External vs internal chatbots
While many chatbots are consumer-facing, chatbots are useful for internal teams too. You can use them as knowledge repositories, for example. Understanding that chatbots are not just a useful customer service tool is crucial to unlocking the potential of chatbots for your business.
Scripted vs AI chatbots
Scripted chatbots, as the name suggests, work to a ‘script’ that allows them to decipher the intent of user interactions and offer suitable answers from a library of information. An AI chatbot on the other hand can learn from its interactions and is able to improve its efficacy based on the number and quality of interactions it receives. AI chatbots are able to actively search for information to answer queries. They could answer a question on opening hours by scraping the information on your website, for example.
Chatbot types
FAQ chatbots
Helping people find out basic information about your organisation or products without having to read through a list of FAQs, the FAQ chatbot can return an answer from a list of possible responses based on the information it holds in its database.
Service chatbots
Designed specifically to deal with a huge volume of customer service enquiries at one time. Customer service chatbots can vary from a WISMO (Where Is My Order) chatbot that advises customers on deliveries, returns, etc. to more sophisticated AI-based chatbots that can pull product and service information from various data sources and interact with customers in a more human way that feels familiar to them.
Internal chatbots
Internal chatbots can hold vast swathes of data that make accessing information for internal staff much easier. New staff can be trained quickly and need less line management time to get up-to-speed.
Acquisition chatbots
Acquisition chatbots are a cost-effective way to convert new customers or re-engage existing customers. These chatbots can automate, optimise and speed up new acquisitions, upsell and provide intelligent conversations. It allows customers to self-serve while enabling your sales and marketing teams to focus on more complex, time-consuming tasks.
Verification chatbots
Making sure someone is who they say they are is vital to maintaining the security of personal information. Automating the process of verifying people is also a great way to increase the efficiency of your customer service team.
Live event chatbots
Creating a great customer experience before, during, and after an event is key to encouraging repeat business and harnessing the power of word-of-mouth marketing. Live event chatbots can handle a huge number of visitor queries while your team focuses on ironing out logistical issues and driving revenue.
Voicebots
Giving your customer service the familiar touch of a voicebot can help busy call centres focus on the issues that really matter. A voicebot can sift through incoming calls and only escalate the most serious to your agents, while resolving many issues on its own.
If you want to learn more about chatbots and find out how other businesses have enjoyed success after implementing them, read our chatbot guide ‘Six ways chatbots create great customer experiences’.
