Chatbots are also known as conversational agents. They are programs that can be integrated into different platforms that can automatically respond to messages received and initiate conversations in a natural human-like manner. This concept is not new. The adoption of customer experience management , by different companies, will continue increase in 2021.

Business Insider reported that global chatbot sales are predicted to rise from $2.6 billion in the year 2019, to $9.4 trillion by 2024. The report predicts a 29.7 percent annual rate of growth. According to the same report the fastest growth in chatbot adoption will be observed in the retail and eCommerce sectors due to the growing need for seamless, omnichannel experiences.

This alone should suffice to convince you that chatbots are the way to manage customer relations going forward. However, they'll expand as internal tools for enterprise tools and nearly every industry will embrace the technology if it hasn't already.

2020 was an extraordinary year. All people saw drastic shifts in their lives in just a few days. Chatbots could bridge the gap in an environment where human interaction was not as frequent. Businesses that didn't have them required digital transformation in their operations.

Chatbots have been at the center of the fight against COVID-19 throughout this entire process. Chatbots have helped a variety of industries recover from decline by supporting healthcare professionals by facilitating communication between local health authorities to helping to transform retail. And contrary to some fears chatbots can aid, not replace, the traditional workforce.

Let's discuss the advantages of chatbots.

How do Chatbots Work?

How can a machine talk naturally? When people consider implementing chatbots to improve automation first ex strategy the quality of their conversations, this is the first thing they will ask. While the actual programming and operation of chatbots are complex, it's very easy to understand how they communicate with humans.

In order to process and efficiently answer questions from customers, chatbots depend on knowledge bases. To discern the purpose of the message, chatbots utilize a combination algorithm and pattern to decode the text.

To find the intent of the message, chatbots utilize natural language processing (NLP). This helps chatbots to extract the relevant information from the text. NLP is the method that enables conversational assistants to understand the context of the conversation and interpret the intention (positive or negative) and organize queries into categories that allow the bot to choose the correct auto-response, or escalate the issue to a customer care agent.

Although the first generation of chatbots was designed specifically for text-based chats technological advancements and the development of NLP have allowed to create bots that can also conduct speech-to speech and text-to speech conversations.

What do Chatbots serve? The Growing Importance of Conversational artificial intelligence

Chatbots are rapidly gaining acceptance across the globe. Chatbots are gaining popularity because of their convenience. Both businesses and customers are beginning to embrace the idea of using chatbots to facilitate conversations.

A survey conducted in 2019 found that 62 percent of US customers liked the use of ex automation to connect with companies. In the same survey, messaging was identified as the most popular feature in Europe (65 percent). Companies such as Starbucks, eBay, and British Airways are among those that recently started using this technology.

Chatbots are not just used by B2C companies; in actual their use of chatbots in the B2B sector is higher. Relay carried out an analysis that revealed that 58% of companies with chatbots were classified as B2B.