“Time is money.”
This phrase has been around so for long that it is a proverb now.
According to Wikipedia, Benjamin Franklin gets the credit:
“Time is money, a phrase used by Benjamin Franklin in Advice to a Young Tradesman, Written by an Old One“
“Remember that Time is Money. He that can earn Ten Shillings a Day by his Labour, and goes abroad, or sits idle one half of that Day, tho’ he spends but Sixpence during his Diversion or Idleness, ought not to reckon That the only Expence; he has really spent or rather thrown away Five Shillings besides.”
Ever since then, we have been trying to find a way to make money without spending our time.
Skills such as manufacturing and other types of automation have helped us become more efficient.
For instance, a WordPress entrepreneur may use a tool such as MainWP to update client websites quickly without logging into dozens or hundreds of WordPress installs. The client gets a service for updates, you do it quickly and earn more money.
Customer Service Needs
Customer service is a customer-facing job. I have worked in customer service, and chances are you have too.
We often begin our work careers doing something like customer service.
For me, I bagged groceries in a grocery store. I also worked in a bookstore, tech support, and I also worked in a call center helping customers with their mortgages.
In the human resources world, they refer to it as a soft skill.
At one time, it was considered a necessity.
I think it still is a necessity and will be for a long time.
However, in this day and age, we have some really cool tech tools to help streamline the process.
Chatbots are a way that companies can answer common questions quickly in various online settings without ever having to use a real person.
It has become fairly popular, and today, we are going to look at various types of Chatbots.
Why use a Chatbot?
So, why would someone use a chatbot anyway?
Well, there are a few reasons which we shall explore.
At the heart of chatbots is customer service. The ability to quickly and efficiently get information to customers a potential customer is of paramount importance. This is the reason companies spend lots of money to automate a phone call tree.
According to Dariia Vinogradina of Master of Code, there are five reasons why one would use a chatbot.
She makes some good points. Let’s dive into her reasons.
First is the Availability of Chatbots 24/7. We love the idea of making money at any hour of the day; the same can be said of chatbots. Being able to answer a customer or potential customer’s question at any time of the day is a win/win.
The second reason is Simple Location. Vinogradina says, ” Bots are located on platforms that are used by people every day, for example, Messenger, Telegram, soon in Viber, etc.”
In other words, chatbots can be created for all of the most popular apps and platforms being used meaning business do not have to create another app to use their chatbot. In fact, businesses who do not have an app can still take advantage of chatbots in existing apps.
The third reason is Quick Reply. The ability to deliver an immediate response can help potential customers make decisions to buy your product much faster.
Useful Subscriptions is another reason she mentions. These kinds of subscriptions give us instant access and regular updates.
As Vinogradina says, ” You can subscribe to the content updates in chatbots and get news feed instantly.” She mentions New York Times and CNN chatbots as examples.
Finally, Small Talk is a reason specified. It will take some time for these chatbots to develop a personality, but even now you can carry on a bit of a conversation with many of them. I spent about 15 minutes visiting with Mitsuki Monday night. Maybe it says more about me.
Types of Chatbots
There are already several chatbots available, many you can start using today. Below are a couple different types of chatbots.
Twitter Chatbots
As you can imagine, Twitter bots are programs that allow users to interact with a program, allowing some kind of chat to happen.
“A Twitterbot is a bot program used to produce automated posts on the Twitter microblogging service, or to automatically follow Twitter users.Twitterbots come in various forms. For example, many serve as spam, enticing clicks on promotional links.[3] Others post @replies or automatically “retweet”[4] in response to tweets that include a certain word or phrase. These automatic tweets are often seen as fun or silly. Some Twitter users even program Twitterbots to assist themselves with scheduling or reminders.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitterbot
Twitter bots can definitely delight us.
This is my favourite Twitter bot. It makes up knock knock jokes based on Google autocomplete and it's super. @autocompletejok
— Dave Cribb (@davecribb) April 10, 2016
Example of Twitter Chatbots
Domino’s allows you to order food via their Twitter Chatbot. TechCrunch reporter Sarah Perez tested the bot, and the efficiently was less than stellar.
Another Twitter Chatbot is The Santa Bot. The virtual Santa Claus is here . The Santa bot will be fun to play chat with leading up to Christmas.
Yes, Santa loves you.
— Santa Bot (@TheSantaBot) December 6, 2016
We are still scratching the surface of use for chatbots on Twitter
Facebook Chatbots
Facebook seems to have more possibilities as many of the chatbots are built for the Messenger app. There are already several companies using a chatbot to give quick responses to customers leaving messages.
Earlier this year, Venture Beat reported that over 11,000 bots have been created
By September, the number had grown to over 30,000 and included the ability to make payments
Examples
CNN
The news powerhouse will attempt to answer your questions using the latest news articles. It isn’t quite perfect.
I entered Sting the wrestler and got an article about Sting the singer (honest mistake).
The chatbot will also send you daily updates.
1800Flowers
Valentine’s Day is coming up soon, February. That is just a little over two months away.
Well, 1800Flowers has you covered.
All you have to do is open Messanger on the 1800Flowers Facebook page, search the menu, and place an order.
Conclusion
Chatbots have certainly made their way into the life of social media platforms. It will only make accessing information and even making purchases much more convenient.
It may be purchasing a trip from Kayak to learning the weather or having a virtual assistant with Jarvis, but the possibilities are greater with each passing month.
You can spend some time (err, I mean, waste some time) chatting with various bots such the ones at this website.
In our next post, we will look at three other types of chatbots, examples and a couple of ways you can start using chatbots for your business.
2 thoughts on “Are chatbots for fun or business?”
Good topic Todd! As a one man show, I have it on my list to look at some of the bot making platforms that are popping up. ie. one platform to create bots for all platforms.
Let us know how it goes Hamish. Maybe you can have a little show and tell. Certainly, it would be fun to see via the FB Group page.
Comments are closed.