| I think there are a few benefits of using chatbot over another user interface type. 1- Being where your customers are. If you are planning on leveraging a chatbot as opposed to a mobile app or website, having some kind of presence of Facebook messenger could increase user engagement because of the lower amount of friction from switching or downloading new apps to interact with a business. It's especially relevant when you consider that social platforms are used for customer support more and more so augmenting this channel with some kind of automated support option makes sense from an ROI perspective. 2. Simpler user experiences. Now this one is definitely idealistic, and where a lot of hype is coming from. But, the general idea is to take websites and mobile apps and create a single interface into the content/services where the hope is that users will have a lower learning curve because they can use everyday language. In reality, bots that I've seen are mostly text based IVRs that confuse the users, and don't make experiences any more enjoyable. 3. Personalization and NL analytics. Assuming your chatbot allows for free form text. You could potentially build more comprehensive profiles of users by mining their conversations and behavior. You could certainly do this today with web and app metrics, twitter posts, support emails, and transcribed voice calls, but now you have a Facebook or social profile tied to a customer which is another dimension of data you can use where in the past you may have had no linkage between your app accounts vs a users social profile. By no means a comprehensive list, and if you incorporate voice recognition on top of a "chatbot", you can provide an easier way for users to interact with systems when they may not be able to use their hands (driving, lost an appliance remote, running) |