As businesses continue to automate their sales and customer support services in order to reduce costs, chatbots and other intuitive artificial intelligence programs are becoming more popular.

Chatbots are capable of helping businesses significantly cut labor costs. While complete automation of the customer service workforce is not feasible, automating a portion of the customer management and sales positions in the US is possible through chatbots and other automation technologies, and this would result in considerable savings for businesses.

Many companies have invested more resources in better training for their customer service representatives, but the recent wave of artificial intelligence (AI) programming is changing the game, mainly through chatbots.

…91 percent of unsatisfied customers will not return for a repeat purchase or service…

Why Use Bots For Customer Service?

The Ability to Respond Immediately

Customers get frustrated when they ask the same question again and again, lodge a complaint or make a suggestion, and then don’t receive a response for days. As a business owner, you also understand the frustration of trying to be both responsive and thorough, but being criticized regardless of your effort.

The chances of losing a customer is instantly reduced by replying through an automated chatbot.

Unsatisfied Customers Do Not Return to the Brand

Customer service has always been a crucial determinant of success for any business. Did you know that 91 percent of unsatisfied customers will not return for a repeat purchase or service? That’s not a stat you should take lightly.

Simply acknowledging your customers with an automated chatbot lets them know that their complaint or inquiry has been received, and this can go a long way towards gaining a customer’s goodwill. Even if it’s just a chatbot greeting the customers, clarifying their issues, and then giving an approximate time period of when they should expect a response.

How Are Support Bots Beneficial for Customers?

Waiting Time Is Eliminated

Calling the company for product issues is boring and time-consuming, especially when there is no one to answer your queries. This kind of issue is solved by chatbots.

Today’s AI wave is empowering programmers to create highly personable chatbots that can better understand customer’s queries.

Chatbots Can Save Up To 30% In Customer Support Services

The figure below suggests that a potential savings of $23 billion can be achieved in the U.S. because chatbots have the potential to automate 30% more of the tasks done by today’s contact center staff.

Source: BI Intelligence, The Chatbots Explainer, 2016

Maruti Techlabs has created a demo Customer Support Bot for Ecommerce. Try Now.

Customer Support introductory messages

This bot has been designed to help customers get through their Return and Exchange issues. Customers can return or exchange their products with the help of the Bot.

To return the product, the customer simply gives their order number to the Customer Support bot and answers a few questions. The Customer Support Bot helps them navigate through the whole process conveniently.

Customer Support Bot helping customers in Return procedure

To replace the product, the Bot helps with navigating customers through the menu to select their preferred product in exchange. The customer support Bot asks a few questions and takes the order for the replacement within the Messenger window.

Replace Procedure

Customer Support Bot leading the customers to purchase Best Deals

This is a single demo for a Customer Support Bot serving customers for E-Commerce purchases. This can be similarly designed for a variety of customer support services in a variety industries.

Today’s AI wave is empowering programmers to create highly personable chatbots that can better understand customer’s queries. As companies embrace chatbots for customer support, it’s important that the focus remains on opening up and improving direct dialogue with customers.

For more information on how chatbots can help the service industry by making customers’ experiences pleasant, visit Chatbots and Service Industry — Towards a better customer experience.

Connect Deeper

If you resonated with this article, please subscribe to our newsletter. You will get a free copy of our E-Book on the Guide to Design a Chatbot Conversation.