As per Gartner’s top strategic predictions for 2018 report more than 50% of enterprises will spend more on chatbots and bot creation as compared to the traditional mobile app development by 2021.
Artificial intelligence is no longer just for Fortune 500 companies, mobile app development companies are helping small and medium sized companies excel by taking advantage of the new technologies like Intelligent chatbots powered by Artificial Intelligence.
In simple words, chatbots are computer programs that has the ability to converse with you via messages. If you come to think of it, most people talk to each other through text messages like on social media, Facebook messenger, Customer care. It is fast and easily accessible. Similarly, a chatbot can be embedded into a website to interact with the clients directly through messages.
It clearly indicates that chatbots will change the way organizations do their business and serve customers. And, as we are nearing the end of 2017, we would like to do a recap of the technological advancements and share the opinion regarding how chatbots will evolve in 2018.
It’s a good time as we welcome 2018 with all the possibilities with the conversational platform
Voicebots will emerge in retail and for automation
It is estimated that 30% of interactions in 2018 will be conversation based. We saw many brands like Google, Apple and Amazon that are providing voice assistant bots to consumers. And many others have partnered with them. In 2018, we will see more brands adopting voice assistant bots.
Chatbots with a conversational nature will become popular
Chatbots, the most touted conversational interface will become popular among customers and organizations in 2018. As a social animal, humans are always looking for a personal touch in the conversation. Moreover, they want a quick response instead of delayed automated answers.
Chatbot holds immense potential in different verticals starting from marketing, sales to customer retention and engagement.
Progress in conversational interface
In 2017, we saw many interesting cases of conversational interfaces. Among the many interfaces, sales and marketing stole the limelight. Organizations that implemented conversational interfaces for marketing purposes were able to eliminate the customer forms with conversations.
In 2018, we will see some early adopters of conversational interface. They also be among the few to emerge as winners of the market.
Chatbots will help gain customer insights
Chatbots will be used to gather customer insights as they will improve all levels of marketing and interaction with clients. Storing information will be faster and easier. Each conversation can be stored and used for further analysis. This makes chatbot better equipped to answer future questions and helps you understand your customers.
Chatbots are basically being used to analyse the type of questions asked by the customer to be prepared for the future. Taking this further, a competent marketing team knows that after collecting analytics they need to be acted on and the cycle of constant improvement continues. Advanced chatbots are starting to automate this process and improve themselves by learning from previous conversations and are able to answer more questions.
For now, at least people are still smarter than chatbots, and marketers are still continually optimizing their chatbots based on how users respond to its replies, but this is set to change.
Bringing data analytics to the masses
Along with chatbot, big data has been one of the most talked about terms in the past few years. While big data has enormous potential in terms of analyzing data and providing insights to organizations, it will completely revolutionize the way businesses interact with customers as every conversation will be analysed helping in business growth and better customer engagement.
Chatbot for websites
More and more organizations will have chatbots embedded in their website. It is an excellent source for interacting and engaging the users and allows more control over organizations marketing, sales activities and user experience strategy.
Conclusion
We do not expect to see all the trends happening all at once. They will happen as a result of the other but nevertheless, chatbot will see a new phase of maturity and growth in 2018.
