Why a chatbot can improve your company

The world is changing. Artificial Intelligence is growing and becoming more visible. In our everyday life, Artifical Intelligence begins to play a more significant role. We all have used a chatbot before. Supermarkets give you a choice to pay at the grumpy lady at the counter or quickly scan the groceries yourself at the automated self-scan. Tesla develops cars that will warn you whenever you drift out your lane and make sure you keep enough distance to the vehicle in front of you. Cleaning your house costs less effort with robot vacuum cleaners that do all the hard work. And you can always ask Siri: “Do I need an umbrella today?”. The main idea behind these applications of Artificial Intelligence is to make things easier, faster, and simpler for us humans.

March of the chatbots

The existence of chatbots is not really a new development; the first one was introduced in the early ’90s. But only since the last few years, the implementation of a chatbot on websites has become more popular and more widely used. Big guys like National Geographic, Starbucks, and Duolingo are already getting help from chatbots. You can speak with Einstein, order your coffee, or learn Spanish with only interaction with a chatbot.

The use of chatbots was a significant improvement at DuoLingo for people that are embarrassed or scared to practice a foreign language in conversations with native speakers. “As far as we can tell, computers can’t judge us,” Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn says.

It is widely known that chatbots are a great help to improve customer service. It’s an easy and quick way for customers to find answers to their questions, or get personal help fast. But how DuoLingo uses a chatbot shows that the possible applications of chatbots go further than only customer service. We can use chatbots in many ways for many purposes, depending on how creative you are.

Why they work

The bigger companies already use chatbots in various ways. But smaller companies and start-ups benefit from chatbots as well. We will briefly discuss a few of the many advantages chatbots have.

• Cost saving; once you have installed the chatbot, it will work all day, every day for free.
• Consistency; chatbots can answer questions endlessly. They never get tired or frustrated. It doesn’t matter if the same question is asked for the hundredth time. And they will be as friendly at 1 in the morning as they are at 4 in the afternoon.
• Capacity; a chatbot can speak many languages and can handle multiple conversations at the same time. It won’t get confused, lose attention, or make mistakes.

Super-human

Imagine trying to find an employee that has all these qualities. An employee that can do all of this will always cost you more money – and is definitely superhuman! Moreover, research shows that people don’t seem to care if they are talking to a real human or a robot. We merely want to find an answer to our question and put as little effort into finding this as possible. It doesn’t matter who helps us, as long as our problem is solved.

Use in eCommerce

We see significant use of chatbots in eCommerce. Many brands use chatbots to recommend their products, improve communications with their prospects and customers, and drive leads and sales.

Did you know that people are willing to spend more than $400 by only communicating through a chatbot? And that 40% of consumers want to receive offers and deals from chatbots? Chatbots nowadays can do more than offer a good deal. Customers add much value to a chatbot that can help them identify what they need and desire. This is an important aspect to keep in mind while designing your chatbot.

Endless options

In eCommerce, chatbots can be used in many different forms. For example, use a chatbot to navigate their visitors through their websites. Therefore the user’s experience of the website is increased significantly. Lead generation and recommendations for products and sales are a common practice of chatbots too. And of course, chatbots are very useful to help your customers find answers to their questions. Chatbots are used a lot in the FAQ section.
The options are endless. If you’re looking for inspiration, have a look at Topbots’ list of brands and how they get help from chatbots.

Mimic our emotion

The biggest challenge for chatbots, or Artificial Intelligence in general, is to find a way to replicate human emotions. Emotions are fascinating and not easy to copy or capture in a code or algorithm. Feelings and thoughts are non-tangible products of our mind. Human beings are emotional and social beings. Empathy and social cooperation are essential in human survival, and nowadays we still value these qualities in the people surrounding us.

However, too much emotion is also not a good thing. An over-emotional chatbot may freak out your customers. People will recognise immediately a super empathetic chatbot and probably find it a bit strange.

Copy the human brain

Recent Artificial Intelligence developments enabled a chatbot that can pick up conversational rhythms and accents. This is possible with so-called natural-language processing (NLP). It creates the possibility to mimic human conversation. Simply put; a chatbot can analyse data-input, form a context, and discover new patterns. Based on this newly formed information, the chatbot is able to react to verbal or written feed appropriately. With algorithms based on the neuronal and structural connections in the human brain, chatbots are improved a lot in the past years. Chatbots are becoming more effective.

The perfect Tone of Voice

Even though we’ve mentioned that it appeared that people don’t seem to care if they talk to a computer or actual human being, people do care about the personality of the ‘person’ they talk to. It is essential to match the personality of the chatbot to the personality of your customers. Which tone of voice does the chatbot need to have to connect with the majority of the customers? Do you want the chatbot to be funny, juvenile, or serious?

Have you already implemented a chatbot on your website? Find out here how you can improve your chatbot! By combining neuropsychology and marketing, you can improve the online experience of your customers. Neuropsychological insights in emotions, persuasion, communication (and therefore marketing and sales) are a great help in designing the perfect chatbot for your business.

If you want to learn more about behavioral insights, read our blog or watch 100+ videos on our YouTube channel!

About Neurofied

Neurofied is a behavioral science company specialized in training, consulting, and change management. We help organizations drive evidence-based and human-centric change with insights and interventions from behavioral psychology and neuroscience. Consider us your behavioral business partner who helps you build behavioral change capabilities internally.

Since 2018, we have trained thousands of professionals and worked with over 100 management, HR, growth, and innovation teams of organizations such as Johnson & Johnson, KPMG, Deloitte, Novo Nordisk, ABN AMRO, and the Dutch government. We are also frequent speakers at universities and conferences.

Our mission is to democratize the value of behavioral science for teams and organizations. If you see any opportunities to collaborate, please contact us here.