The simplest bots can’t identify the user intent and don’t become smarter over time, so you won’t need to feed data to them. They are highly scripted and can support only structured conversations. You can build the simplest chatbots with the help of no-code constructors.

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Types of Chatbots

You can choose from the following varieties of chatbots:

Scripted or quick-reply. They operate as hierarchical decision trees. They offer the user sets of predefined questions, the client clicks a certain question and the bot provides them with an answer. Such solutions feature the lowest chatbot development cost.
Keyword recognition-based. The client can type a request into such a bot, the latter will detect the keywords in the text and select relevant answers. The main shortcoming of this type is that bots might struggle to cope with redundant questions or repetitive keyword use.
Hybrid. This is a mix of the two above-mentioned types. The user might either rely on keywords or select from the predefined questions.
Contextual. They employ ML and AI to remember interactions with each client. They can analyze that data and use it to improve their conversation flows.
Voice-enabled. These act as voice assistants. They can recognize speech and carry out text-to-speech conversion. Such chatbots can cope with creative tasks, such as compiling lists of the best products according to specific criteria.

Plus, chatbots can be classified as either stateless or stateful. The former don’t remember their previous dialogs with users. The latter do remember all the earlier interactions and modify their behavior accordingly.

The Primary Advantages of Chatbots

Companies appreciate chatbots because they allow them to achieve the following goals:

Carry out simultaneous conversations with thousands of clients
Initiate a dialog proactively once the client visits a certain page and use the information from that conversation to personalize the offer to that person
Remove the necessity of hiring and training human support managers and paying salaries to them
Minimize the risk of errors that might be made because of the human factor
Allow staff members to focus on high-priority tasks
Monitor and analyze consumer data to improve the company’s products and service
Ease scalability to global markets thanks to the bots’ ability to talk multiple languages and their readiness to handle customer queries 24/7, regardless of the time zone
Facilitate the process of selecting qualified leads and achieving the target KPIs

Ultimately, chatbots will help you with lead generation, qualification, and nurturing. Your customer base will expand, and you’ll boost your conversion rates. Your clients should appreciate the fact that you use chatbots because the latter do the following:

Provide customers with 24/7 support
Reduce waiting time and offer immediate answers
Improve the redirection of client queries
Minimize the stress of those customers who might feel uncomfortable with human-to-human interactions
Personalize each client’s experience

By adding customized elements to your chatbot, you’ll be able to advance your brand personality.

The Main Shortcomings of Chatbots

The drawbacks of this type of software are not too numerous, and developers will strive to overcome them as soon as possible. However, today chatbot users should be ready to face the following issues:

The bots are still imperfect. On a rare occasion, they might give wrong answers.
They might struggle to understand the message if the user makes mistakes or misprints, uses slang or acronyms.
Chatbots need to better adapt to human randomness and spontaneity. The user might start with a question but quickly switch to a command, and the bot needs to react appropriately.
People need to share their private information with chatbots. Developers should provide solid security guarantees to users and prove there will be no data leaks.

As you see, the advantages of chatbots far outweigh their shortcomings.

Final Thoughts

Hopefully, this article came in handy, and now you better understand the importance of chatbots for businesses. Bots can partly replace human support managers and carry out simple, look-up tasks. Your clients won’t need to wait until your team membarel be ready to attend to them. Bots can talk multiple languages, process customer queries 24/7, and learn from their previous interactions with people. If you build a chatbot for your company, it should enable you to improve your customer experience and ultimately maximize your revenue.