You have two alternatives when it comes to integrating a chat system into your website: should you use an artificial chatbot or a human-powered live chat? We've put together this handy chatbot versus live chat comparison to help you understand the differences between the two approaches and help you decide which will deliver the best results for your company.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has revolutionised how companies communicate with their customers. At the beginning of 2021, "85% of consumers will be able to manage their connections with brands without human interaction, according to marketing specialists Growth Mentor.
In addition, according to Oracle.“80% of organisations desire chatbots because they are beginning to recognise the benefits of employing chatbots for their customer-based products,
Many businesses now employ either live chat or chatbots to serve and engage their customers. Some businesses use both. Here are some pros and cons to consider:
Customers have high expectations for real-time assistance. One of the key indicators of customer excellence is response speed. Customers are 59% more likely to buy if brands respond to their questions in under a minute. Customers may quit your website for a variety of reasons but you can be sure a slow response time will be high on the list. Live chat provides immediate response and the shortest queue time. It gives your customer service personnel the ability to:
According to Ubisend chatbot research “21% of consumers regard chatbots as the easiest way to contact a business,. Bots can engage clients 24 hours a day, 7 days a week by addressing common questions and ensuring that your clients receive prompt responses.
Live chat is also the most cost-effective option. It allows you to communicate with consumers in real-time, minimising sales funnel abandonment, and - as you are responding to people immediately - this can lead to a higher return on investment (ROI) as more website visitors are turned into customers. It is also a great way to monitor your monthly sales report without a huge investment. According to Juniper Research “By 2022, chatbots will help organisations save more than $8 billion each year,. A chatbox is simply cheaper than employing people to monitor the live chat.
Finding a way to give client assistance 24 hours a day, 7 days a week is no longer optional; it's becoming a necessity. You can't afford to keep your consumers waiting. Research suggests that if clients don't believe you are interested in them, 68% of them will go to a competitor.
Chatbots are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You never know when one of your consumers will try to contact you. If you fail to engage with them, they will likely leave. Chatbots provide real-time customer service which should keep your customers happy.
Whatever solution you adopt, it's important that it is scalable - you never know when traffic may increase. Businesses that rely solely on live chat help may face difficulties such as:
These problems can be resolved by using a chatbot. Bots allow you to easily increase your range of conversations and provide consumers with quick solutions. It can boost your company's response to inquiries without significantly adding to your costs.
This is where Live Chat is the winner. Despite the fact that many firms now use chatbots, Live Chat is the clear winner when it comes to accurately assess and responding to inquiries. The most critical component of being able to give good answers is understanding the context. Chatbots lack the ability to understand and react to difficult or complex problems where customers require reliable responses.
Complex questions are difficult for a bot to handle. A live support agent, on the other hand, can respond to complex questions and develop an emotional connection with your customers by thinking through the problem and providing sensible suggestions to resolve issues. You may therefore want to have the option for chatbots to refer questions to a live support agent.
Analysing the support questions you are asked and producing reports to keep track of these will help keep your support service running smoothly. Basically, bots don't empathise with people. If you don't have live customer service, you run the risk of giving the impression that your company is cold and impersonal.
Both live chat and chatbot technologies are designed to provide a good customer experience. Live support agents are effective at resolving client concerns quickly and efficiently. A real human will be best at resolving complex queries and solving difficult problems. Chatbots, on the other hand, provide an immediate response and allow your customers to interact with you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
It's a trade-off. The human-to-human connection provided by live chat provides the best customer experience while conversational AI chatbots' efficiency in terms of cost and productivity provides significant business benefits. On balance, we would advocate a mixed strategy. This involves employing chatbots to answer basic queries like frequently asked questions, but also having a live chat system in place so that chatbots can quickly transfer customers to a real human if the question is more unusual or complicated. This gives you the best of both worlds!
by Alishba Memon | 27 Sep 23