Thanks to the development of technology, more and more companies decide to automate their business. The range of possibilities in this area is dynamically expanding, and the market is employing more and more modern and comprehensive solutions.

Every year there are more and more Chatbot fans, both on the customers’ side and on the business side. It is estimated that by 2020 as much as 85% of customer relations within the framework of customer service may take place without the participation of a consultant.

Virtual Assistants and Chatbots will fill this space. But just so we’re clear, here’s the quick summary of what a business process is and the benefits, then we’ll go into some further detail…

What is Business Process Automation? It is the use of technology to replace manual execution of repetitive tasks and activities wherever possible and desirable, in order to minimize costs, increase efficiency and streamline processes. In other words – to expand your client base, automation helps you by improving internal processes

With Commbox you can significantly improve the functioning of your company and facilitate the realization of a number of processes.

Automation is a very effective way to lead you on the path to expanding your business, but what are the benefits? Why should we employ business automation systems? Let’s take a closer look at the benefits.

What are the benefits of Business automation?

If you run your own business, you should get acquainted with the possibilities offered by its automation. The main advantages include the following…

Automation

Automation of frequently repeated activities, covering not only infrastructure but also company applications, allows you to increase the flexibility of the company …while maintaining economic efficiency.

Automation simplifies and accelerates customer contact and enables you to reach new customers in a simpler and quicker way. Other benefits including scale, leading to increased revenue and reduced risk. 

However, depending on the business activity undertaken, automation allows you to achieve much more. Chatbots are a key part in providing these kinds of benefits, let’s look at this in more detail.

A chatbot is an excellent tool that can automate repetitive business processes. At the same time, many people, including customers, can talk to a bot and ask the same or similar questions about a company profile. Such processes can be noticed e.g. in call centers, helpdesk departments, where users often ask about issues, products, terms and very often these questions duplicate each other.

Expanding Service

When using the chatbot, the time of day will not matter, the customer will always be able to receive information about your products, delivery costs or returns. The interaction will be immediate – the customer will be able to make contact at any time, not as it is in the case of the hotline or email.

Cost Savings

A chatbot like ours is the ideal solution to optimize the costs we have for customer service. A chatbot can serve multiple customers at once, will be available without interruption or queue.

The service itself is not everything – if you want to send information about a promotion, sale or competition using a bot, you can do it in a very easy and free method. The implementation of the chatbot is fast and much cheaper than creating applications or correspondence management systems.

Data collection

A strong advantage of the chatbots is also the ability to create a database of your customers. We may use short questions and customer choices to gather information to personalize your messages and offers.

The bot will continue to operate continuously, so it’s only a matter of time before we have a large customer base to carry out our planned marketing campaigns – and it’s continually expanding with new data.

Let’s explore what is a chatbot and how it slots into your business systems…

So what Is a chatbot?

A chatbot is a computer program that interacts with the user using natural (human) language. In short, you control the chatbot through conversation, and it gives you information and services through conversation.

It is as if a computer program has become a consultant with whom you can talk, get information, book a ticket, or solve a problem with a product or service. More and more industries are opting for Chatbots – from insurance, airlines and banks, to government agencies.

Virtual Assistants can respond not only across departments internally but to customers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They quickly answer questions and troubleshoot inquiries. Some of them can even do much more. Thanks to artificial intelligence, they can conduct realistic dialogues in the virtual world.

For a full rundown on how a chatbot works, see our other article on What is a Chatbot.

How does a chatbot work?

Each chatbot has its own rules and algorithms for communicating with users. Some chatbots also have artificial intelligence that allows them to go beyond simple rules created by programmers through AI learning, to learn new ways to respond to questions and problems raised by users.

The most basic level and functions of a chatbot can be described as a set of questions, with a closed list of answers. The user talking to the bot chooses what they want to do at a given stage, and the bot adapts the direction of the conversation based on the user’s choices.

Where can I use a chatbot in my company?

Chatbots are suitable wherever the user expects to have an informed conversation with a representative of the company. They can be instant messengers (Facebook Messenger, Telegram), live chat rooms on a website.

You can also install Chatbot at an email address or phone number. The bot will then send further messages by email or SMS, respectively.

Chatbot Use Case:

One interesting use case is by embedding a chatbot on Facebook Messenger. This enables consumers to chat with our bot …both on mobile Messenger and in their browser – via Facebook or live chat on our website.

Live chat using Facebook Messenger is a new service that is set to increase exponentially in the marketplace, thanks to the ability to continue the conversation started on the website in the mobile Messenger app.

For Business – what functions can a chatbot do?

The list of functions that chatbots can perform in your company is long. As a general rule, the chatbot will work well in numerous company processes where the consumer wants to talk to your employees.

These can include sales processes, after-sales service, information and product/service selection, problem-solving and customer support.

To get a better idea of what a chatbot can do, here’s a list with selected popular features:

• Advice on product selection in the online store
• Tracking of consignments
• Filing a complaint
• Information on production
• Reservation of tickets, restaurant seats
• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
• Buying products and services directly in the call window (just like buying a product via Call Center, only without the participation of a person on the company’s side)
• Locating customer service points
• Giving instructions by the customer (he simply says what he wants to say to the chatbot)
• Generating sales leads
• Collecting information from the customer needed to conclude a contract or provide a service
• Onboarding new customers

Learn more about CommBox business automation modules

Why have chatbots become important in Business?

There are several reasons why chatbots have become a very important part of the business ecosystem. Here are a few of the main reasons…

Instant customer contact – The explosion of popularity of instant messengers has meant that Instant messengers currently have more active users than social networks – including Facebook. In Poland, for example, more people have the Facebook Messenger application installed than the Facebook app itself.

Automation possibilities – the cost of hiring people is constantly increasing, and thanks to chatbots, companies can save hundreds of working hours. Chatbots operate 24/7, and thanks to more and more sophisticated and intelligent solutions they can handle more and more queries and recurring consumer inquiries.

Customer support functions – Consumers expect support at any time of day or night and want it immediately. Chatbots solve the problem of waiting for a consultant if demand is high and can work for customers at any time of day or night.

A person who has once started a conversation with your Facebook Messenger chatbot opens a new channel of marketing communication with your company. You can talk to them in the future, inform them about new products and services, or communicate after-sales.

Marketing tools – Chatbots are a great tool for gathering information about the consumer, building databases or profiling users and analyzing demographics.

Functions offered by Commbox

This does not require the use of scripts, but Commbox also allows you to use scripts depending on your company’s needs, here’s more on that below…

In addition, using our machine learning module, you can simply train your representatives to understand the intentions of your customers from all communication channels – without the need for technical knowledge. Here are some of the modules available in Commbox…

Rules

Commbox uses rules that can be run with keywords before the client’s query. This allows the organization to perform a variety of automation tasks. Depending on the selected settings, these rules can:

• Change the current inquiry channel
• Send automatic messages
• Perform tagging
• Change the inquiry status
• Launch other CommBox apps (e.g. chat, forms).

For more information on rules, see more details on the rules.

Scripts

The Scripts module enables you to define automation scripts that your chat bots and navigators will be based on.

Intents

Using this machine learning module, you can simply train your representatives to understand the intentions of your customers from all communication channels without the need for technical knowledge.

You can define “intentions” that you would like to understand from various conversations (e.g. “moving houses”).

Once the system detects an intention, it can provide customers with ready-made answers from the knowledge base that it automatically creates.

It also makes it possible to label conversations and to reach important conclusions based on business intelligence (e.g. “how many people considered disconnecting from the service this month?”) and also integrates with the Workflow engine to build exciting logics such as routing conversations according to intent, bots, etc.

How can a customer find my chatbot?

There are many ways to do this:

• It is enough for the consumer to enter the name of your business in the search on Facebook Messenger and the bot will appear in the proposals.
• The customer can start a conversation with the bot by clicking on “Message us” on your fanpage or elsewhere on Facebook.
• The bot can be found by scanning the Facebook Messenger code
• The conversation can be started via a link in the footer of an e-mail, placed on the website or via a button placed on the website.
• The bot can contact the customer if they purchase, or accept invitations, e.g. in a basket within your online shop.
• Facebook Ads can have a call-to-action in the form of a button redirecting to Messenger and your bot.

The future of chatbot technology

Chatbots will now be a highly developed technology. We can expect that technological giants will develop chatbots further to increase the effectiveness of artificial intelligence and its use

The technology itself in which the chatbots are created will also be regularly updated and offer more and more possibilities. Businesses will better identify their needs, and this will affect the depth and breadth of solutions that can be offered and constructed so that both companies and customers will feel greater and greater benefits in using them.

To sum up…

It’s easy to automate your business with a chatbot as a perfect solution for business executives. Its application not only improves the process of communication with customers, but also has a positive impact on the effectiveness of the company, and at the same time allows for financial savings.

If you’re considering implementing a chatbot, then consider Commbox for your company, we encourage you to familiarize yourself with the information contained on our website or simply get in touch.