Our first installment of carefully selected chatbot business use cases has shown you how AI bots are transforming 12 large-scale core industries of the world, including E-commerce, public transportation, education, airlines, and so on. In this second part, we continue coming up with other 11 chatbot business use cases that deal with more personal aspects of life.
This article is part of a series in which we explain why businesses of all sizes and areas should embrace chatbot technology to conquer the market.
Customer Service
Chatbots Deliver Quick Responses with Accuracy
As soon as a customer contacts a chatbot, whether by texting or via a voice-operated platform, he/she can get responses instantly. This means no more waiting to connect with a human agent who might redirect you to another agent, but eventually, the problem may not be solved.
Moreover, powerful bots based on Artificial Intelligence can handle very complicated tasks beyond answering FAQs, such as managing customers’ schedules or giving customers advice on how to choose products most suitable for their needs. Once being equipped with more advanced algorithms, they will get smarter and may replace all of the call centers in a company, as well as websites or apps in the end. After all the purpose of all of these channels in the first place is to help customers solve their problems. Chatbot makes it easy and instant.
For tasks out of their reach, chatbots have the Handover Protocol that enables them and the human agents to work in the same conversation. Bots can quickly connect a customer to a human agent in no time. A good example is the beauty retailer Sephora, which uses this protocol to help bots and human employees cooperate better, creating a more seamless shopping experience for customers.
Chatbots Engage Customers
This is the era of smart customers who want high-quality self-service. Chatbots are a huge asset for companies if they’re equipped with Natural Language Processing that can facilitate “conversation commerce” where business interactions are made.
Another way these AI bots engage customers better than humans is their personalization engine. A bot can be programmed so that its voice and word choice reflect a brand. Brand identity is the key to successful customer service. An outstanding example is PullString, computer software company, that developed voice and gave personalities to Amazon’s Alexa, an intelligent personal assistant.
Chatbots Save Costs for Businesses
A long payroll is the last thing any company wants to deal with. That’s why many have turned to chatbots which work 24/7 efficiently and don’t need holidays or bonuses. Moreover, the science of machine learning gives bots the ability to learn and become better by themselves.
Chatbots Are Profitable in the Messaging Era
In general, people prefer a direct channel to reach the company, especially millennials. That’s why we can see so many bots specially built to run on Messenger. The huge number of Facebook Messenger users also makes it a good place to build chatbots.
News
Chatbots have already brought about a completely personalized experience of absorbing news. This requires no walking any distance to buy newspapers, no visiting any web pages, and no downloading new apps. News bots do all the searching, collecting and presenting news to customers at their convenience.
A good example is CNN’s bot, which runs on Facebook Messenger platform. This bot presents three categories for customers: Top Stories, News for You, and Ask CNN. If readers don’t like any of these, just type the keywords, for example “football”, and it will collect all the football news.
Among the rising chatbot business use cases for news and publishing, alerting breaking news bot is increasingly getting more spotlight. TechCrunch is developing breaking news alerts to inform customers immediately of what is going on in the world or around their geographical location. This can be a matter of life and death in case of terrorist attacks or natural hazards.
Fashion and Beauty
Chatbots Enable Customers to Try Before Buying
Online customers don’t easily and often never have a chance to test a beauty product before buying, especially when it comes to lipsticks, eyewear, lens, face powder or anything that would be much better to try on first.
Chatbots can solve this problem by letting customers upload their images and matching the products with their faces. This is undoubtedly one of many amazing chatbot business use cases for the fashion industry. A good example is Estee Lauder’s lip artist chatbot. If you wish to try a shade of lipstick, just give a picture of your face to the bot, and it will generate the result in seconds. You can clearly see what you look like with that lipstick shade. It’s the same as having a mirror in front of you. The best thing is you don’t have to go anywhere!
Another great feature of Estee Lauder’s lip artist chatbot is that it includes options: “Buy now”, “Download Image”, “Update Selfie”. “Buy Now” gently tempts customers to make a purchase. “Update Selfie” lets customers try with another image. Either way, this chatbot can really boost customer satisfaction, thus sales.
Chatbots Can Be One’s Personal Stylists
Other chatbot business use cases for the beauty industry include personal stylists. For example, Levi’s Virtual Stylist can offer fashion tips based on customers’ information. You enter your size, fitting preferences and other details as you’d like to help the bot pick the best piece of clothing for you. It can ask detailed questions like “How would you like your jeans to fit through the leg?”
Entertainment
The entertainment industry can now reach out to literally each and every person of the global audience with the help of chatbots. According to chatbotsmagazine.com, a post on a Facebook fan page can guarantee to attract only about 2% of the entire fan base. This problem affects even the biggest stars because of Facebook’s algorithm. However, if the same post is sent to everyone via Facebook Messenger, about 90% would read it.
Knowing this, the marketing team of the movie Hangman (2017), starring Al Pacino, created a hangman game right inside Messenger as part of their promotion strategy. Since people have a tendency to interact via the Messenger platform, the movie promotion reached many people and the box office sales were massive.
Imagine you’re a singer who is going to have a live concert somewhere. You can notify your fans immediately via Messenger, which helps extend your reach and compels people to view. Moreover, chatbots can even help people buy tickets quickly and sell merchandise right inside the platform. This kind of convenience prompts people, who are not even your fans, to take action.
Real Estate
Real estate agents are beginning to realize many profitable chatbot business use cases for their line of work. In addition to answering questions, chatbots can collect information from clients based on their search results or surveys. After that, they can build detailed client profiles, which the agents can view beforehand prior to important meetings. The information in the profiles can also be used to persuade clients or predict who are more likely to buy, thus avoid wasting time on those who will never converse.
For the clients, they can be helped in their search for properties, information and recommendations.
Another way chatbots help real estate companies secure deals is its targeting clients’ psychology. Home buyers are often anxious and confused during the waiting process for the agent contact. With the help of a chatbot, you can be the first to reach a potential buyer, “forcing” them to consider you offer.
Moreover, chatbots can schedule home tours, meetings and take care of other time-consuming tasks to leave agents and clients more time with their work.
Weather
The Weather Company has its own weather chatbot that helps people go through their day smoothly. This bot can inform current weather conditions and give notifications every hour. You can set your own time for when the bot will notify you. It is not limited to hourly forecast. It can also show the predictions for the next five days. In case there is a serious natural disaster, the bot will broadcast immediate warnings.
Thanks to the IBM Watson Natural Language Classifier and Alchemy Language APIs, the bot collects information from users and learns to provide more customized messages which are not restricted to just forecast of temperatures. An example could be news about scientific discoveries of interesting weather phenomena worldwide. When the news is shown, users can choose “Read more”, “More Like This” or “Less Like This”.The bot can then learn their preferences.
Scheduling
Making schedules is a nightmare to many people, especially when it involves organizing one meeting with many individuals. The Meekan bot was born to help people with different aspects of their schedule management.
Whenever you need to find time for the meeting, ask the bot. It will automatically check the team’s schedules to arrange the best time slot and propose some other recommendations. Time zones can be a huge problem for humans, but this bot can make calculations at lightning speed. It certainly helps save time and reduce unnecessary stress for busy people.
Once the time is chosen, the bot automatically syncs and alerts everyone when the appointment is around the corner. It can also be used to manage personal timetables, or even help to find the best flights that correspond to your schedule.
Finding Love
Does it sound expensive to have your own matchmaker who helps you succeed in your love life? With chatbots, anyone who can afford a few dollars a month can make this dream come true. The dating service Match.com is the pioneer in using AI bots to help people find love.
Lara, a love bot, uses speech recognition and contextual understanding to communicate naturally with humans. She operates conveniently on Facebook Messenger platform, so users no longer have to go anywhere else.
When clients first visit Match.com, they don’t have to navigate by themselves to find their perfect fits, which can be time-consuming. Instead, they are welcomed by Lara. Through a casual and quick conversation, Lara collects users’ basic information such as age, characteristics, locations, and other preferences. This is both a warm welcome to new visitors and the first step to creating a Match.com account. Lara assists users every step of the way so that they can proceed seamlessly and rest reassured that they don’t miss anything.
Once the account is set up, Lara continues the conversation with users. Through time, she collects every best bits of information to build up a comprehensive dating profile that increases the chance of her clients finding true love. Lara analyzes up to 50 criteria categories: hobbies, characteristics, strengths and weaknesses, astrological signs, etc. to find the best matches.
Lara stays to help even after users have found their contact. She continues to answer questions, collect and analyze information to ensure the success of the relationship.
Mental Counselling
Among all the ground-breaking chatbot business use cases, people don’t often expect the arrival of personal therapists at affordable costs, until they meet Woebot.
Mental illnesses are an alarming problem in the modern society partly because many people cannot afford therapy sessions. Woebot can help by encouraging people to express their feelings and thoughts. It analyzes people’s emotional responses to life events and helps them reflect on their issues. It can also show them what to do to reduce stress and anxiety.
The bot cannot yet replace certified therapists who can actually diagnose and cure people of serious mental illnesses, but it is important to guide struggling individuals towards inner peace. It helps prevent their free fall into serious depression.
Moreover, many people don’t like the idea of revealing personal feelings to a stranger. With chatbot, people are more inclined to open their heart and mind without fearing of being judged. This is another reason for the rise of counseling bots.
Internet Safety for Children
One of the most promising chatbot business use cases in today’s digital world is Internet safety for children. Many parents don’t have the time or the right tools to supervise and protect their children on the web. According to a recent research of the renowned cyberbullying.org, 12.1% of 5,539 participants at age 12-17 in the US admitted to send sexual content via messaging apps.
Oyoty bot watches over children’s online activities 24/7. The bot can notify the teenagersif the picture exposes too much skin. It gives them several options, including “Let’s fix it”, “I fixed it already” and “I’m not sure”. In case there’s no action taken after 3 days (this option can be changed by parents), the bot automatically notifies the parents.
The bot does not prevent children from posting or restrict their freedom because this would be counter-effective. Instead, it involves children in the learning process and helps them take action.
Taking Care of the Elderly
The potential for chatbot business use cases among the elderly community is huge. There’s already a bot called Endurance that can converse casually with old people on general topics, including nature, music, news, hobbies, weather, movies, etc. This chatbot keeps old people’s minds preoccupied and helps them maintain their social skills.
For those affected by Alzheimer, the bot is important in activating their intellectual processes, bringing back lost memories, making them think as well as experience emotions. Metal issues, especially Alzheimer, could only get worse when people feel lonely.
According to chatbotslife.com, future applications for nursing chatbots include waking up old people, reminding them to take medicines, change clothes, eat or do some chores, and managing their daily schedules. In a not so far future, bots may be able to imitate loved ones’ voices to comfort the elderly.
Conclusion
Given the fondness of today’s society for technology and the never-ending demand for better customer service, chatbots are being recognized and making headlines around the world. Investment in this technology shows a company’s agility in adapting to the ever-changing technological landscape. Above all, such investment is a firm statement of the company’s dedication to satisfying customers. Isn’t this exactly what draws customers and revenue in?
