What are chatbots? Why am I hearing so much about them lately? How do they work? How can a chatbot benefit my small business (school or other organization)?

​

Generally speaking, a bot is any program that performs an automated task.  The class of bots that drive automated conversations are called chatbots.

​

A chatbot is a service, powered by rules (and sometimes artificial intelligence or ‘AI’) that users interact with via a chat interface.  Chatbots are designed to have conversations with users inside a platform that could be your website, SMS, emails, Facebook Messenger or Slack among others.

​

Chatbots for Website Support

​

Anyone who has ever tried to contact a business through a call center knows how slow and frustrating the process can be.  Even with upgrades and best practices in customer service, there isn’t much that can be done to improve response times because in most cases the agent is looking through multiple systems and is limited by the speed of the programs they need to access.

​

However, chatbot technology has opened the door to faster and more streamlined customer conversations to improve service levels and response times.  When a visitor comes to your website, they message your live chat support system.  If your chatbot already has the answer to the question they are asking configured, the user’s inquiry is answered without having to assign a person to the inquiry.  But your chatbot also offers the flexibility for your users to talk to a human instead of your chatbot, if they need to.

​

In almost all cases, a chatbot will reduce your website support time significantly, especially in the case of questions that are frequently asked.