PETALING JAYA: Chatbots have come a long way since their inception, but the first-generation chatbots that were only meant to answer frequently asked questions have gone obsolete.
What have been put in place are AI-enabled (Artificial Intelligence- enabled) chatbots with the capability of leveraging the vast amount of data from the channels.
“People are expecting more from chats, in terms of framing the data and what sort of access points should it open up so the data from the chats could be of value to them,” AiChat co-founder and chief marketing officer Matthew Low (pix) told SunBiz in a recent interview.
He said as a chatbot solutions provider, AiChat is working with brands that are looking for a way to mine data through the large volume of chat it generates every day.
Low touted that if businesses could analyse their own data, they could do so much with it.
“A lot of businesses are buying data from third party providers, which do not tell them anything about their own customers’ intentions, buying behaviours and motivation,” he said.
From his experience, Low said most businesses do not go through the process of preparing, cleaning and visualising the data.
“This is an area we specialise in, to help our clients to make sense of the conversation data, figure out where they want to go and what people are talking about in relation to their brands and products,” he said.
He highlighted that the advantage of chatbots is that they could give customers a scaled experience, understanding their intentions, buying patterns and giving them recommendations accordingly.
Low explained that the bots track the chats and options chosen by its users in order to create a profile, from which it will start scoring the users.
“With that users can be segregated and ranked accordingly, allowing for sale representatives to see which is the warmest lead so that they can follow up accordingly.
“This kind of assessment allows us to tighten marketing and sales efforts, reduce leakages and generate sales leads at a higher volume.”
He explained that this is often translated into savings in advertising by his clients as the intention “nuggets” extracted from the data allows them to visualise each customer better, thus translating into higher sales.
He said the chatbots could also be applied to on-the-ground
events, allowing for an online-to-offline integration for clients that conduct on-ground events and promotion.
Ultimately, he sees the chatbots not as a substitute for human interaction but as a tool of empowerment, as the repetitive and mundane tasks will be handled by the bots.
“By the time the interaction is passed to a human, it will be close to finalising a deal, this should be the game plan for all who bring on a chat solution. We don’t believe the human touch could be replaced, but we know it could be empowered,” Low said.
