Are you working hard to make your brand big? Then you already know that customer is your key. Providing customer service whenever they need, plays a vital role in brand marketing. There you’re looking for a seamless solution where you’ll be able to be present for them even in an ungodly hour when no one is working. Well, with AI-driven customer support, it’s not a very hard-to-achieve thing and there comes the term ‘AI Chatbot’ — a buzzword that has already taken a front seat in the past few years.
It virtually assists customers throughout diversified industries and improves the CX for business. In developed nations like the US, UK and Europe, AI Chatbots have taken a significant role in customer support in Southeast Asian countries for the last few years.
This article will throw some light on the needs and benefits of using AI Chatbots in SE Asian countries and the parameters of measuring the success in those countries.
What is an AI Chatbot?
A Chatbot is an interface that interacts with humans using written or spoken language via online messaging apps. An AI Chatbot crosses the barrier of rule-driven Chatbots, which are programmed with only some predefined questions with FAQ answers. Instead, it learns from collected data like customer data and their queries, popular solutions and then creates the best possible response by applying algorithms.
Benefits of AI Chatbots
The significant benefits of AI Chatbots are that they can provide a 24/7 personalized experience to multiple customers even when no one is working. This helps businesses to establish a long-term relationship with their customers. Some of the benefits of an AI Chatbot are:
· 24/7 Availability
· Reduced Human Error
· Multiple Engagements at a Time
· Personalized Experience
· Time & Cost-effective
SEA countries’ need to adopt the technology:
South Asian countries are still in the early stages of implementing AI in their industries compared to first-world countries, where only 15% are in advanced stages in service-oriented sectors. The region is still lagging behind the developed countries by two to three years. Even though AI investments are concentrated in Singapore, 9 of the top 10 deals were for Singapore-based start-ups with businesses and used cases across the region.
In a post-pandemic era, with an increasing need for virtual support, AI-driven Chatbots were also in demand. In that case, the SEA countries like Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines have to be up to date with the AI Chatbot trends in business. Out of diversified industries like travel, financial service, telecom, healthcare, education, retail and human resource, the e-commerce industry has massive prospects in SEA countries as AI keeps customers connected even when no one is working. As per research conducted by Facebook and Brain and Company, consumers will spend three times more on e-commerce platforms in the next five years. By 2025, the digital-savvy consumers of SEA countries might spend an average of US$390, which is on average US$175 higher than they invest right now.
AI Chatbots transforming CX:
AI Chatbots are massively transforming CX in SEA. This can be understood by the case study of Zalora- a premium fashion and retail brand in SEA.
In Q2 2021 alone, Zalora recorded more than 3 million app downloads with a 7–12% increase in the share of new customers revenue from different geographical areas. Consequently, it was a challenge to support multilingual consumers across the globe. Zalora was looking for a panacea within the limitations of the same workforce bandwidth. Zalora Bot- the AI-driven Chatbot came as a remedy that not only automated customer processes from track orders to return and refunds, but its capacity to converse in multiple languages like Bahasa, English and Mandarin increased customer engagement. The omnichannel support of the interface can address customers’ queries and issues without human intervention. Zalora bot will soon be available on Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram and many other languages.
Implementation considerations for AI Chatbots:
It’s important to measure CX goals before implementing AI Chatbots and analyze the success metrics in any business. AI Chatbots can gather feedback, reviews and ratings from customers. Metrics like CSAT (Customer Satisfaction Score) and NPS (Net Promoter Score) help measure any business’s customer service by evaluating the score of bot conversations. In the end, you can take action based on the score to improve the performance further.
Final Thoughts:
Businesses in SEA regions are realizing the importance of virtual assistance and are investing in AI-driven technologies in diversified verticals like healthcare, automobile and others. E-commerce is one of the fastest-growing areas among countries that are trying to provide a seamless experience to the customer via new-age channels of social media.
Gartner predicts, “By 2020, more than 50% of online sellers will either list their products on marketplaces or sell third-party products on their core commerce sites.” So, in the recent future, AI-driven Chatbots would be a hard-core necessity.
