Chatbots are a hot topic these days. Businesses are beginning to understand the value of conversational commerce and the positive impact bots can have on their bottom line. Chatbots are applications that replicate a dialogue or engagement with a real person by simulating typed or spoken speech sounds.
Today, chatbots are commonly used in customer service, assuming roles traditionally performed by living, breathing human beings such as Tier-1 support operatives and customer satisfaction reps. Natural language processing systems are used by some chatbots. The best chatbot platform is meant to assist organizations in developing appropriate chatbots to aid them bring in and keep clients.
Machine learning chatbots
Machine learning chatbots can learn on their own. They are programmed to process data and draw conclusions from it. Machine learning chatbots use algorithms to analyze a large set of data and make relevant recommendations for the user.
However, before ML chatbots learn from the collected data, they must be trained. This is the point where developers and data scientists step in.
The hybrid model
A hybrid chatbot combines different types of bots that have complementary features and functionalities. For example, you can combine a decision tree with rule-based chatbots, ML with rules-based bots etc. The hybrid model is best for businesses that want to scale up their customer service team and offer users a more personalized experience.
Rule-based chatbots.
Rule-based chatbots only understand specific commands. They can only answer questions based on pre-defined rules. This means that if someone asks a question that does not match one of the pre-defined rules, the bot will not be able to answer it. You can create such chatbots by writing many if-else statements, but it is not very scalable as the number of rules keeps increasing.
Voice bots
Voice bots use speech recognition to interact with users; these are voice-activated applications that can understand natural language. You’ve probably interacted with a voice bot if you’ve ever tried to call a customer service line. Voice bots are great for audio instructions and answers on the go, like in a car. The most common voice bot is Siri from Apple. Siri is used by more than 500 million people worldwide, and more than 1 in 4 iPhone users in the U.S. use it daily.
Menu/button-based chatbots
These chatbots give pre-defined options to users and ask them to choose one of them. The most common example is Amazon’s Alexa, which works by asking users to give them a command from the given options.
Keyword recognition-based chatbots.
These bots have a rule base that contains keywords related to a specific task, such as making an appointment or answering questions about products for sale. If it finds any matching keyword, it executes the set of pre-defined steps for that task until it completes its job or reaches another keyword that it doesn’t recognize.
Appointment scheduling or Booking bots
These chatbots assist customers in booking appointments with a company’s representatives. It can be used to schedule meetings or answer questions about its services. Most companies use this type of chatbot in their Facebook Messenger or web pages.
Customer support chatbots
These are the most popular and widely used chatbots today. These virtual assistants can answer the most common customer queries, help customers navigate your website, provide essential technical support and even upsell products. Many companies use these chatbots to reduce service costs and increase customer satisfaction.
