Creating your own chatbot might be easier than you think using AI chatbot builders.
Chatbots are everywhere these days. Chances are you've encountered them on websites, blogs, Facebook Messenger, and mobile apps. Companies have been eagerly implementing
chatbots, hoping to gain the potential benefits they offer. Some efforts fail while others are very successful. A lot of it comes down to business intent and design.
AI chatbots can perform a variety of very structured tasks. Some companies use them strictly for customer service. For example, the chatbot might greet the customer and try to solve their issue. If the customer asks a question that the chatbot has been programmed to answer (like "how do I return an item?"), voila! - an AI chatbot can provide the answer and an agent-assisted contact is avoided. Otherwise, the chat session gets handed off to a live agent or, if this capability doesn't exist, it might be a dead end for the customer.
More sophisticated AI chatbots can perform more complex tasks, like providing order status, suggesting what wine to pair with lasagna, or scheduling a spa treatment. The implementation of these types of chatbots are more complex because they need to integrate with other business systems. Many businesses find it worth the effort and have been very creative with how they deploy chatbots, resulting in a customer experience that is useful and, in many cases, fun.
Do-it-yourself with chatbot builders.
A business can make their own customer support chatbot and there are plenty of chatbot builders available to help them do that. An AI chatbot builder is a development platform for making bots that can then be implemented on websites, mobile, and messaging apps. Among chatbot builders, there's a broad range of capabilities as well as pricing options.
Organizations with very simple use cases can find chatbot builders that provide pre-built chatbots no coding knowledge required. Alternatively, users can easily make their simple chatbot using drag and drop technology. Typical functionality of these chatbots include greeting website visitors, answering questions, and collecting information. Some of the best chatbot builders also include integration with other systems using
APIs to enable, for example, elevation of a chat session to a live agent.
Do-it-yourself chatbot builders might not be the right tool for more sophisticated chatbots. Instead, companies may need to hire programmers who specialize in AI chatbot development and integrations.