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In this article, we’re sharing some cool chatbot trends. See, engaging with customers is fun, but it can be challenging at the same time. As a business owner, while checking your day-to-day statistics and insights, you’re able to see how much demand there is for your products. You also get to see the need for your services from a first-hand perspective. From here, you can gauge consumer behavior as well. Yet, answering all those questions from prospects and buyers can become tiring and repetitive.

Now, unless you’re willing to work overtime yourself, you need new agents that can handle the growth of all sorts of questions prospects, and buyers, have. Which can lead to scalability issues, and as a result and much more stress for you, the business owner. One of the tools that can help you keep your hair, and help avoid these problems, are chatbots and a platform like Clepher that automates the entire process of building one.

That said. Chatbots are not new, they’ve been around for some time now. But this doesn’t mean they’ll work the same in the next years as they did in the previous years. Chatbots are still evolving. Plus, mainly through the ingenuity of people who’ve dabbled with bots before, the way they’re used, paints a pretty nice picture for the years to come. So, ready to see the latest chatbot trends?

In this article, we look at the trendiest breakthroughs in 2020, 2021, and beyond the newest chatbot app trends. What are the coming trends that you shouldn’t miss out on? Let’s have a fruitful discussion in this edition of the Clepher blog.

Top 7 Chatbot Trends Of 2020, 2021, And Beyond

1. Innovating With Live Chat + Voice Recognition

Say you want to snag tickets to the NBA Finals as you want to watch it live. Aside from inquiring at the ticket booth, you may use your mobile device. You may also head over to the official Facebook page and click on the Message Us button. You inquire about receiving the response. Google Assistant and Alexa are two of the most popular features that go hand in hand with a voice function. According to tech analysts, chatbots with voice recognition features are trending this year.

Imagine being able to snag tickets to your game without having to type in your questions, but just by using your voice. You can be doing the groceries, and the basketball tickets come to your mind. Or you could be driving on the highway, and you thought of watching your favorite band’s concert series. Data reveal about 110 million Americans have used voice assistants at least once a month. On our side, we see increased requests for voice recognition coming in too.

2. Smarter Bots

With the latest chatbot trends in 2020, you do not want to lose composure. You want to get the most out of the time you have and rely on bots that do the support work. The chatbot must perform well and answer questions people have immediately and correctly. People love to talk with bots, but they hate if they’re stuck in a loop. This brings us to the next trend; both business owners and customers look for are “Smarter Bots”.

Look, perhaps you have experienced this yourself while chatting with a chatbot in what you thought was a Live Chat? Then, in the midst of the conversation, you realize something… You only get answers that look-a-like… Yup, they seem quite similar! After trying for another 10 minutes, you give up as you realize this chatbot will not give you the answers to your questions.

(In some cases, they tell you “Talk To Human”, which even adds more to the redundancy… After all, answering a simple question was the bot’s task, right?)

The best chatbot messaging platform answers questions precisely, and they get you what you are looking for immediately. This means without the need for lengthy chat or conversation with humans. Because of this, we think there will be a bigger need for chatbots with some sort of AI or a chatbot that can integrate with AI. 

3. Chatbots Becoming More And More Human

Chatbots are, thus far, the best option to de-stress both parties. They are the alternative to human interaction with customers. Business owners want to streamline sales, productivity, output, and revenue. They want to use chatbots to act as human (and humane) as possible. According to data at Linchpin SEO, among the latest chatbot app trends, they can be more human in time. Right now, you can still see when you talk to a chatbot or when you talk to a human. Both parties — the business owner and the customer — agree to the growth of this trend. 

However, even though customers like a more humane approach in most cases. They still want to know they’re talking to a chatbot. As a business owner, you should understand this concept, and cater to their need. Because if you set the tone, the expectations, for the customers right in the beginning… They know what they’re up against. Customers sometimes feel cheated if they find out later in the conversation they’re talking to a chatbot.

So, remember; chatbots are never human. They will always get back to you with automations, and in most cases repetitive responses. At times, their answers may even be “unhelpful”.  To counteract this challenge, you need to put in some good thought prior to creating your chatbot. It’s not the chatbot platform, it’s how it’s used. That’s why the creator of the chatbot must evaluate and reevaluate every step while creating the chatbot.

4. Banking And Insurance Chatbots

In 2021, chatbots may penetrate the banking and insurance customer service markets. Bank of America has a chatbot named Erica, who manages customer inquiries. Erica also anticipates their needs through algorithm-run predictive analysis. She guides clients through the complex procedures of online banking. Plus, chatbot names are also a great marketing strategy for mnemonics or familiarity.

Not convinced? Well, what happens when you say Alexa? Well, you know she works with a particular platform, right? It’s the same when you talk about Siri, you know it’s about another brand.

For the insurance sector, chatbots can funnel customer questions. Basically, it means when the human agent attends to the question, they do not go through a similar process of hi’s and hellos. Or, the introduction, required data, and more… They go straight to the problem and question. Thus, encouraging more productivity among the employees of the customer support team.

5. Call Center For Chatbots?

Here’s a riddle, what do you call a group of chatbots working together? Call center chatbots.

Mind you, this has become a growing trend already – at least, when talking about future chatbot trends. Just imagine the integration of chatbots and a hallway of call center representatives. According to Research Gate, there are many responses on how trustworthy chatbots are. It showcases their reliability, credibility, and more vs. human interaction.

In 2021 and in the coming years, chatbots will get to the call centers. What they do is to receive details and personal information. These can enable the chatbot to mimic the qualified human agent. So, in the perception of the person inquiring, they are talking to a real human. I mean, just watch this video of Google Assistant. This way, chatbot innovation can reduce waiting periods and improve customer care automatically. 

We believe this will first target the higher segment before this tech is available for Small and Medium businesses.

6. Chatbots & Payments

Most eCommerce and small business owners use chatbot messaging for customer engagement. But, not yet with payments. Why is this? Well, most of ’em believe that chatbots aren’t trusted enough to process payments. And so, the interaction transfers to humans, to conquer the fear of losing money. But, thinking about the bright horizon that lies ahead, shouldn’t this be already something that should be implemented?

We think this will be big in 2021, recent surveys have shown that millennials are comfortable spending up to $400 on products, purchasing it right from a conversation with a chatbot. We’ll see the first shift happening from the eCommerce website to full eCommerce chatbots. What’s also cool is that through AI, data analysis, and infrastructure connections… The chatbot can promote upselling: “Congrats on your new shoes! Would you like some cools socks to go with it?” 

And with Facebook launching their Libra currency… We think Facebook Messenger chatbots may have something cool in-store – when it comes to chatbot payments – in the coming year.

7. Emotional Intelligence

You have heard about artificial intelligence (AI), but not emotional intelligence. Let’s say you are a customer service representative. In that case, you might listen to customers complaining about a product they did not expect to have, like a side effect of a beauty product they did not expect to feel. When this happens, emotions like are anger and irritation can escalate to frustration. And, savvy as you are, you know this is not good for your brand.

Now, chatbots can be integrated with sentiment detection software to read human emotions. As a result, a chatbot can then also answer based on customers’ feelings. Instead of saying, “Hi! How may I help you?” with emotional intelligence, it could transform and alter to “Hi, we understand where you may be coming from. How may I help you?”.

In the coming year, we expect chatbots to become more aware of the state a customer is in using emotional intelligence. This plays a crucial role in AI development lately as well, and we think this will transform each business sector greatly. Therefore we predict that companies will build chatbots that trigger responses according to the customer demands, or the question, based on their emotion detected by a sentiment-reading software.

These are the trends we see coming in the next years. Do you favor one in particular? Let us know in the comments

Final Words

Now, without a doubt, chatbots are innovative solutions that several industries are already working with. Some of these industries include real estate and healthcare sectors and other boundaries like quality enhancement, marketing, cost reduction, and collecting data.

But to have this work well, businesses will have to prepare themselves by appointing an individual or a team that will take charge of the chatbot setup. Usually, the support team is a good team to start with as there are some big gains to expect when optimizing support with a chatbot. Or the sales team… By using the chatbot to qualify leads, so the sales team can focus on closing them. 

Diversity is a quality that chatbots must also possess. Consumers who get similar answers to questions mean that the bot is not doing its job well enough. That’s why the chatbot must also have a full grasp and a more in-depth understanding of the business, market, and customers. That’s why it’s important to evaluate and reevaluate each step in the creation process of a chatbot. Top this off with sentiment detection, and it should be a perfect customer service representative.

How can you make this possible?

Here at Clepher, we believe in the potential of automation to answer customer questions well and contribute to every business’s success. Clepher changes how interaction with customers works. Bots built with Clepher can answer customer questions in the most organized way. Get started today! Sign up with Clepher or keep browsing the website to see more of its features. 

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