Chatbot Trends & Predictions 2022 – Where is the journey heading?
AI chatbot, virtual assistant, voice bot, or WhatsApp chatbot – the variety of automation in communication is huge. But what can chatbots really do today? What are the expectations of chatbots? What do customers around the world think about them? And what will be the new superpowers of chatbot tools? This we discussed with the Chatbots expert Joachim Jonkers, Chief Product Officer of Chatlayer by Sinch in our regular vodcast format WUMMM weekly, and have derived 5 chatbot trends for 2022 and predictions as well as a collection of upcoming superpowers of chatbot tools for you.
Chatlayer is a technology company that creates Authentic Conversations between businesses and their customers by building amazing chat and voicebots, through the power of AI. The chatbot company is one of the leading providers of AI chatbots and was recently named a “Rising Star” in ISG’s Provider Lens™ for Intelligent Automation Solutions and Services in Brazil 2021. Their focus is on conversational design and the further development of deployed bots through continuous and automated training that makes it as easy as possible for customers.
To start from the same page: What is your definition of a Chatbot?
A chatbot is basically an automated conversation, which can take a lot of shapes. It can be super simple. Just a text dialogue with a few buttons that help you get information about a specific product. But it can be very sophisticated as well: use AI to understand customers and /or use all different sorts of data a company has about a user to personalize the chatbot conversation.
1. Chatbots are useful technology for 90% of the population!
We left the stage where only the super innovative companies are creating chatbots. We are out of the phase of early adaptors.
Joachim Jonkers, Chief Product Officer of Chatlayer by Sinch
With chatbots – because having a conversation is so intuitive – it really allows businesses to unlock a whole new audience, people that aren’t as digitally well-versed.
People who are creating chatbots are maybe sometimes without knowing, technically very strong and into digital innovations which are coming up, but this is not the average. For these “tech nerds,” chatbots are often not a great experience. And often typically start pushing new technologies they’re trying out to their ‘digital’ audience first. But for bots that don’t really make sense when you think about it.
Bots work better for people that aren’t digital experts because they have “just” the expectation to get answers to their questions.
For the majority of users, that aren’t as technical well versed, chatbots are very important technology. What I expect to happen in the future, is that chatbots are pushed more in the direction to these customers.
Joachim Jonkers, Chief Product Officer of Chatlayer by Sinch
2. The level of personalization at Chatbots will and must increase
A lot of the bots out there today basically provide the same exact experience to everyone. Everyone runs through the same flow, with very little room for changes. In reality, of course, no 2 people are alike, and that means no 2 conversations should be alike. There are a few ways to make a conversation really personal:
- Level 1 – Having Integrations: Use data you have on the customer e.g. did a customer just buy a bike, but it wasn’t yet delivered? They probably have a question about their order. So if you have this information use it. All you have to do is get the right integrations & connections with your CRM, ERP, software to use your customer data to make the conversation relevant for the customer from the first message you send to him. He will be more than pleased if he or she starts a chat and you as a business sent a first message which says “Hey, I saw you just ordered a bike, how can I help you?”. This is where conversational messaging is headed.
- Level 2 – Segmentation: Changing the answers based on a customer segment, which means: For example, someone who’s 18 is used to different language from someone who’s 70. If you want to get information across, it’s important to talk to a customer in the way that they understand it best.
- Level 3 – 100% Individualization: Not just focus on the segment but also the individual user. So every individual user gets totally individual answers. There are already first steps in this direction. We’re already analyzing the sentiment of users to give a specific response, but getting this really right will take a few more years.
3. Bots become more conversation-driven
A lot of the bots being built today are essentially based on guesswork. The persons which are building the chatbot often don’t have the information they need to know: which questions customers ask exactly and how they ask them, which words do they use, etc. This means that even with the best technology, your bot doesn’t match with what your users need from it.
On the other hand, companies have a lot of data from actual conversations between agents and customers. They should also use this data to improve conversations. What I expect to happen is that these conversations will be used more and more to also build chatbots, meaning bots will be faster to build & more accurate. And that’s crucial to create a great bot experience!
4. Realism remains extremely important for successful chatbots
People that claim they can build a perfect bot 100% automatically are not telling the truth. Yes, automated tools can help you save time, and can answer up to 80% of questions due to the fact that these are FAQs but we don’t have an automated way of adding personality to a bot, making sure the bot fits your brand, etc.
5. Conversational Design and AI go hand in hand
The relationship between AI and Conversational Design should be very close. For the ones who don’t know what conversational design is, it is like UX design for conversations.
You look therefore on the conversation flow. For a good conversational design, you have to make sure that the bot understands the user very well. That is where the AI part comes in. So my recommendation for Conversational Designer is, to make sure that you have basic knowledge of AI and use that in your job. It will make your job much easier. These two things are very close to each other, they shouldn’t be separated.
The new superpowers of chatbot tools
⚙️Deeper connectivity to omnichannel platforms
From our perspective as a company that creates conversational ai chatbots for companies that can be run on virtually any channel – and especially important and in great demand are currently messaging apps like WhatsApp – it is key that chatbot building tools like ours are strongly connected to innovative omnichannel platforms like for example the Messenger Communication Platform of MessengerPeople.
Make sure that your business is present where your customers are. For different customers, this will mean different channels. Put your bot on all of them!
Joachim Jonkers, Chief Product Officer of Chatlayer by Sinch
🎙️📲 WhatsApp Voice Messages
Following the user behavior, WhatsApp Voice Messages are getting more important. This should and will be followed in future customer communications. And that is what is already working on. The future chatbots built by Chatlayer will also handle WhatsApp Voice Messages and provide the personalized and right information to the customer.
💁♀️❤️🤖 Combination of AI and agents
Agents will get supported by suggestions for answers they could give the customers. This AI is trained by already given answers and it learns from the choices of the agents, which answers are helpful for the daily doing of the agent. This not only helps save time and thus resources, but also provides insights into the recurring needs of users.
Use the joint forces of Chatlayer and MessengerPeople for your Chatbot Project
Our “Messenger Communication Platform” is your starting point of customer communication via WhatsApp and other relevant messaging apps. The deep integration with Chatlayer by Sinch will make it possible for you to create AI-powered virtual assistants that don’t feel like chatbots and use them for all channels you like.
With the joint forces of Chatlayer and MessengerPeople, you can…
- 👨⚖️ … use WhatsApp and other messaging apps fully GDPR compliant for your customer service
- 🚀… start immediately and without any IT efforts necessary – even out of home office!
- 💻… edit and reply to all messages centrally – no matter from which messaging app they were sent
- ↔ … assign tickets manually or automatically via auto routing to your colleagues in charge
- 🤖 … start easily with automation and drive it to the next level with conversational AI
- 💕… use integrations to your existing customer management software / CRM to drive personalized customer engagement
- 💰 … use the No. 1 communication channel effectively and at fair pricing and without a set-up fee for maximum personal digital consulting!
👉 Tip: You want directly start with an AI Chatbot project, arrange a live demo with Chatlayer now. The team will guide you through the product via web demo and give you expert tips as well as answers to all your questions in close relation to the Chatlayer & MessengerPeople solution.
You have specific questions or a great idea to use WhatsApp for your business and want to talk about it?
Message us!
