What is chatbot?
A chat bot is a service powered by set of rules and some of them are using sophisticated NLP(Natural language processing) and ML systems to produce conversations and behaves as a conversational partner, thereby passing the Turing test(yeah, it sounds bit technical).A chatbot (also known as a spy, conversational bot, chatterbot, interactive agent, conversational interface, Conversational AI, talkbot or artificial spy entity) is a computer program or an artificial intelligence which conducts a conversation via auditory or textual methods.
- Such programs are often designed to convincingly simulate how a human would behave as a conversational partner, thereby passing the Turing test.
- Chatbots are typically used in dialog systems for various practical purposes including customer service or information acquisition.
- Some chatbots use sophisticated natural language processing systems, but many simpler ones scan for keywords within the input, then pull a reply with the most matching keywords, or the most similar wording pattern, from a database.
- The term "ChatterBot" was originally coined by Michael Mauldin (creator of the first Verbot, Julia) in 1994 to describe these conversational programs.
- Today, most chatbots are accessed via virtual assistants such as Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa, via messaging apps such as Facebook Messenger or WeChat, or via individual organizations' apps and websites.
- Chatbots can be classified into usage categories such as conversational commerce (e-commerce via chat), analytics, communication, customer support, design, developer tools, education, entertainment, finance, food, games, health, HR, marketing, news, personal, productivity, shopping, social, sports, travel and utilities.
- Beyond chatbots, Conversational AI refers to the use of messaging apps, speech-based assistants and chatbots to automate communication and create personalized customer experiences at scale.
why should i use chatbot?
- Chat bot target customer engagement.
- Deepens customer loyalty as it responds quickly.
- Chat bot supports hundreds of conversations in parallel.
- Offers personalization.
- It responds quickly and enhances the chances of business development opportunities.
- Available 24*7.
What is use of chatbot?
- A chatbot is an automated program that interacts with customers like a human would and cost little to nothing to engage with.
- Chatbots attend to customers at all times of the day and week and are not limited by time or a physical location.
- This makes its implementation appealing to a lot of businesses that may not have the man-power or financial resources to keep employees working around the clock.
- A chatbot works in a couple of ways: set guidelines and machine learning.
- A chatbot that functions with a set of guidelines in place is limited in its conversation.
- It can only respond to a set number of requests and vocabulary, and is only as intelligent as its programming code.
- An example of a limited bot is an automated banking bot that asks the caller some questions to understand what the caller wants done.
- The bot would make a command like "Please tell me what I can do for you by saying account balances, account transfer, or bill payment."
- If the customer responds with "credit card balance," the bot would not understand the request and would proceed to either repeat the command or transfer the caller to a human assistant.
Future of chatbot
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg fuelled a lot of hype around chatbots replacing human jobs after it was announced Facebook Messenger would be hosting a number of them in the coming years. The aim is to help businesses build bots on the chat app so they can hold automated chats with people which will eventually lead to more sales, bookings and brand awareness.N fact, there is currently an array of Bots already in use on the platform for various aspects of people's lives. Some examples of brands using bots include
- Wall Street Journal (news) - to stay on top of major news and stock quotes.
- Plum (personal banking/finances) - such as well-known Cleo the bot helps with saving money and checking on recent transactions.
- HP (printing)- interacts with you so you can send photos and files to your printer.
- Spotify (music) - once you get started with this bot, you'll get playlist recommendations based on your mood, what's your doing, or any genre of music you want.
- Mastercard (personal banking/finances) - Makes it easy for customers to check on account transactions.
- Pizza Hut (food) - customers are able to order for delivery or collection from Messenger or Twitter, as well as reorder favorite pizzas, ask questions and see current deals.
- Whole Foods (food) - regardless of whether you're at a store shopping for groceries, you can always search for recipes with the assistance of the Whole Foods bot on Facebook Messenger.
- BBC News (news) - news updates and weekly roundups.