1.4 billion People a Year are Talking to Bots. Join them?

About a decade ago, I needed to log into a government website to make a payment. It was about 6 pm and it was the first free moment I had to visit the site. Unfortunately the site was ‘closed’. Now, remember this is a website we are talking about. Back then, the website kept the same hours as the physical offices, including being off for lunch between 12 and 1 pm! Even back then I remember thinking this was such a crazy idea. Why have an online presence when it’s going to work the same hours as your offline presence?

Many companies still treat their websites as their online catalog, a repository of all things that they currently sell. That positioning is slightly different than treating the site as your always-on-round-the-clock store; one that should be open even when the physical store is done for the day. I remember specifically discussing this question at Lenovo — what was the role of the website in their ecosystem? Is it there only because consumers as well as potential consumers expect a business to have a website or could it serve a higher purpose?

Today’s always-on-always-demanding consumers expect every brand to have a 24-hour presence. They are expecting ‘immediate’ answers to their seemingly urgent questions when they are on the move. Which brings me to bots. Chatbots in particular.

While speaking with Prof. Randi Priluck of Pace University’s Lubin School of Business last fall, she predicted that messaging is one of the technologies to look out for in 2020. That makes sense. The on-the-go customer is more comfortable messaging than calling.

Oracle’s study predicts that 80% of the businesses plan to use chatbots by 2020. In fact 1.4 billion people a year are already interacting with chatbots. At a time when global retail is experiencing a phygital transformation (the blending of the physical with the digital presence), chatbots can help deliver the personalized customer experience of one, integrating platforms and helping consumers with their queries whether it’s choosing the right face scrub, toothbrush, or even a car.

So, what exactly is a chatbot? Chatbot is an application that performs automated tasks using conversations as their platform. They live inside apps that we have come to use everyday such as fb Messenger, sms and even email (noticed the bots helping you with predictive texts in your Gmail recently?). In fact, according to one research, fb Messenger chatbots are developing 70% faster than ios apps that were at the same state in their lifecycle.

How easy are they to use? As easy as interacting with a human being. Except, they can now be available in the ecosystem of your choice. So, for instance, if you are on 1800-flower’s fb business page, it is easier for a consumer to interact with their customer service right in the fb ecosystem instead of being directed to the company website. After all, the mission should be to make the ‘inquiry-to-purchase’ journey as friction-free as possible. Chatbots can help. They can help customers make up their mind with suggestions, they can help track orders or they can simply be available to chat up.

One of my favorite examples is Casper.

Casper Sleep as the company is called, has been selling mattresses and other ‘sleep’ products online since 2013. Casper is a breath of fresh air, appealing to millennials and giving established mattress companies such as Sleepy’s, a run for their money. What I love about Casper is they realized very early that they were in the ‘sleep’ business and not in the ‘mattress’ business. Which means that if you can’t sleep, they are available for you, to chat with. Casper’s Insomnobot-3000 is only available from 11 pm and 5 am. Basically it is company for those who can’t sleep. Feel free to chat about anything from games to movies to your favorite TV show and you will soon forget you are chatting with a bot! Really cool media innovation, a truly frictionfree experience and a great extension of the brand promise. I urge you to try out the experience at: http://insomnobot3000.com

1800-flowers, a flower-delivery company in the US, was one of the first adopters of fb Messenger’s chatbot. For the company, the bot helps customers track an order, recommend options for a new order or simply, reach out to customer service for some other issue. It’s a great idea as one usually thinks of sending flowers to someone either in a hurry (6 hours before Valentine’s Day!) or when one has a lot of time (e.g. late night or weekend) to indulge in a flowers-sending moment. Exactly the right time for a chatbot to be inconspicuously present. I decided to give the 1800-flowers chatbot a go. How was my experience? See it for yourself:

First and foremost, as soon as I chose one of the 3 key options, it opened up a new window. Post which, the chatbot was wired to deliver answers to basic questions. Anything out of script and the bot struggled. For e.g., it will not move to a flowers bouquet suggestion unless I give it a cell number. My response of “I do not want to share my number right now” had the bot thoroughly confused. Unlike Alexa, it seems like chatbots are currently limited in their AI learning. However, they are still a great way for a brand to deliver a cohesive, 24/7 experience.

There are many kinds of bots. Microsoft has its own chatbot API. They are great for installing as a service on your website. In fact Microsoft was testing out a free bot offering for retail customers. Want to build a bot with Microsoft API? If yes, here’s how you can do it in 10 minutes or less: https://educationblog.microsoft.com/2018/03/how-to-build-a-chat-bot-in-10-minutes/

Regardless of whether you have a chatbot on your site or not, you should definitely have one on fb to support your fb business page. After all, there are a potential 2+ billion people waiting to interact with you.

So, how does one go about building a messenger bot? Anyone can do it as this video shows us:

So, what are companies currently using chatbots for? Airlines like KLM are using it as extension of their customer service teams. Fast fashion retailers like H&M are using it to help with style preferences and clothing recommendations.

All in all, chatbots can be a critical way to extend a brand’s frictionfree experience by engaging potential consumers with your content, improving efficiencies and of course, increasing sales. An opportunity to create those unique relationships of ‘one’ that are critical whether you are a small, medium or large business. 1.4 billion people are doing it already. Ready to take the plunge?

Join me every week, as we navigate these ever-changing waters to make sense of this ‘always-on’ consumer and the technologies that define their everyday. I will be bringing you insights from some of the sharpest global minds in the industry as well as in academia. And do join the conversation.

Until next week

Anika Sharma

A seasoned Advertising and Digital expert, Anika has worked across countries and continents and spoken at companies such as Google and universities such as NYU. She is currently Professor of Business at NYU’s Stern School of Business, teaching Digital, Social and Mobile Marketing. Follow Anika on twitter @anikadas or on Medium.

©AnikaSharma. No part of this article can be used without explicit permission. All rights reserved.

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