The world of business is moving forward at a dizzying pace.  Two decades ago, the advent of the internet changed the playing field, and businesses woke up to the reality of global connectivity. Before, you have to invest large sums in order for you to go international or build and scale your brand. With the internet, it doesn’t matter if you’re a local business or a small five-man team, you can have a global reach without putting up shop on the other side of the world.

And then more technology was developed – mobile tech was introduced, chat platforms took the spotlight, and outsourcing became a possibility.  Now here we are, ditching the good old phone call and jumping ship to live chats and online engagements.

Live Chat And Chatbots Meet

Let me ask you a question: What do you think is your customer’s preferred form of communication? Is it phone calls, emails, or messaging? In 2016, Twilio surveyed 6000 people all over the world to find out the answer. Their findings: 9 out of 10 consumers prefer messaging over other channels.

In fact, 85% of the people that participated in the study want to have the ability to answer back to companies via messaging. They want conversations, and although the preferred messaging platform differs ( 47% want native text messages, 21% are inclined to Facebook Messenger, and 18% chose Whatsapp) the point remains the same: People want interaction and they want it as quickly as possible.

But here’s the clincher. Majority of businesses do not have the infrastructure in place to deliver this “want” from their customers. You can easily see that by searching business pages through Facebook. The majority are not active in answering customer queries and have a long buffer with regards to their response time.

On the other hand, those who do care about customer interaction and has invested efforts into maintaining their social media presence already knows how time-consuming it is to keep up with the hundreds of messages you may receive daily. The continuous demand for live chat is, therefore, making AI-powered chatbots very attractive to these companies.

What Makes Chatbot A Good Choice

The share of bots in the live chat market is estimated to reach $186 billion in 2020 and is expected to triple in 5 years’ time. This is because chatbots are simply a good choice for live chat. It is fast. It can provide accurate responses. It can cut your response time almost in half, which is essential in an industry where speed remains to be the deciding factor.

For example, Twitter claims in one of its reports that customers to get a quick response from a company are willing to spend more in that business.

But that’s not the only reason. 40% of people who got answers immediately would likely talk about that positive experience, while 33% will go on and share that experience with social media. With modern customers sharing tons of experiences in social media, you need to impress a lot more to maximize their social field.

And the thing is, chatbots are not only for customer service. They can be deployed in other areas of your business as well. Remember, before your customers buy, they expect fast answers. Imagine if your business can reinforce the inclination of your customers to buy at the right, time all the time – no negative can come out of that!

Chatbots might just be an emerging trend at the moment, but we can already tell that chatbot-initiated live chats are inevitable.  The technology is here, and it’s getting better by the second.

Is your business ready for this? Does your website have a chat platform? Are you ready to transition to chatbots? As a growing business, these are some things you have to ponder on.