The Ultimate Guide to Chatbot Types and Top Features

2.5 billion — that’s how many customer service hours businesses will save by 2023 by adopting chatbots, as Juniper Research estimated. As we know, Chatbot growth has been phenomenal across industries in the last few years.
Integrating a robust chatbot into your business has become a great way to offer superior customer service, stay ahead of the competition, and increase engagement between your brand and your customers.
Here, our chatbot experts discuss all chatbots — right from what a chatbot is and features that make a chatbot good to the benefits of the chatbot, chatbot use cases, chatbot architecture, and a lot more.

What is a Chatbot?

A chatbot is a software program capable of impersonating human conversations in its natural tone, including text or spoken language, using technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), Natural Language Processing (NLP), pattern recognition, etc.

A well-constructed chatbot can effectively address your customers’ queries, helping your business save expenses, automate your lead generation and customer support, and personalize customer experiences.

Types of Chatbots

Chatbots are categorized mainly into two different types –

1. Rule-Based Chatbots — They follow pre-defined rules or flows to respond to user queries. Most simple applications contain rule-based chatbots, which respond to questions based on the preset rules.

2. AI Chatbots — AI chatbots are more advanced and based on machine learning. AI chatbot uses natural language processing services to understand the questions’ meaning.

Top 8 Features of a Good Chatbot

Below are some of the essential chatbot features that a good chatbot must have –

1. Omni-Channel

Customers today prefer to conduct business with brands that offer consistent experiences across channels. A good chatbot platform can seamlessly integrate with any communication channels you need, like WhatsApp chatbot, Facebook, SMS, custom mobile apps, and websites.

2. Analytical

Another crucial chatbot feature is that the chatbot’s performance should be measurable. Chatbot analytics can help your business track the bot’s performance and make changes to the bot accordingly. With metrics like average conversation steps per user, total conversations, top countries, number of returning users, average session duration, etc., you can track goals and build a deeper understanding of your customers.

3. Secure

Security is another essential chatbot feature. Protecting customer privacy and keeping their data secure is a top priority for every business. A good chatbot platform maintains the highest security standards to protect customers’ data.

4. Human-Like Approach

One of the other noteworthy features of a chatbot is its human-like approach. Like humans, who frequently use context in their day-to-day conversations, a good chatbot has all the information and tools that make it capable of understanding the context in open discussions.

5. Personalized

The best chatbot platforms can adjust their tone and language based on user context. For instance, if there is a flight cancellation, the chatbot acknowledges and regrets the inconvenience rather than treating it casually.

6. KCS-friendly

KCS, or knowledge-centered service, refers to guidelines for building and preserving organizational knowledge. KCS-friendly bots are made keeping in mind corporate policies and are ethical and helpful.

7. CX-first

Chatbots can prompt users with appropriate options, sometimes based on previous interactions. Further, if the bot cannot handle a complex query, it instantly notifies the same human agent for a smooth customer experience.

8. Integrations

Chatbot integration is one of the top decisive chatbot features. With the right chatbot platform, you do not have to worry about switching your existing tools and systems. A chatbot must integrate seamlessly with your existing set of tools.

Read the Full Article: 8 Reasons Your Business Needs a Chatbot