Anyone who has interacted with businesses online recently is almost certain to have encountered a chatbot. In fact, nearly 90% of all users had at least one such interaction last year and 70% of users rated these interactions as positive. The other 30% seem likely to change their minds soon. Why?

Conversational chatbots of all kinds are now being powered by newer technologies like AI, rapidly evolving into sophisticated tools that perform at least as well as their human counterparts at certain tasks and even surpass them in some areas. These AI chatbots solve many of the issues with earlier iterations of the technology, whose limitations included being menu-based, linguistically limited, getting stuck in loops, and not handing over to a live agent smoothly when required.

Earlier versions of chatbots also found it difficult to converse in non-European languages and to cater to local dialects. But new automated chat services, which use natural language processing (NLP) or natural language understanding (NLU), can even organically engage customers in many more global languages such as Arabic, which is clearly a big advantage in a region like the Middle East.

These recent developments in the sophistication of chatbots are precisely why it is predicted that the use of AI chatbots will skyrocket worldwide. For instance, 85 percent of all customer interactions in the Middle East are predicted to be processed without a human agent by the year 2025. 

This article will analyze the significant boost chatbots can give to ROI and how it can impact your organization. 

Top Chatbot Features

There are several key reasons why conversational chatbots are now more powerful than ever. Here are some of their most notable features:

Multi-Channel Chatbots 

While earlier iterations of chatbots were usually only available on company websites, enhanced chatbot experiences can be run across nearly every platform you can think of, from Whatsapp chatbots to Twitter, SMS, and almost all social media platforms. Crucially the chatbot experience can also be transferred effortlessly between platforms, so a chat that starts out on a WhatsApp chatbot, can seamlessly switch to social media, webchat, or SMS, depending on the customer preference.

Multi-Lingual

For an area like the Middle East, it can be extremely costly to hire a multilingual, 24/7 call center staff. But AI can now perform translation very effectively on the fly, giving customers immediate, accurate, and contextual responses. Industries in the Middle East across retail, real estate, banking, hospitality, government, and education have deployed chatbots to wide success. Nissan Saudi Arabia, for example, reported a 138% increase in generated leads and a 71% increase in unique users generated from their AI-based Whatsapp chatbot.

Conversational AI 

Previous generations of chatbots were programmed according to a fixed script, including only a limited set of responses. These rules-based chatbots lacked technology such as Natural Language Understanding which can much better understand the meaning and crucially, the intention behind words. Today’s conversational chatbots can understand context, emotions, nuances in language, and synonyms, making the conversation feel more natural and fluid. This makes AI chatbots better at understanding customers and reduces frustrating misunderstandings that can lead to a negative experience.

Benefits of AI Chatbots

The current generation of AI-powered chatbots can make a material impact on ROI if used well. On the one hand, 61% of the consumers said they are more likely to return to a brand after a positive experience with a chatbot and far more likely to recommend that brand to others. Conversely, one negative chatbot experience drives away 30% of customers.

The more time you spend selecting and training your chatbot, the more benefits you are likely to see. AI-powered chatbots are far more likely to produce a positive experience, making them effective first-line support for customers and prospects. AI chatbots can maximize your ROI in the following ways:

• They can learn and answer a large, complex set of FAQs and very quickly help customers with common queries, and hand over to a human agent as soon as they identify a need,
  
  
• Beyond FAQs,  AI-powered chatbots can handle diverse, standardized tasks across industries. These can range from updates on an order’s progress (e-commerce) to the disclosure of recent transactions (banking), to appointment booking and amendment (healthcare). Of course, these tasks require the customer’s identity to be securely established. Luckily, tools like Unifonic’s verification and authentication product can safely automate this process too.
  
  
• Chatbots can free up live agents’ time so they can deal with cases that require a more personalized approach. The CTO of a leading consumer healthcare group in the Middle East said their company could redeploy up to 70% of their contact-center agents thanks to their new Arabic chatbot.
  
  
• Using AI for instant translation - Chatbots can handle queries from all over the world in dozens of global languages and dialects.
  
  
• Chatbots can man your customer service function 24/7 and can expand instantly in response to peaks in demand without leading to any drop in service levels as you might expect from a standard call center. 
  
  
• AI-powered chatbots can be deployed across all major platforms with ease, giving continuity of service and customer experience. 

Final Thoughts

Conversational AI chatbots are transforming businesses worldwide. Just a few years ago, many chatbots were poorly configured and often counter-productive with low customer satisfaction levels. The rapid evolution of AI and Natural Language Understanding has seen them develop into a completely different beast.

By handling more customers, interacting more naturally, increasing efficiency and utility, and freeing up staff to deal with more complex issues, a well-trained AI chatbot can operate on multiple channels to maximize your ROI.

Don’t get left behind–find the right tool for building your AI chatbot today by speaking to a Unifonic expert to guide you to the right choice.