Chatbots are transforming the UX industry

Let's start with a simple definition: chatbots are small pieces of software, which are powered by artificial intelligence, and can interact with humans in a credible way. Some of these chatbots are built for fun, but most of them have been built for business use, helping companies save lots of time and money.

Every major company uses an automated business phone answering system, but their customers are very unhappy whenever they have to go through the many available extensions and options. A text-based chatbot can help people get the answers to their questions much faster. Want proof? A study from data-alliance.net shows that chatbots are now the 5th most popular customer service channel.

So, what are some of the most popular chatbot applications? Here are a few examples.

Weather bots can help you get information about the current weather conditions in your area, and they are available at all times. We've also gotten chatbots that can automatically schedule meetings for you, making it super easy to squeeze as many consultations as possible in your program. Some bots will even double as personal finance assistants! Banks use them to help their customers verify the most recent transactions, for example.

Most chatbots have been built with the goal of providing customer support, though. Due to them, customers don't have to wait in line for dozens of minutes, until a human operator is finally available. To give you an example, Spotify uses a chatbot which provides customer service 24 hours per day, 7 days per week.

But how are chatbots transforming the UX industry? Well, if you decide to create a bot for your website, it will be much easier (and fun!) for customers to interact with your company, even when the tech support team members aren't in the office. For companies that have to deal with lots of support tickets, chatbots are a godsend.

Of course, the mere thought of building a chatbot may scare you. However, you don't even have to be a programmer to build a useful bot. At a basic level, a chat bot can be programmed to respond to specific commands. Everyone can build bots like these! It is true that if one of the users asks the bot a question that wasn't pre-programmed, that chatbot will be useless.

The solution is to build bots that utilize machine learning. As the time goes by, the bots that have been built this way get smarter and smarter, learning from their previous conversations with humans.

To build a bot that will improve UX, you will have to figure out the problem that your bot is supposed to solve. Decide the platform where your bot will reside (Facebook, etc.) and then choose a service provider.

To get started with Facebook-based chat bots, for example, you can get access to all the needed documentation by accessing this link: Facebook Messenger documentation.

It looks like sooner or later, every business is going to utilize one or more bots. They are an inexpensive, and yet fantastic way of boosting user experience. My guess is that the typical call centers will be replaced by chatbots in only a few years. This way, a single computer will be able to serve hundreds of people simultaneously, and will be able to do this all day long, without getting bored, and without asking for a raise.

Chatbots are just taking off now. Some specialists believe that they will have enough power to replace most websites within the next decade. It may sound a bit unrealistic, but the truth is that messenger platforms, which are ideal for chatbots, have recently become more popular than the traditional social media websites.

Sure, most of the good old websites will probably continue to leave a long, peaceful life. However, people are going to be much more inclined to purchase stuff online using a chatbot in the near future. Platforms like Octane AI offer advanced solutions at affordable prices, allowing companies to send automatic responses, which include an additional discount, to people who have abandoned their shopping carts, for example.

Chatbots are here to stay. So, embrace the future and start thinking at ways in which you can incorporate this new technology into your projects.