Q1. Where did chatbots come from, and what are they exactly?
A1. Chatbots came out of the past decade’s developments in artificial intelligence (AI). Put simply, they’re automated virtual assistants that communicate with your customers through Facebook Messenger, text messaging, apps, your website and so on. They respond automatically – but smartly! – when a customer messages them.
Q2. Are chatbots replacing human staff?
A2. No, they’re not replacing human staff – but they dramatically reduce the workload for human customer services staff (and therefore time, and cost, for the business owner).
Q3. What’s the chatbot market worth?
A3. Brands are already investing heavily in customer service through chatbots, and the chatbot market is expected to reach $1.25 billion by 2025.
According to research carried out by Gartner, almost a quarter of all customer service operations will be using chatbots by 2020, making them one of the very biggest automation trends of recent years.
Q4. Do chatbots come ‘off the shelf’, or are they all designed from scratch?
A4. Both! Some businesses choose to have chatbots designed specifically for them, from scratch; others use ready-made chatbot software.
Hopefully the above chatbot FAQs have given you a feel for the value that chatbots can bring. If you’d like to read more about the value of chatbots and read other FAQs you can check them out on the home page of our Gabba homepage.
