The Chatbot Conundrum

Marketers must answer fundamental questions related to effective usage of chatbots, even as they emerge as keyplatforms for customer communication.

- Aakrit Vaish

CMOs all over the world are making a beeline to buy a chatbot right away. Automated messaging services driven by chatbots are emerging as key platforms for customer communication, operations management and process analysis, among a variety of other things, all over the world. They are creating rich experiences, and are becoming smarter every day, thanks to technologies such as NLP.

Ubisend’s Mobile Messaging Report stated that 45.8% of global consumers preferred communicating with businesses through chat. In fact, 83% online shoppers said they were most likely to see through a transaction and complete it if they had some sort of a continuous chat-based assistance, as per an e-consultancy report.

Real-time response, complete analysis of acquired data, 24x7 accessibility and a self-learning mechanism that enriches every subsequent conversation has endeared chatbots to CMOs everywhere. However, managers are still in a ‘confused’ phase in their relationship with bots. They do not know exactly the fundamental questions to ask in order to identify which processes or divisions require the use of automated solutions and which chatbot will be best suited for a particular task. To make the task tougher, newer, bigger and better chatbot platforms and enablers enter the market every single day. Managers then struggle to choose the right service provider and chatbot that will help them to get the highest ROI.