Perhaps the most obvious chatbot business advantage is the ability to scale customer service. Instead of routing every customer request to a limited number of live agents, businesses can now address the most common inquiries automatically, resolving potentially thousands of cases without needing to divert limited live-agent resources from more-complex tasks.
The ability to scale customer service without hiring an army of service agents reduces costs while also improving operational efficiency. Businesses better utilise their human agents and get back more for their investment. And, because chatbots are essentially automated computer programs, it’s a simple matter to design chatbots capable of collecting user data while providing support. Businesses can analyse this data, building more-targeted messaging and developing more-actionable customer insights.
Data collection and analysis likewise pays off in qualifying leads. Using information drawn from conversations, and cross-referencing it against other available customer and demographic data, chatbots can help evaluate which leads are the most likely to convert, providing sales teams with qualified prospects worth following up on.
Taken all together, chatbots give employees and customers easy access to essential information and support. And when customers and employees have the resources they need to be successful, the business always benefits.