What are chatbots?

Chatbots are automated software programs that simulate conversation with human users. They use artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing (NLP) to understand user inputs and generate immediate responses that provide users with relevant information. Businesses integrate AI-powered chatbots into their apps to assist users, answer queries, and perform automated tasks without human intervention.

Chatbots are trained on first-party data from existing customer emails, SMS, chat, calls, customer relationship management (CRM) software, and related business content. This allows chatbots — those built with ChatGPT, for example — to comprehend the messages’ intent better and provide a more personalized, relevant, and conversational user experience that improves service outcomes, customer loyalty, and growth. Chatbots can be built and implemented using chatbot APIs and no-code solutions available from software providers.

Benefits of chatbots

• Enhanced customer support: Chatbots provide users with immediate personalized support. If users need additional help, chatbots enable a seamless transition to human agents, including a case summary, increasing service quality and efficiency to drive engagement and retention.

• Personalized care: Chatbots trained on first-party data, especially those built with ChatGPT, can remember user preferences, history, and more to personalize experiences accordingly.

• Reduced costs: Chatbots can handle routine queries by accessing and providing data from knowledge bases and FAQs, reducing the need for human agents.

• Efficient routing: If more complex or specialized assistance is needed, chatbots can route users to the appropriate agent.

• Scalability: Able to handle multiple conversations in multiple languages simultaneously, chatbots are a scalable way to support customers in different time zones and global regions.

• 24/7 availability: Users can access chatbots round-the-clock, ensuring they receive responses outside of business hours to improve the consistency and satisfaction of support experiences.

How industries use chatbots

• Healthcare: Chatbots can provide patients with information about symptoms or treatments while allowing them to schedule appointments to improve patient outcomes and satisfaction.

• Social and community apps: Chatbots help online community managers to moderate discussion, provide immediate support in different languages, and personalize recommendations to drive engagement and loyalty.

• On-demand services: Chatbots help customers schedule services like rides or food delivery, track orders, and resolve issues efficiently. This helps to reduce canceled or delayed orders, improving satisfaction and retention.

• Marketplaces: Chatbots can recommend products and services based on past purchase history, track orders, and help buyers succeed on a new platform. This real-time assistance helps to reassure buyers, generate trust, and improve conversion rates.

• Education: Chatbots can help students with homework assignments by answering common questions and providing personalized study plans or quizzes that improve student engagement and follow-through.

• Financial services: Chatbots can provide customers with spending summaries, notices of unusual purchases, itemized spending breakdowns, and other personalized suggestions that help users to manage their money better.

Key features of chatbots

• API integration: Developers can build AI-powered chatbots with just a few lines of code using APIs, such as the Sendbird API for ChatGPT-powered chatbots.

• Dashboard implementation: For non-developers who want to add AI chatbots to their app, API platforms may allow you to add conversational chatbots into the app interface using no-code tools in the platform dashboard.

• Natural language processing (NLP): Chatbots can process user inputs and respond conversationally, especially those using ChatGPT.

• Learning and improvement: Chatbots use built-in machine learning to learn from previous interactions and first-party data inputs to provide more relevant, contextual responses over time.

• Multilingual capabilities: Chatbots can communicate in multiple languages, allowing a business to accommodate a global user base.

• Cross-platform support: Chatbots can be integrated into most apps or platforms while maintaining a consistent user on different devices and operating systems.

Chatbots offer immediate customer support within a personalized, conversational experience that increases engagement, satisfaction, and operational efficiency. Sendbird and other leading in-app communication platforms offer integrations with AI-powered chatbots, allowing developers to quickly add chatbot capabilities to mobile apps using proven APIs.