The chatbot revolution is now, what are you waiting for?

Today the chatbot market is worth 396 million USD, by 2027 it will be worth 1.953 million. Or in other words, it will have become 5 times bigger. If you are a company that is considering a chatbot or is not sure what this growth means, this article is for you.

Chatbot numbers have been growing for some time, in 2018 Facebook was already reporting the presence of 300.000 chatbots on its messenger platform and companies like Oracle have forecasted that by the end of 2020 80% of large companies would be using or planning to adopt a chatbot.

Why have chatbots become so popular?

To understand where this trend comes from and how it is affecting businesses, we need to keep two elements in mind. The first is technological advancements, that have turned chatbots from a weird computer trick into advanced business machines capable of holding conversations, making data easy to access, and interface seamlessly with anything from CRMs and ERPs to booking systems and analytics tools.

The second element is the return of conversational commerce. We analyzed this trend in detail in a previous article but, for now, just keep in mind the following: conversational commerce is not new; at its core, it involves people communicating with sellers through conversations, just like they used to do before the era of e-commerce and large super-stores.

Conversational commerce is, ultimately, natural human behavior and as such, it is a trend that is likely to stay with us for a long time. Large stores and e-commerce have limited conversations by creating separate channels for customer service and marketing/sales.

Messaging apps and what chatbots can do for you

With the arrival of social media things started to change, and today the growth of messaging apps has created a single conversational channel where the conversation can take place. Businesses are now being forced to move from mass, topical communication to one-to-one conversations, where the line between sales, marketing, and customer service is blurred.

This change has created a serious problem for many companies because all of a sudden the volume of conversations has increased exponentially. Customer expectations have also changed as people, used to a world of instant messages and instant replies from friends and family, have started to expect the same level of availability from businesses.

Companies are able to provide this kind of personalized, one-to-one, constant attention gain a significant competitive advantage, forcing their competitors to follow. Chatbots make this possible by allowing companies to create a scalable solution that can handle a large number of simultaneous conversations, 24/7 and at a low cost.

Solutions change from industry to industry, in many cases going well beyond the simple company-to-consumer interactions and into facilitating the work of employees, helping companies collect data, and much, much more. In this blog, you’ll find many industry-specific examples ranging from travel to the Oil and Gas Industry; from healthcare to banking. t if you’d like to learn more about how your company can get started we recommend reaching out to us directly using the contact link below.