Chatbots Get Faster and Supply Helpful Data
Like many consumers, I’m of two minds on chatbots. On the one hand, I’ve had the universal experience of talking to a chatbot and feeling frustration about why I can’t speak to a real person. And I’m saying that as a millennial. On the other hand, chatbots are sometimes highly effective at transmitting information fast. And nobody likes waiting 40 minutes on the customer service call line.
Ultimately, deploying chatbots effectively will require smarter, faster-learning chatbots. And that’s what Botco.ai is bringing to market with Instachat Builder, “a new product that accelerates AI chat deployment by allowing Botco.ai customers to directly train Botco.ai’s chatbot on any type of text information.”
I checked in with Chris Maeda, Botco.ai co-founder and CTO, to get the details on how chatbots are helping businesses, how they’re advancing, and how they help solve the first-party data challenge.
With Instachat Builder, Botco.ai aims to allow businesses to train chatbots faster and improve the customer experience. Why hasn’t this technical breakthrough happened until now?
Machine learning and NLP have always been integral to the chatbot training process. However, most platforms require companies to do the upfront labor of defining use cases and specific intents. During the training process, the algorithm is fed sample “utterances” that emulate user queries. There could be hundreds of utterances for any single intent. For example, if a user wants to get a quote, the chatbot would need to be fed sample utterances such as “get quote,” “what is the cost,” and “how much for four seats?”
Botco.ai’s Instachat builder represents a huge advancement because the algorithm ingests text-based content — e.g., FAQ databases — and gets chat up and running in a fraction of the time. It’s possible today because of advancements not in the underlying technology but rather its application.
What difference will Instachat Builder make for business?
Instachat Builder allows businesses to create and launch a smart chatbot that can answer hundreds of potential questions in a fraction of the time compared to what was previously possible. They can focus on their core activities rather than spending time training their chatbot.
This is particularly useful for marketing applications that are dealing with new products and new campaigns regularly. A long startup and training period is prohibitive for these applications.
What are the main advantages of chatbots, and how will they change over the short and long term?
Chatbots are a great way to engage website visitors through conversational marketing on their preferred platform. Conversational marketing is unique because it allows visitors to experience the sales journey in both a self-directed and customized fashion.
Chatbots are more prescriptive than a static website ever could be and provide invaluable data for the companies that leverage them. A chatbot can take notes on behalf of the business during the conversation and save important information that can then be passed on to the business to activate a specific workflow.
The chatbot is also capable of satisfying commonly asked questions quickly while insulating support staff from distraction. Finally, the actionable insights a business can get from analyzing customer conversations leads to optimization of products and services.
Companies are widely concerned about access to first-party data. Do you think chabots are an overlooked part of that picture?
Absolutely. As said earlier, the chatbot is actively saving information about the user as it’s conversing with them. The information collected is first-party data that the business can then use to provide a better, more personalized experience to the end user.
