Chatbots: What Are They And How Can You Take Advantage Of This Technology?

The chatbots are mostly known as virtual assistants , currently found on websites, applications, specific devices such as Amazon Echo, Google Assistant and even at airports and holograms to help users with any questions or concerns. The main objective of chatbots is to make it easier for people to carry out actions. Next, we will explain chatbots in greater depth, their wide variety of uses, successful examples of their use in companies and the advantages they bring to businesses.

What are chatbots

The chatbots are artificial intelligence software that began to develop in the middle of the twentieth century in the hands of Alan Turing, mathematician and theoretical computer scientist, Alan was the creator of the concepts and principles thanks to which computers and artificial intelligence function and operate today. The first chatbot that established the basis of today’s virtual assistants was created in 1966 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, it was called Elizza and its main objective was to establish a simple communication channel between the interface and a person. From that moment on, chatbots have evolved to the present day that they are capable of learning independently, with each interaction they analyze language to develop a communication more similar to that of humans and in this way become more efficient.

There are two basic types of chatbot, simple and smart. Simple chatbots respond to words specifically prepared in advance and if the user asks a question that does not contain these words, the chatbot will not understand him and therefore will be left without an answer. The intelligent chatbots, unlike the previous ones, do not respond to previously agreed words, but rather analyze the words of the message and offer suggestions or new ideas to the user, that is, they carry out a more natural and less prefabricated communication.

How a chatbot can make your life easier

There are more and more utilities for which we can use a chatbot, in general it is used to make lists, mark important events or appointments even to control the home automation of a house. In the hotel sector, it can be used from the web to facilitate navigation or room reservation, to implement a holographic virtual assistant at the reception, which will be available 24 hours a day to perform check in, checkout and other requests late in the morning. evening. As technology advances, so will the uses and activities that can be assigned to chatbots.

Examples of how brands implement chatbots in their strategies

A clear example of the implementation of Chatbots in a hotel business can be seen in Vincci Hotels’ accommodations that provide a chatbot, as a virtual assistant in their hotels. The system implemented in hotel rooms allows incidents or doubts that would normally be made at reception, such as the failure of a device or some type of request to room service, all this allows the room to be adapted to the user’s needs in a simple way and practically immediate.

Other hotels also have chatbots on their web pages, this facilitates the reservation and saves the user as much work as possible. When entering the web, the wizard adapts to their selected language, then the client enters the search orders and specific characteristics that they want in their room and almost immediately the chatbot presents the various options, making the client only have to select one of the options presented.

Advantages and disadvantages of chatbots

Regarding its use, we find both benefits and drawbacks that we will explain below. 

Advantage

• Thanks to its implementation, a large number of companies register a growth in the amount of sales, due to the ease that the user experiences when browsing the web and making a purchase.
• Data collection , the bot constantly accumulates data while communicating with the user so it will be easier to get to know and adapt to it, to recommend suggestions in the future.
• Lower costs , being available 24 hours a day, it is not necessary to have switchboards, which would normally be in charge of answering questions.
• Forecasts for the future , several studies estimate that by 2022 90% of interactions will be through chatbots.

Disadvantages

When establishing a chatbot we can find some drawbacks, these in most cases focus on the negative perception that people have of virtual assistants and technology and not on their functionality. We will explain them in greater depth below:

• Rejection , at present there are still users who are reluctant when using AI technology and prefer to solve their doubts through people and not virtual assistants.
• Loss of data , there is a minimal possibility of data loss, therefore it is necessary to make backup copies, in order to later analyze the information collected by the wizard.
• Inflexibility , there are still messages that the chatbot cannot analyze and therefore it will be impossible to respond to users’ questions.