You must have heard about chatbots — those tiny applications that pop up when you visit a website? However, there are different types of chatbots and in this blog, we’re going to talk about AI chatbots, top AI chatbots in the market and the procedure to select one.
AI or Artificial Intelligence chatbots converse with visitors using machine learning. In other words, they function outside the parameters of pre-programmed commands and self-learn based on the inputs it receives. At the centre of it, the basic difference between a normal chatbot and an AI chatbot is similar to comprehending the difference between automation and artificial intelligence. You can learn more about AI chatbots and their uses here.
1. WotNot
WotNot provides No-code AI Chatbots that are as easy to create as creating structures using Lego bricks. WotNot offers several benefits and comes power-packed with features such as Bot Builder, Live Chat, Human Handover and Analytics Dashboard. The bot builder has a simple drag-and-drop interface, which makes it a breeze to architect personalized conversational experiences, across the customer life cycle. Also, with WotNot by one’s side, one need not worry about switching existing tools while reaching out to a horde of customers as their bot fits into existing systems, integrating seamlessly with tools already being used.
2. HubSpot
HubSpot offers a powerful chatbot for seamless conversations on websites. Their chatbot is easy to create and helps in qualifying leads, bookings, answers to FAQs and more. They also provide a human handover feature wherein the bot hands the conversation to a live agent once it’s qualified. HubSpot’s canned templates and the chatbot builder make it easy for people with zero experience in creating chatbots.
3. Intercom
Intercom focuses on providing messenger-based experiences to its customers. Their chatbot support ranges from Human — resolves issues one-on-one, Self-serve — automatically answers redundant questions to Proactive — helps in comprehending problems before customers reach out. Apart from the chatbot, they also provide services such as product tours, emails, live chats and a help centre — all of which help in building relations with customers.
Watson is one of the most advanced powered chatbots out there. Developed by one of the leaders in the AI space — IBM, Warson can comprehend historical chats, search for answers in the knowledge base, re-direct customer queries to company representatives and recommend the user, training to improve its conversational abilities — it’s power-packed. Also, the visual dialog editor on the chatbot makes it easy for anyone without any prior coding experience to develop it.
5. Drift
Drift’s entire chatbot delivery is based on conversational marketing services and sales software. These are powered by both automation i.e., rule-based chatbots and Artificial Intelligence i.e., Natural Language Processing (NLP) chatbots. According to Drift, “Drift’s conversational AI is trained on over 6 billion conversations to identify the patterns that engage and convert visitors into qualified pipelines.”
We now shift to the second part of our blog — how to select an AI chatbot?
You must be thinking, why is that even a question and why do I have to choose a particular chatbot when the function of chatbots is the same?
Well, don’t be surprised if we say that selecting an AI chatbot requires a lot of thinking. However, don’t worry, because we are here to guide you to select the right AI chatbot for your company.
But there is a catch.
Selecting an AI chatbot isn’t only about what your company needs in a chatbot but also about what your customer wants from your service.
And here are the essential steps that you must follow to get the right chatbot for your company.
1. What is the primary purpose of why you need an AI chatbot?
You need to first assess which problem or process you want to address with the use of a chatbot.
There are three different types of chatbots available in the industry,
· Master Bot
· Singular Bot
· Bot Platform
The difference among these bots is: a Master Bot refers to one bot that can serve all the purposes required, a Singular Bot will address only one purpose and a Bot Platform will provide associated services to a Singular Bot.
Now depending upon the size of your business and requirement you may choose a bot. For example, if you are a small organisation that wants a chatbot only for customer support, you may need a Singular Bot whereas if you have 4 other purposes to solve, a Bot Platform would be preferable to help you in maintaining and analysing the bots together without having to do it individually for each Singular Bot.
2. Are integrations with other tools required?
An AI chatbot often needs integration with other software for various purposes. For example, if you want to generate leads and want to store data, you may need to integrate your chatbot with a CRM software and the same goes for other purposes. So while you are selecting a chatbot, you should well be aware of the integrations that it can make with other software if your need is so.
3. NLP considerations
Natural Language Processing bots are conditioned to picking up intents, understanding and being able to answer whatever the customer is asking for. This process is usually cloud-based. This is an important criterion while choosing an AI bot because NLP bots provide security, are accurate in terms of evaluating the effectiveness of the platform and can be trained in languages other than English.
4. Basic requirements of an AI bot
You will also have to look for the basic requirements that you want from the bot, whether it is about custom intents and entities or whether you want the bot to be conversational or scripted. These factors play an important role in the designing of the bot.
5. The additional features provided by the AI chatbot
Additional features of a chatbot are important pointers that you must look out for. Some of them are:
· Integration of the existing data and other content management systems to make sure that there is consistency among all the backend forces and tasks.
· The power to hand over to a human if the need arises
· Automated basic analytics
6. What are the platforms on which the AI bot can be implemented?
A winning strategy is one where you have a bot on every required platform even if it is your social media account so that no lead is missed out. This forms one of the key factors that you must be looking for in a chatbot that you wish to associate yourself with and accordingly design your bot with respect to the particular platform.
7. Seamlessness and ease of implementation
Whether you have the expertise or profession to work on the designing of the bot, this is a given that the AI chatbot chosen should have a seamless process so that a bot can easily and efficiently be built and used. Even once it is implemented, a bot should be capable of making the process smooth for the client and be designed in such a way that the client returns happy and does not feel that he was talking to a bot who just ignored or did not understand his words.
