Chatbots have come far in time. Initially they were just based on static questions and answers that were predetermined and configured in the software system. Now chatbots can handle complex questions written in the native language of users and can supply information based on rules in the system.
Chatbots are a major component of business automation. They can be used in customer service, answering customer questions and taking requests for service. They can help a company free customer service resources for important calls or other useful tasks rather than answer similar questions.
Here are a few advantages of using chatbots in your E Commerce landscape
Available 24/7
One of the top advantages of having a Chatbot system installed in your web property is that Chatbots are available 24/7 to answer customers questions. That means you can have one shift of human employees while leaving the other shifts to chatbots. You can even start your first customer interaction with chatbots answering basic and repetitive questions which may often consume valuable time of a human employee.
In case that chatbot cannot answer a question, the query can be forwarded to a human agent.
Personalized Service
Chatbots can be helpful when they can answer customer query by deriving information from multiple sources. A chatbot can provide answer after the engine that it is using is trained on company and customer policies. A chatbot is trained on product data and content based on the website. It can also connect with multiple systems such as Order management and Customer relationship management and can fetch order details from them without the need of human intervention.
The advantage of chatbot here is that it can converse with the customer in their own language using the advantage of Natural Language Processing system.
With the data collected from the interactions , the chatbot can further be personalized. Customers chat history can be collected to refine the future interactions.
Higher efficiency, Cost savings
Chatbots can offer cost savings as we can see from the above paragraphs already. They can help reduce the number of human agents required to answer similar or repeated questions. There is definitely a cost related to initial investment in setting up the chat systems but with time , you might see a reduction in cost if the chat systems are correctly configured and data is analyzed well for further usage.
The efficiency results from the fact that these systems are available 24/7, takes data from multiple sources and can provide personalized services. The chatbot system can be used to handle multiple customers at a time , freeing up the human resources for other important tasks. They can suggest products on the fly leading to less time lag and higher customer satisfaction.
What are the disadvantages of using Chatbots as customer service tools
Obviously with the upside of using Chatbots, there are downsides to them as well. Remember that chatbots can never completely replace a human in the chain and they can sometimes cause more damage than benefit
A chatbot may sound fake
Once, I had to call an E Commerce company regarding their delayed order and how much it was affecting me. Fortunately, at the other end of the line, was a human who could understand, how much of a frustration I was feeling. She was empathetic to my issue and then she put the order escalation to the highest priority. It would have been difficult for a chatbot to understand my agony. Even the empathetic preset messages may sound phony as I can see that a machine is empathising with me , which totally appears fake.
Problem with customer confidentiality
There have been cases, where a chatbot often based on LLMs ( Large Language Models) engines have been known to be hacked easily and spill out details that were not supposed to be exposed to anyone. This is a dangerous thing because if there are no guardrails, a hacker may know everything about your customers and their order books. This can lead to lawsuits and reputation damage.
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