Technology is getting younger day-by-day, and businesses can exploit this fact up to a great extent. Gone are the days of countless tinkling phone bells. Customer care departments and call centres are still there but with a virtual assistant Chatbot that reduces the need to call on customer care number.
Businesses wanted something that can reduce the waiting time that their customers spend on calls because the line is busy. The delayed response made businesses lose their clients. When Chatbots came, businesses found a smart way to save the precious time of their clients. However, with them also came some disadvantages.
Here is a mention of the advantages and disadvantages of the Chatbots –
Advantages of using chatbots for a business
Nothing is insignificant in this world if it was created for a positive reason. The changes and improvements can happen with time. The world has developed a strong trust, and for sure, the commerce world has so much more to see. Here are the significant pros you experience while using this smart technology for your business –
- Collects customer data – It is a big help to a business as customer data is as precious as gold. It can be exploited in varied ways for commercial benefits. After all, ‘customer is God’ phrase still holds its importance in the money world.
- Personalized response – The customers now have someone to respond to their queries personally. They do not feel like standing in a crowd or a long queue waiting for their turn to talk about their concerns. They ask something and gets the relatable answers from the other side.
- Round–the-clock availability – Yes, that is also a big reason for a business to use chatbots. It can stay connected to its clients day and night without any obstacle. On the other hand, the prospective, as well as the existing clients, can talk about their issues anytime.
- Speed to respond – People do not have much time to wait for what they want to know. If you can provide timely answers, it is fine, if not, the trust of even the existing customers can shake. It is not good for your business, thanks to chatbots that offer faster speed and respond to people immediately.
Disadvantages of using chatbots for a business
Now comes the other side of the coin that tells how it can be bad for a business to depend on Chatbots. It is essential to see that the disadvantages are not always about the negative things. In fact, they can be the mirror in which you can see the possibilities for your business. It becomes easy to judge if Chatbot is good to use or not for your business.
- Provides only automated and limited answers – Yes, that is a big issue with the chatbots. They give the answers that humans feed in them to respond to a particular set of questions. Sometimes people want to know more, but the automatic answers do not serve to the depth of concerns.
Here is an example –
- Your business offers very bad credit loans, and your chatbot offer answers to specific questions such as – Can I get a very bad credit loan? How much can I borrow? Etc.
What if some people may want to ask for very bad credit loans with no guarantor and no broker? Chatbots may not provide to tell about these added queries until you have not installed it in them. In case of insufficient answers, the customers may switch to other lenders.
- Expensive to install for small businesses – Chatbots are usually complicated to create and demand some investment. The small business may not be able to bear the related expenses. It means the chatbots are still out of reach for many. What is the use of technology if it cannot be exploited due to its high price? It should be affordable for all.
- Need regular update – Yes, maintenance is a big issue for the businesses that use Chatbots. The technology keeps changing, and you need to update them frequently. There are so many things to understand and do. You need to keep feeding new data and information in them according to the changes in your business products or strategy.
- Lack of emotions and human values – of course, after all, it is a machine, and you cannot expect it to respond like humans. When a customer talks to a person on the other side of the call, the polite voice of the person helps him calm down and get more relatable answers. He can ask multiple questions from a person but not from chatbots.
The collection of points above explains the essential nature of chatbots while revealing the pros and cons of using them for a business. However, there is so much to explore, and more than negative, we have positive reasons to think about this technology. The weaknesses can be improved and can be turned into traits. After all, technology keeps changing, and it changes for good every time.
