A bot is a software program designed to perform an automated task. A chatbot is designed to converse with humans via textual or auditory means. Chatbots mimic how a human would behave as a conversational partner and can thus answer questions and carry the conversation.
If you've ever used customer support LiveChat service, you've probably had the suspicious feeling that the "person" you're chatting with is a chatbot. But many chatbots today use artificial intelligence (AI) to converse with people to simulate how humans speak as conversational partners.
Artificial Intelligence chatbots differ from regular chatbots in that they can "learn" information about users by tracking patterns in data & previous chat history. These chatbots can then apply the pattern to similar problems or slightly different questions without training. This ability allows them to perform tasks, solve problems, and manage information without the need for human intervention.
AI-based chatbots are increasingly being used by brands to communicate with their customers to attract & retain them and market their products. These AI chatbot platforms typically include tools to assist you in developing and customizing appropriate chatbots for your customer base. They add value to brands' content marketing by guiding customers through the marketing funnel and keeping them engaged even after sales.
Below are some of the benefits of using AI chatbots in customer service,
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Effective self-service with chatbots saves you money on costly human resources.
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With their quick and accurate responses, chatbots increase customer satisfaction and ticket deflection.
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Reduce wait time on customer support-related tickets.
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With 24/7 availability and an automated setup, you can reduce workforce and errors.
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Reduce bounce rates and boost conversion rates by engaging customers and keeping visitors interested.
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Chatbots quickly gather customer information and assist agents in resolving customer issues.
As the demand for chatbot software has increased, the marketplace of companies that provide chatbot technology has become more difficult to navigate, with many companies promising to do the same thing.To assist businesses of all sizes in finding the best of the best, we've compiled a list of the best 12 AI chatbot platforms below,
1. ManyChat
ManyChat is an ideal chatbot platform for developing Facebook Messenger bots for marketing, sales, and customer service. ManyChat does not require any coding and lets you create your own chatbot in less than 2 minutes. Its drag-and-drop builder allows you to save time, making it one of the best chatbots for websites.
The platform serves over 400,000 businesses worldwide and has supported over 1 billion monthly business-to-customer conversations. It also includes tools to help you expand your Messenger audience and also allows you to send content to all of your subscribers at the same time. You can also automate your Messenger marketing and send messages based on time delays or specific user actions from RSS, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
ManyChat provides easier integration with Shopify, Google Sheets, MailChimp, Hubspot, ConvertKit, and Zapier. If you're already using these tools, connecting with ManyChat and getting them to work together is a piece of cake.
Pricing: Free & Pro plan starts at $10/month
2. Acquire
Acquire is a simple, intelligent, and no-code chatbot platform with a visual editor that allows you to create custom flows to meet your business needs. It works around the clock to answer all your customer questions.
It is programmed to respond to frequently asked questions from users, thereby allowing customer support agents to focus on more complex questions. You can also set it up to route specific questions directly to the designated agents using it built-in routing facility.
You can enable your customers to self-serve by providing them with access to your knowledge base content & use analytics to improve chatbot performance. The platform integrates with a number of third-party bot providers, making it simple for brands to gain access to additional libraries.
3. ProProfs
ProProfs ChatBot allows you to create a customizable conversation that creates a human-like experience for your customers and website visitors. It has a drag-and-drop chatbot builder that requires no coding skills, so configuring a chatbot takes only a few minutes. You can customize & automate the ProProfs chatbot for a variety of purposes such as lead generation, marketing, customer service, and so on.
ProProfs will automatically create tickets for complex questions or provide links to relevant answers during an ongoing conversation by integrating Chatbot with ProProfs Help Desk and ProProfs Knowledge Base.
In real-time, it will help you easily capture leads and detailed information on each of them. You can also use the chatbot software to ask open-ended or multiple-choice questions to gather more information about your leads. You use the ProProfs bot to proactively engage customers by sending personalized greetings or tailored product announcements. It even provides detailed reports to help you analyze how your chatbots are performing on your website and if they are successful in engaging more visitors.
Pricing: Starts at $10/user/month
4. Freshchat
FreshChat is another top low-code, user-friendly bot builder that allows for the instant deployment of AI-powered chatbots. FreshChat allows you to reach out to your customers via their preferred channels, including Web, Mobile, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Apple Business Chat, and LINE to quickly resolve their problems.
It allows you to start real-time chats with customers via agents or artificial intelligence. The agents are provided with customer context to perform faster and boost CSAT with every conversation.
It also allows you to upload scripts of your bot conversations in any language so that your bot can speak in the language your customers prefer. You can track your bot's performance and optimize its flow to improve efficiency. Create reports with your chosen attributes and visualizations to meet your business's needs.
Pricing: Free for up to 100 agents, Paid plans starting from $15/Month
5. ChatBot
ChatBot is an all-in-one platform for creating and deploying conversational chatbots for marketing, sales, and customer support without the need for coding. ChatBot employs advanced artificial intelligence to enhance the user experience by providing personalized responses to your customers' questions.
ChatBot initiates a proactive conversation with your visitors, qualifies them, and converts them into leads. It will also display your products correctly. Use cards and carousels to capture users' attention and keep them engaged with your offers. You can convert prospects into satisfied customers by doing so.
It can be integrated with Zendesk, Freshdesk, or any other ticketing system you use to collect and manage customer queries in a conversational manner. It includes ready-to-use templates that allow you to quickly create a chatbot for your website or app. Chatbot responses can be programmed in a variety of languages to make sure no customer is left in the dark.
Pricing: Starts at $50/Month
6. Chatfuel
Chatfuel is another no-code chatbot platform that focuses on media agencies and restaurants. You can allow users to make reservations through the chat itself. It is great for sharing news and engaging your audience through proactive communication.
Chatfuel will relieve a significant portion of your customer service burden because it is available and engaged with your customers 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You don't have to worry about missing any conversations late at night because Chatfuel does it for you and does it better.
The bot will use natural language processing (NLP) to understand and recognize phrases and will respond to users with predefined responses. You can create a chatbot to act as a customer service representative, an event assistant, or a personal avatar. When someone interacts with the chatbot, their information is added to your database, allowing you to contact them in the future.
Pricing: The basic version is free to use, while the paid editions start from $15/Month.
7. SurveySparrow
The no-code chatbot from SurveySparrow allows you to create a chatbot in seconds without writing a single line of code just by copy-pasting the auto-generated embed code to your website, blog, or application. It is a fully automated system that helps you to simulate real-life-like conversations with the users.
You can set it to start when users open the site, scroll down to a session, or spend a certain amount of time on it. You can do more than just start a conversation; you can set up conditional logic branching or use chatbots to manage orders and collect payments.
It includes tools for conducting customer satisfaction surveys, such as Net Promoter Score (NPS), Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT), and Customer Effort Score (CES) (CES). It displays surveys in a chat-like environment to boost survey completion rates.
Pricing: The personal plan is available for free & paid plan starts at $19/month.
8. Intercom
Intercom was founded in 2011, becoming one of the first chatbot platforms. Intercom has traditionally been known as a simple rules-based business bot with minimal AI. Intercom has recently released an AI chatbot with several compelling features & an extensive list of integrations.
It allows you to provide prospects with messenger-based experiences using live chat, chatbots, and other features. The new AI-based chatbots target users based on visitor browsing information & data and provide a personalized experience using machine learning and behavioral data.
Every aspect of your team's workflows can be customized, such as routing conversations based on customer tier or scheduling meetings based on the account owner. You can also segment your messages based on rich visitor data, and empower your sales team with the knowledge they need to close more deals.
Pricing: It is one of the expensive tools, even the base plan starts at $74/month.
9. Tawk.to
Tawk is a free-to-use chatbot that is quick and simple to use. It is completely free and has no user or conversation limit. You can get started in minutes by simply copy-pasting a line of JavaScript into your website.
Tawk.to is available in over 45+ languages, so you can communicate with customers in their native language. You can provide quick and consistent responses every time by using a built-in Knowledge Base and handy shortcuts.
From the agent's dashboard, your agent can monitor your visitors are visiting in real-time, the pages they visit, how frequently they visit your site, and their entire customer journey. Agents can chat with the visitors on your website through their web login or from the mobile app. You can improve the overall customer experience by easily monitoring and tracking your team's progress over time, and reviewing chats history.
Pricing: Free Forever, add-ons available for customization.
10. Botsify
Botsify is an excellent platform for creating intelligent chatbots in order to improve customer service and automate the sales process. It is one of the most user-friendly tools that comes with customizable templates and a drag-and-drop interface to create chatbots for your websites and apps.
The bot can be easily taught to handle complex conversations to reduce customer wait times by providing fast and knowledgeable real-time assistance, allowing them to get their issues resolved quickly and automatically. It will allow a live agent to take over a conversation at any point if human intervention is required.
Proactive interactions combined with interactive and personalized content simulate customer engagement and make it easier to build relationships with them. You can create multiple chatbots at once and use them for various tasks. This enables you to handle multiple tasks effectively at the same time.
Pricing: Starts from $49/Month
11. Drift
Drift is one of the highly-rated conversational marketing and sales tools that work based on the pre-defined rule or use AI with advanced Natural Language Processing. It enables real-time communication with website visitors to help generate leads and improve sales opportunities.
Drift's conversational AI is trained on over 6 billion conversations to identify patterns that engage visitors and convert them into qualified leads. Once a lead has been qualified, the chatbot can automatically book meetings for sales teams by connecting to calendars and pulling availability.
It informs agents about the page a visitor is on when their conversation begins. If a visitor enters information such as an email address, name, location, or social profile links during the session, it is automatically made available to agents. It seamlessly integrates with Salesforce, Marketo, HubSpot, Pardot, Outreach, Google Analytics, and other applications for marketing automation.
Pricing: Free for 1 seat, $500 for 10 seats(Startup), $800 for 10 seats(Premium)
12. Landbot
Landbot is another revenue-focused AI chatbot tool that assists you in converting visitors into leads. It is a no-code chat builder platform for managing and automating conversations across your website, blog, and app. It collects visitor data and assists in personalizing customer journeys.
It employs AI and NLP capabilities to automatically respond to questions with keywords pre-programmed into the bots' vocabulary system. It is also an excellent option for businesses looking to integrate a customer service bot into their WhatsApp.
It includes an API as well as a customization tool that allows brands to tailor the chatbots to their specific requirements. It integrates with a number of third-party applications, including Mailchimp, Stripe, Google Sheets, Zapier, Slack, and Salesforce.
Pricing: Starts at $39 per month.
Bottom Line
AI Chatbot has established itself as a critical tool for any company looking to stay competitive and improve customer experience. With the advancement of AI technology, the viability of AI chatbots will increase over time. You can expect good results for your business if you stay up to date on the changes and equip your company with the most advanced AI chatbots.
The best way to determine which chatbot platform is best for your company is to do extensive research on what each platform has to offer as well as the type of bot experience you want to give to your customer. Analyze the above-mentioned AI chatbots applications thoroughly, compare them, and request a demo to determine which one is best for your company. I hope you find a great assistant and use it to scale up your customer service.
