Well, with the introduction of "World Wide Web," everybody was going web first. Then apps came. With increasing use of smartphones, apps became the talk of the town and everybody wanted (and still wants) them.
Chatbot brought a storm with them with the introduction of Facebook messenger bot. Now they are on their way to becoming the new sheriff of the town.
So why chatbots are so lucrative and sought after?
Here Are Four Reasons
First:
To begin with, you are getting an opportunity to piggy back on a platform’s traffic for which you are building a bot. For messenger bot, you are discoverable for 900 million messengers as of now. You can’t even predict the growth and scope of messaging apps in the coming times.
We will witness a plethora of messengers getting launched within the coming months.
Here's an interesting fact, according to the "Chatbots Survey-2017" by Chatbotsjournal, the majority of the businesses heard about Chatbots for the first time between 2015 and 2016.
So the equation is simple, enter the market early on and reap the benefits.
Also, users will not have to undergo the pains of downloading an app. For startups as well as other businesses, deriving downloads has always been the biggest headache.
Second:
Nest, a bot can fetch you good PR results. Chatbots will soon be driving a PR bandwagon and get you more eyeballs on the ground -- just like that. This is because the "bots is hot" trend in the market and the journalists still do not get a hundred requests to cover bots every day. They still get hundreds of requests to cover apps every day, though. Hence, apps need a promotional strategy and campaigns that might involve a great deal of money.
Third:
Next, once the bot is up and running, it won’t demand a full-time technical resource to operate the system. AI will be capable of writing its own lines of codes once it gets the gist of user queries. Additionally, it will not require a graphic designer because of the conversational interface. All you need to focus on is designing your words rather than graphics.
Fourth:
Fourth, as bots are powered with neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) and AI, they are smarter in their interactions with users when in comparison to apps. In the future, we can expect bots to become smart enough to serve your users in much better ways. For now though as the technology is still evolving the best way is to start is with a simple bot first and let it evolve with the time and experience.
As time marches on we should not be surprised if startups and businesses start prioritizing chatbots development over mobile apps. The race will be long and businesses with a willingness to adapt to this critical change will stand a chance to win, and to win big.
With All Of These Great Possibilities, The Chatbot World Still Faces Some Hurdles
One problem is that users may not like the personality of the bot. Bots still have a long way to go when it comes to matching their performance with human counterparts. They lack emotional intelligence. But this hold up may not be a hold up for long.
Source: 'Chatbots Survey - 2017'
Merely having technical resources will not help you build a good chatbot. Perhaps you’ll need teams with backgrounds like philosophy, art studies, and creative writing.
Naturally, there are still concerns floating around about the security & privacy of the data handled by chatbots. We can expect more focus on this aspect from chatbot developers in the future.
Chatbots are operational in a limited environment, they don’t help a business get much scope to improve their customers' experience. Again, this may not be an issue with the advent of AI.
Bots still find it difficult to register and respond to complex questions, and to carry out compound activities.
Conclusion:
Considering all the positive benefits, it makes a lot of sense to expect "Chatbot first" to become a real strategy in the future.