A computer would deserve to be called intelligent if it could deceive human into believing it was human. - Alan Turing

Well, seems Mr. Turing was aptly referring to the futuristic technology of chatbots powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI), taking the ecommerce businesses by storm. A technology existent from the 19th Century, Chatbots have seen wide business applications, especially by the consumer facing ecommerce websites. According to Gartner, by 2020, 85% of consumer engagement with online businesses is likely to be stimulated via chatbots.

What is a chatbot?

A chatbot is small piece of coded software that automates conversation and engages with the consumers automatically basis predefined conditions, events, questions and triggers. A chatbot that uses Artificial Intelligence is more efficient and can handle complex queries as compared to chatbots using pre-programmed responses. Ecommerce website owners often confuse chatbots with live chat. The two are drastically different. Live chat, as the name suggests involves interacting with a real person online and is not the most scalable solution as compared to chatbots. Customers often demand information and resolutions from an online business quickly and when such customers flood your website in volumes, live chat miserably fails to mitigate the problem. On the other hand, Chatbots continuously learn from consumer interaction and offer consistent user experience along with multitude of benefits:

1. Round the clock customer support: Customer queries on your ecommerce website can be addressed 24x7x365, in real time via a chatbot.
2. Lead Generation and Qualification: Chatbots are equipped to initiate engagement with consumers online, can help qualify interested users and create CRM leads without any human intervention.
3. Schedule Meetings: Chatbots can identify availability of sales representative based on their calendars and schedule meetings with potential leads even while the rep is away on a holiday.
4. Task channelizing and allocation: Your team may be spread across different territories and ownership depending on location or company size. Routing rules from your CRM for your chatbots ensure your visitors reach the right people swiftly.
5. Customer Service: Every customer has a different need. Yet, chatbots are smart enough and can be developed to answer dynamic customer queries by pulling out data from different sections of the website such as FAQs or company’s knowledge base.

Our team of experts at CreativeWebo recommends implementing chatbots, if:

• Your ecommerce website has a global presence with expanding user base
• It requires multichannel customer support including website, mobile app and social media
• You receive similar queries from your prospects or your existing customers
• Your target audience is familiar with the concept of chatbots
• And last, but not the least, you intend to provide better user experience by scaling customer support at controlled costs.