Little do you know that you have at one time or the other interacted with a chatbot. Or did you? Stay with me.

Basically, a chatbot is a computer program that simulates human written or spoken conversation. It is a smart techy-innovation, that allows you, as a user to interact with a digital device, as if you were conversing with a real person. Shocking, I know. But it does not end there. Chatbots can be as simple as programs created to answer simple user inquiries (called queries) with single responses, or they can be more complicated assistants, designed with the ability to evolve and deliver personalised responses. So, the next time a window pops up randomly while you are checking out a product on a website, and Janet is asking if you need help, I hate to break it to you that Janet is really a program designed to respond to your needs.

Conversational Artificial Intelligence

Of course, you did not believe that Siri and Alexa were actual human beings. But did you ever think far enough to conclude that they are more than digital assistants? I will break it down for you; there are two types of chatbots; task-oriented and data driven chatbots. • Task-oriented chatbots are bots created for performing a sole function such as responding to particular queries. This can be found on many websites’ FAQs sections, more like children with a limited language capacity.

• Data-driven chatbots are also called virtual or digital assistants. They are more interactive and have the capacity to learn and develop according to the kinds of data available, examples are Siri and Alexa.

A Two-way Argument: Business or Customer

Businesses started to use chatbots once they realised that it was possible to attend to some customer queries without a need to involve human interaction. Businesses are only able to serve a few people at a time when human power is used, chatbots allow the personalisation of customer experience, and at the same time, create space for proactivity. The use of chatbots helped these organisations save cost, this is because they discovered that chatbots offer an opportunity for unlimited customer engagements. You can imagine the amount of time and effort this allows a business to save. A lot of research went into the introduction of chatbots into various industries, especially finance. It was discovered that banking chat-bots helped save four minutes per inquiry when compared to call-centres. This means that the same information and service that used to be provided over a phone call can now be provided by a chatbot, in less time, and more efficiently. In summary, both the business, customer is happy at the end of the day.

But what happens when an inquiry requires human intervention? Are chatbots only used for customer service purposes in organisations? How do chatbots actually work? Do customers actually want to talk to a chatbot? How effective are these responses? These questions will form the foundation for the next article on chatbots.