Does Your Tech Startup Need A Chatbot?

But the internet, and the growth rate of digitisation, can threaten to distance businesses from those they seek to serve.It's for this reason that AI Chatbots provide such a unique service, both for customers and businesses. From their use in investment, or in checking healthy habits on a fitness app, they're a highly effective system for improving the user experience.

According to recent research, 60% of millennials conduct their transactions and business communication entirely through an intelligent AI Chatbot. Done well, a chatbot can prove incredibly useful. Following this guide will make developing your own automated chatbot relatively straightforward.

Does your company need a chatbot?

Areas such as artificial intelligence have grown exponentially over the last few years. The question is, how can your company use them? Would a chatbot actually benefit your business?

When considering the use of a chatbot, it's important to take into consideration whether it fulfils an essential purpose. Companies like Cleo, for example, use a chatbot for a direct link to their clients, making it crucial as a method of making transactions, checking savings and budgeting.

It's necessary to ask questions like this: how would it be used to improve the customer's experience when using the site, while also improving the effectiveness of your business model by relaying valuable information through the system?

Taking into consideration the model of your business, who you plan to work with and how, a chatbot may end up as a non-essential feature.

How you plan to use it

Chatbots have a remarkable level of variability depending on what a company needs them for. They can take on the responsibilities of a customer service agent, without the 'friction' of unknown information and sluggish wait times.

Chatbots have the added benefit of rapid response time and a higher level of accuracy in dealing with customer enquiries. It's a depth of skill and knowledge that increases as time goes on. But it's crucial to have an understanding of how a chatbot is to be used, for it to prove useful.

Whether it's used as a networking device to interact with new and existing users, or for taking care of clients on a daily basis, knowing where it will be applied, and how, is essential for making the perfect chatbot for your business.

What system to use for building your chatbot

Unlike the initial phases of any technology, there are already a significant number of companies and methods which allow a business to develop their own chatbot from pre-set designs.

Companies like Botskill allow users to develop a sophisticated chatbot without the challenging coding necessary for it to function. Some companies offer the capability to create a highly advanced chatbot in roughly 15 minutes.

Consider also your team's abilities regarding developing your own, versus using an outside company, while making sure that the end result will be fine-tuned to the capacity in which you intend to use it.

Knowing your chatbot budget

Depending on whether your business chooses to develop its own from the ground up, or use a pre-built option, your choice will depend on what chatbot services are available, and how large a budget your business has in order to implement one.

Working from a pre-built chatbot system can cost anything from £3-8,000, making it a better solution for startup businesses. Larger companies may be better suited to a custom-built chatbot; it'll involve higher cost, but will allow a purer focus on what a big business requires of their chatbot.