Anyone who uses Facebook will have already met them – the chatbots. These digital dialogue systems are increasingly shaping the Internet world and revolutionizing the services and marketing activities of companies. But they are also appearing increasingly as virtual personal assistants in our private lives.
Chatbots are actually nothing new, the first already appeared in the 60s and served as a virtual psychotherapist. A lot has happened since the development of inventor Joeseph Weizenbaum. Today, chatbots support the processes of many companies and industrie sectors. The way they work is simple, the bots fall back on a predefined database and use this knowledge, which has been entered by people, to give the users individual answers to their questions. At least at its most simple soultion. Of course, there are also solutions that are enriched with artificial intelligence and make the bot even more dynamic.
Chatbots revolutionize business processes
Chatbots usually follow pre-defined rules; they break down the questions of the users into their individual parts and compare them with the best possible answer from the database by means of artificial intelligence. These detection patterns are performed within seconds. However, in order to become better and better, experts in the company must provide their input to the bot so that it can be programmed. Thus the chatbot can act in the “voice of the company”.
But how do you get such an application? Creating a chatbot is not in itself a witchcraft. With sites such as Chatfuel or Manychat, interested entrepreneurs can quickly create bots without extensive programming skills. The real challenge, however, is the logic behind the system. The machines should recognize meaningful connections. They must be able to detect typing errors or unclear questions and be able to answer correctly despite a deviation from the standardized protocol. In the development phase of a bots, all possible ways of the user interaction must be precisely pre-defined. As a rule, a good chatbot with an efficient conversation protocol achieves a recognition rate of more than 70% of the questions.
Chatbots as an advertising tool
Chatbots can be found in many areas of use. They can be used in the company from the assistant position to the service employee. But they can also be a great advertising tool in marketing. With the help of the “Messages to Page” campaign, which Facebook offers in its ads, Messenger Chatbots can be used optimally. The potential customer will be informed about the company’s landing page via the advertisement and can submit his most important questions directly to the chatbot. The resulting immediate interaction increases trust in the company.
Chatbots are no longer unknown instruments on websites or online shops. The trick is to program the bot in such a way that it responds as well as possible to the questions of the users, but is nevertheless recognizable as a bot.
post picture: boagworld
