intuitive flow tells them that you care about their experience and try to make it as seamless as possible.

On the other hand, a slow-to-load or hard-to-navigate website sends the opposite message. AI chatbots can help you get feedback about the website. It could ask visitors if they had any difficulty finding what they were looking for or having some other issues with the website.

If you have recently launched a new design or a website, then [eCommerce chatbots](https://wotnot.io/ecommerce-chatbot) can gather information regarding your customers’ reaction to the new format.

**4. Make Your Customer Feel Valued**

Customers are the king in any business. Their satisfaction will help your business grow. Making customers feel valued is important, and chatbots for website can help you achieve this goal.
The AI chatbots can offer quick replies to customer queries and provide product information. This enables them to make quick decisions regarding a purchase. Almost 64% of internet users say that they like chatbots since the bots offer 24-hour support. Customers love the personal attention they get from the chatbots as it makes them feel valued.

**5. AI Chatbots Provide Human-Like Interaction**

Intelligent AI-based chatbots can mimic human interactions with considerable accuracy, and often many users cannot tell the difference. These chatbots learn from past logs of customer support and their conversations with customers.

They are constantly improving their ability to have a conversation, and many can hold intelligent conversations with customers, which are very close to actual human conversations.

With tools and platforms such as the IBM Watson and Google Dialogflow, it has now become easier to build an AI chatbot that can carry a conversation that is almost imperceptible from a real human. Both use natural language processing to analyze human speech to understand the syntax and context. 

While some customers have apprehensions about getting support from a conversational AI tool, they won’t be able to tell the difference with AI chatbots. It puts their minds at ease while also ensuring that they get the support they need.

**6. Content Creator Chatbots**
 
Content marketing is an invaluable marketing tool. After all, people are spending more time on the internet, and content can help them discover your business.

While still in their infancy, AI chatbots can help businesses automate content creation. Chatbots can create contracts and reports, real-time insights, profit and loss summaries, press releases, annual reports, personalized communications, etc.

Apart from merely creating new content, chatbots can grade your existing content based on its performance and show you the ones that are doing well and the ones that need to be revamped. Conversational AI can also identify the current trends and provide a content creation roadmap.

**7. Cost-Effective**
 
One of the biggest advantages of AI chatbots is that they significantly reduce costs associated with customer support and customer retention. Chatbots can reduce service costs by almost 30%. It does so in multiple ways.

Since chatbots can handle a large volume of common customer queries, the customer support executives only have to focus on more complicated issues. It reduces the number of customer care executives that a business needs.

By automating various processes and reducing the time it takes to respond to a customer query, AI chatbots also can significantly increase customer satisfaction and reduce attrition. Chatbots are also not very expensive to develop, and in the long run, they offer many reductions in expenses that more than justify their costs.

**8. Improves Conversion Rates**
 
Getting people to visit your website is only the beginning. Converting them into paying customers is crucial to keep your business going. AI chatbots can help improve your conversion rates in multiple ways.

Many times, visitors are unable to find what they were looking for and leave the website. Chatbots that pop up and ask the customer if they would like some help can reduce the attrition. The customer can type in their query, and the chatbot can guide them to the appropriate page.

Sometimes, visitors have questions about how to select the right product or the right size. AI chatbots can show them guides that answer these questions. When customers are window shopping on the website, the chatbots can show them the latest offers. It might tilt the scales and entice the visitor to make a purchase.

**9. Personalized Service Based on the Customer’s Interaction History**

Customers love a personalized service. A chatbot that remembers the previous conversation and uses the details to help the customer is a real game-changer.

Conversational AI chatbots that can use customer’s interaction history to personalize the service give the customer the same feeling as walking into a store and meeting an employee who remembers them from their last visit.

Not only do these chatbots increase customer satisfaction with your business, but they also reduce the time taken to solve queries. Since the chatbot remembers the previous interaction history, the customer is not required to repeat information. It saves time and reduces the customer’s frustration at having to repeat all the information they follow up.

Almost 58% of users feel that AI chatbots have changed their expectations from customer support positively.

**10. Educating Customers in Making a Right Choice**
 
Intelligent AI chatbots act in the best interests of the business as well as the customers. You may have created detailed tutorials on using various products and written blogs that cover how to select the right model. But many times, customers do not find this information readily.

Not having the required information reduces their ability to make the right purchasing decision. A customer who has purchased a product that was not suited for them may be unsatisfied with your business and might go to your competitor for their next purchase.

AI chatbots can stop this from happening. The chatbots ask customers if they would like help and guide them to the tutorials or blog posts that educate them depending on their needs. It enables the customer to make the right decision and, therefore, enhances their experience.

Chatbots can also alert customers if their membership is about to expire and apprise them of the latest offers. Sometimes, chatbots can guide undecided customers in purchasing by merely having a conversation with them and showing various product recommendations.

**11. Creation of More Efficient and Laser-Targeted Marketing Campaigns**

Your customers come from various backgrounds, and the needs of each of them differ. A single marketing campaign that broadly targets all customers can only go so far. To create an effective marketing strategy, you need to employ AI chatbots. 

Conversational AI can also deduce what kind of marketing works for various buyer personas. It can help you develop ads that might entice different buyer personas. 

When a person visits the website, the chatbot can categorize them into any buyer personas depending on their interaction history and then send marketing ads to the visitors according to their persona. 

Customers are more likely to respond to a marketing campaign that is more relevant to them, and it will improve the efficacy of your marketing strategy.

**Final Thoughts**

Conversational AI is the future of customer service. With its capabilities increasing day by day, it is predicted that businesses can save 2.5 billion customer service hours by the year 2023 if they switch to AI chatbots. 

Choosing the right AI chatbot is also crucial to ensure that you get all the benefits mentioned above. The smart chatbot from WotNot does all of the above without burning a hole in your pocket, with Dialogflow & IBM Watson Integration.

WotNot simplifies the chatbot deployment by using a no-code platform. The chatbot can have engaging conversations with visitors to generate qualified leads and increase revenue. The analytics dashboard provides invaluable insights into your customer’s behaviour that can help you make game-changing decisions.