First, there is a lot of questioning whether it is worth investing in chatbots.
The principle to answer this question is to understand what artificial intelligence (AI) is and what are its applications.
First of all, we recommend that you read this text here, before knowing if it is worth investing in chatbots.
If possible, it is important to map out what the benefits and disadvantages will be and also understand the limitations and learning curve of artificial intelligence.
LEARNING CURVE - PRACTICAL CASE
Beforehand, let's take a practical case from Gobots.
Even more than our solution, in addition to being a platinum partner of Mercado Livre, it answers the questions received in your ads automatically.
In the first week that the solution is live, the average assertiveness in responses from our artificial intelligence and natural language processing is around 82%.
At the end of the first month it reaches 90%.
And consequently in the second month it is on average 96%.
Eventually, this happens due to maintenance that is performed on the AI.
Where she starts to learn new rules, new contexts and new words.
So don't expect her to reach 100% or that on the first day she will have 98% assertiveness.
Advantages of having chatbots
Above all, when you decide that you want to put a chatbot in your e-commerce, you will have several advantages, such as:
Availability
At first glance, with chatbots, your e-commerce starts to provide online customer service 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Definitely a big differentiator in the market today.
Artificial intelligence
In short, chatbots can also act in the marketing part of your products and services.
As well as being able to generate sales without the need for the commercial team to act.
Similarly, in these two cases the demand for the service and commercial team will decrease, which generates cost savings within your e-commerce.
Manual processes
Register a customer's data in a system.
In this case, the customer sends a photo of the identity document and proof of address to the chatbot and through the processing of images and text it identifies the data and registers it in the system.
This reduces manual work and also the chance of typos.
It is very common to see this in digital banks, such as Nubank, C6, Inter, etc.
Scalability
Finally, it is worth mentioning scalability.
A chatbot can serve from 1 customer to 1 million (or more) at the same time.
That is, its operation is much more scalable without the need for human intervention in the action and only in supervision.
It's time to multiply your sales
Disadvantages of having chatbots
However, it is important to understand the negative impacts of starting an operation with chatbots.
Chatbots initial mistakes
As we saw earlier, there is an error rate in text interpretation and consequently in messages sent by chatbots at the beginning of the operation and without artificial intelligence training.
Just as it can be harmful to your customer service to correct these things at the beginning of the implementation of chatbots in your e-commerce.
Assertiveness of chatbots
When your e-commerce places an agent to answer the questions you receive, the chance of answering wrong exists.
However, it is much smaller than when compared to artificial intelligence at the beginning of the implementation.
In this case the cost of your operation will end up being much higher.
After all, your service will need more people.
To solve this disadvantage, the process is very simple.
Just train your artificial intelligence.
With this, your chatbot will respond more assertively and your e-commerce will need a reduced service team.
Complex calls
Another situation that is important to highlight is the complex care.
There are cases where the complexity of a customer's request is so high that it is unlikely (not impossible) a chatbot will be able to solve the problem.
Therefore, in extremely complex situations, human contact will still be necessary to solve them.
For example, when your client asks in an ad something vague, with many typos or something extremely specific like INPI number, EAN, etc.
Cost benefit of chatbots
At first glance, any application of this technology needs, at least, to pay the value of the investment that is made in it.
Whether with revenue generation, cost reduction or process optimization.
So take the implementation as a project.
That is, have at least one person dedicated to monitoring implementation, maintenance, proposing improvements and measuring results.
Along with the help of the company that provides the solution.
For example, here at GoBots we have CS with experts in artificial intelligence and e-commerces to serve each customer.
So, project your cost with this technology, the revenue it can generate and also the costs it can reduce.
Anyway, do this for 3 scenarios:
- Pessimistic;
- Conservative;
- Optimistic.
Anyway, if you want to improve the analysis even more, make this projection month by month and bring the result of each month to present value.
Finally, calculate the NPV (net present value) of the project and compare it with other projects that could be implemented with the same investment value.
Conclusion
The answer to the question of whether or not it is worth investing in chatbots will be:
It depends.
The first point that must be taken into account is the cost benefit.
Will this chatbot implementation pay off in anything for your company?
Will it bring more optimization at some point, will the investment pay off?
If yes, it's worth it.
Now, if there is a more relevant project to be invested in, it is not worth it.
You need to be 100% willing to make it happen, like everything else in life.
Because at the beginning there may be errors on the artificial intelligence side, and you definitely need to keep your eyes peeled for updates and feedback on AI improvements.
After all, until the learning curve reaches a good level of assertiveness of responses, your e-commerce simply has to take advantage of the chatbot.
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