ChatBots for Business
Tags: writing, node, python, productivity
Published: 2021-05-10 18:58:19

Savvy and Strategic Businesses Are Implementing ChatBots in Their Operations to improve efficiency, productivity and reputation.

While people have been predicting that robots were going to take over the human workforce for decades, few (if any) assumed that the “initial wave” in this hostile takeover would be in the form of ChatBots that exist almost entirely online!
 
On top of that, most wouldn’t have guessed that entrepreneurs and business owners aren’t just eager and excited about bringing ChatBots on board their operation – many are rushing to do so at almost breakneck pace.

What makes ChatBots so special? Why are businesses looking to leverage them as quickly as possible today? Let’s dig a little deeper and find out!

### Why Use Chatbots to Begin With?

The folks at Oracle estimate that nearly 80% of all businesses (small, medium, and large) will be using ChatBot technology by the end of 2021.

![chatbot messenger for business](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/t4cym2g6ysqxk7jxhsm7.png)
 
That would be a major leap forward in widespread adaptation, considering the fact that even just five years ago not even 10% of businesses had even heard of ChatBots before.

What’s driving businesses to invest so much in these AI tools? What’s the **payoff**?

### Huge Time and Money Saver
 
Businesses are (understandably) always looking for ways to **save time**, **save money**, and **conserve resources** – especially when you’re talking about the always expensive human resources.

![chatbot business productivity](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/q2palpbb9i1pog6reucf.png)

Rather than employ massive customer service teams staffed by real people responsible for answering the same customer service questions over and over again, ChatBots can be used to “lighten the load” and handle a lot of high-level customer service needs instead.

Obviously, leaner team of customer service agents can then be kept on for more personalized or complex service requests. But the ChatBots can handle the bulk of the heavy lifting, freeing up time, money, and resources that can be diverted elsewhere.

### Faster Customer Service

Study after study shows that poor **response time** to even the most mundane customer service requests can do insane damage to a businesses brand and reputation.

Customers today expect service (and responses to their questions or concerns) as quickly as humanly possible, sometimes just a few minutes after they’ve made their request.

![chatbot for time management](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/71m1livk32jy7fq1atdk.png) 
 
In the real world of business – especially online business, with customers from around the world facilitated by websites that are up 24/7 – expecting that kind of response time from human customer service agents isn’t reasonable, let alone physically possible.
 
With ChatBots, though, having a 24/7 customer service department with almost **instant response time** isn’t just possible it’s almost effortless to implement.
 
Simple requests can be managed by the ChatBots and if things get too complex for the AI to handle a note to the customer letting them know that human customer service agents will handle things from there (as quickly as possible) is usually more than enough to keep your customers happy.
 
### Eliminates Human Error
 
The beautiful thing about ChatBot AI tools is that they are **100% programmable**, operate based off of instructions that are set in stone, and will always – ALWAYS – behave the way that they have been programmed to.

![chatbot for business](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/4d2nw8upbhqkes8oxxlo.png) 
 
The same cannot be said about human employees.
 
The best and most consistent training in the world cannot account for human error, fatigue, simple mistakes and accidents, or people “running off script” and handling customer interactions anyway at they’d like to.
 
With ChatBots you never have that problem.
 
You **eliminate human error**, you streamline and systemize interactions with your customers, and you guarantee that the exact same response (relevant, targeted response) is provided every time a specific type of question or prompt is provided.
 
### (Almost) Unlimited Flexibility
 
The coolest thing about ChatBot technology is that we are literally in the infancy of these tools and how they can be used in the world of business today.
 
The flexibility, adaptability, and capabilities of these tools are incredible right now – but they are only going to get even more powerful and even more useful as time goes on.
 
Combine that with the fact that these tools can be used in every industry imaginable, from e-commerce to healthcare and everything in between, and it’s easy to see that the world of business is going to be dominated by AI influenced ChatBots sooner rather than later!

![spurwing appointment scheduling api](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/lzzd53b7l5uymn2h4ior.png)

### Appointment Scheduling
What many ChatBot solutions are missing is the ability to schedule appointments with clients, say a demo or support call between a team member and a (potential) client. Thanks to the Spurwing API we can easily integrate Appointment Scheduling solutions into (almost) any popular ChatBot framework out there.

Here's a demo we built for Facebook Messenger:
![i0xx9mxr4wtf9iqncnkj](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/brlf9qlk6i4ffusky6bg.gif)

Integrating Scheduling Features is pretty much a piece of cake, we have already built and implemented many popular platforms on our Open Source GitHub [marketplace](https://github.com/Spurwingio/Chat-Bots): Slack, Discord, Facebook Messenger and many more are currently being developed (Intercom, WhatsApp, Skype, Amazon Lex, Google Chat, ...).

If your business uses a specific or custom ChatBot solution and needs Scheduling features integrated then we can help you.
Website: https://www.spurwing.io/
Marketplace: https://github.com/Spurwingio