It's a UX designers' job to make interface appealing and intuitive. They need to minimalize complex things by bringing out only the most important ones.
But with chatbots, UX designers can focus on something else because users don't need to look for contents and information. What they need to do, is ask, and the chatbot will reply instantaneously.
In the world where personal digital assistants are already available on computers and mobile, relevant information is just a few conversations away.
Chatbot is a computer program which uses AI to conduct conversation, often designed to be convincing and simulating how a human would behave when communicating.
Usually chatbots can be found on messaging apps, dialogue systems or other customer service acquisition applications. While they may use sophisticated language processing system and have a wide range of vocabulary, no, they're not created equal.
Read: How Artificial Intelligence Is Changing Sales And Marketing For The Greater Good
What separates a good chatbot from a bad one is that, a good chatbot helps users accomplish something more efficiently. A great chatbot should be enjoyable to talk to, informative and uses a good language. A bad chatbot on the other hand, is a pure waste of time. It may return nonsense, annoy or even frustrate users.
It all goes down to user-experience (UX). A chatbot should provide a good UX for it to be considered a good one. And in contrast, a bad chatbot harms UX instead of enhancing it.
Creating a useful chatbot to successfully automate a process or solve a problem involves careful planning, writing skill, iteration and ongoing effort.
UX designers should understand written language, graphic design, sound, motion, information design, interface design, interaction design, psychology, sociology and more. They can put all those knowledge to build useful and usable products by understanding and empathizing with users.
In this case, a good chatbot.
Improving Customer Onboarding
Good chatbots can drastically improve customer onboarding experience for those companies that offer products or services that come with a learning curve.
Being able to help customers by answering their burning questions in real time, is definitely priceless
So whenever a user can’t figure out how to use your service, he/she can communicate with your chatbot at any given moment, 24 hours a day, and 7 days a week. Quickly and steadily, this improves UX, and the outcome will reduce customer churn for your business.
Not only a good chatbot can fix problems, it can also make users aware of features that they might not have known you offered. Many times, websites have options hidden from their menu navigation or may not have direct links from their landing pages. This can make customers not aware of the things those websites offer.
As a result, they may end up getting confused and using only some of the features available to them.
With a chatbot, you can easily make your customers aware of all the features you offer and how they can use them effectively. That ability will promote your services, and let customers get the most out of your product.
Automating Transactions And recommending Products
If you want a convenient way for customers to buy from you, they may visit your website with something in mind, but not exactly sure what they want. In this case, humans can direct those potential customers to what they really need.
But things can get out of hand because your website has to be online 24/7, and your employees can't do that. Even if you have a 24/7 employee shift, the strategy won't necessarily translate to a good sale because your website's visitors can come from any part of the globe.
This is where automation comes into play. You can use chatbots to effortlessly nudge visitors into purchasing.
With good chatbots, your customers won’t get frustrated browsing your site and not being able to find what they’re looking for. They are't required to fill a long form to make an order. They don't need to wait or contact your employees for help.
A good chatbot can interact with those customers in a casual, friendly way to determine what they want and recommend featured products for them to choose from.
What's more, customers won’t have to leave the chat to complete their order, either. And this is a good thing.
Increasing The Value Of Services
Your business has values, and your business should provide that value to customers, so they will return to you again and again.
Chatbots here can solve consumer pain points and increase the value of your product or service in a variety of ways. For example, a good chatbot can scout your business database for the best information to give to your customers. They can list options based on their preferences and budgets, and can even start a selling process without the customer having to pick up the phone and call.
When Not To Use Chatbots
When a chatbot is an appropriate solution for you, it should lead to benefits like:
- Increased brand affinity and loyalty.
- Reinforced brand voice and personality.
- Differentiation from the competition.
- Increased engagement and interaction times.
- Higher conversion rates.
- Better informed customer support before live chat sessions.
Chatbots can also be a source for rich data to better understand users. Beyond simple analytics like visit times and clicks, chatbots can also provide data about abandon points, user language, sentiments, needs or ask for direct feedback during chat sessions and others.
While chatbots can be great representatives for your business, there are times that you may not need them at all.
First of all, chatbots have limited vocabulary and understanding. These AIs may use rules or a decision-tree to chat, making they path limited, and users can only select from predefined options. What this means, chatbots can only follow direct commands that are within its knowledge field. Beyond that, they know nothing.
A chatbot must have a purpose or fulfill a need for users. If you can’t identify a task, service or process in your business that a chatbot can perform to make something easier, faster or better, then having a chatbot is probably not the best of solution.
Conclusion
Remember that your customers are the most important part of your business. If you want to grow your business, you can use a chatbot to provide users with added value that will make their lives easier and make your business stand out from the competition.
UX designers should know that chatbots are changing the future of UX in a big way.
Good chatbots can evolve from simple bots to astonishing intelligent assistants that work 24/7. The technology can help businesses deliver better customer service, faster respond and overall, improve UX.
But know that chatbots may not the best solution for your business. Know them and understand them, and see whether chatbots fit your business purposes.