Chatbots have quickly become the next big thing for many tech companies like Google, Facebook and even Microsoft. Facebook has really taken to chatbots and are using them within their Messenger platform, allowing companies to build these chatbots to take care of customer service. Over the last few years, many companies have started to turn towards Twitter for customer service, as it is a place that many customers are located already, and it’s cheaper than building their own platform for customer service. Now it looks as if businesses may be able to use chatbots for customer service and beyond.
According to Juniper Research, within the next five years, companies could be saving around $8 billion thanks to chatbots. They think that those in health care and banking industry will benefit the most from these chatbots, since they require a lot of human interaction. Of course, the banking industry has seen something like this before, when the ATM began popping up everywhere and many were worried about losing their job. And now it’s coming back once again. While chatbots may save companies from needing customer service reps, they will still need programmers to create these chatbots and to continue making them better. So companies won’t be getting rid of jobs, but basically reshuffling them.
Chatbots are already pretty impressive. Some of the chatbots available on Facebook allow you to check in to your flight, also check on your flight status, or even get some highlights from the game last night, and that’s really just the tip of the iceberg. As these chatbots get better and better, customer service positions may begin to be a thing of the past. And soon enough, you’ll no longer hear about how a company has terrible customer service, because they are all being done by robots. Chatbots are already saving companies around $20 million globally, and we’re in the early days of these chatbots. Juniper Research estimates that each query taken care of by a chatbot saves a company around $0.70, and that can definitely add up pretty fast, especially for larger companies that have loads of customers asking questions or needing help.