The challenges that logistics and transportation businesses face in the increasingly digitised global market are numerous. These include rising costs, human resource shortages, regulatory burdens and ever-growing customer expectations. But the right digital transformation investment can help to meet these challenges, especially where excellent customer service is concerned.

High-quality customer support in logistics and consumer deliveries requires speed, effective internal communication and 24/7 availability. How chatbot technology helps businesses improve customer service?

Chatbots are machine-learning AI systems that basically offer a digital customer service agent through your website - popping up a dialogue box to ask if the customer needs help. During working hours the chat facility can be manned by a live agent, and out of this timeframe, an automated chatbot can take it over. Chatbots are a prime example of how data science can help logistics and transportation businesses to deliver better customer service and internal efficiencies at the same time. In fact, 42% of customers say that they prefer chatbots to traditional contact methods. This helps to explain why 51% of respondents in a supply chain business survey carried out by Eyefortransport said that they were already applying chatbots.