What is an AI chatbot for website?

First, let me review some terms to avoid confusion:

• Chatbot is a computer program that most realistically simulates human conversation through text or voice.

• An AI chatbot is a computer program that learns from customer interactions, draws from previous conversations, and offers contextual solutions. The more conversations an AI-powered chatbot has, the more it will learn, improve, and provide increasingly accurate results.

So an AI chatbot for website is an AI-powered chatbot that is integrated into your website to reach your business purposes. That purpose could be to increase user experience, reduce operating costs, increase conversion rates, ect.

An example for you to visualize an AI chatbot for website would be when you go to a website to read an article and a window appears on the screen asking if you need assistance. This is a situation where you might encounter a chatbot on a website. And one thing I can say with certainty is that you will come across more and more cases like this. Because an AI chatbot is an exploding global trend. That's right, according to The Business Journals, 62% of businesses have plans to incorporate AI chatbots into their operations. 

Benefits of adding an AI chatbot to your website

When you add an AI chatbot to your website, the chatbot can help improve the user experience and business performance on the website. Let's look at some of the key benefits of an AI chatbot for website below to see if it's right for your business purposes.

• Improved customer engagement.

With an AI chatbot for website, the customer's purchasing experience becomes fast, convenient, and personalized, which helps increase interaction. Research by Master of Code indicates that 87.2% of people describe their conversations with chatbots as neutral or positive.

For example, a website selling clothes uses an AI chatbot to help customers find products. When a customer visits the website and spends a lot of time looking for the men's shirt section, the chatbot can automatically appear and ask, "Do you want to see more new shirt models?". Customers can reply and receive product suggestions that suit their preferences immediately. If customers have questions about size, material, or delivery policy, the chatbot will respond immediately. It helps them make quick purchasing decisions without having to wait for online support staff. If the problem is more complex, the chatbot can forward the conversation to a real employee.

• 24/7 customer support and quick response times.

Modern consumers want accurate information, and they want it instantly. A study of HubSpot found that 82% of consumers rate "immediate" responses as important or very important when they have a marketing or sales question. They want their problems resolved quickly, completely and personally. 

Therefore, AI chatbots best meet that consumer need, improving customer response rates 24/7. Also, according to a survey by  Outgrow, 64% of consumers believe the best part of chatbots is 24/7 support. That means chatbots are highly valued by consumers for their ability to provide accurate, personalized, and immediate responses to common problems and frequently asked questions.

• Increased conversion rates.

Chatbot technology is said to be able to bring about 67% sales growth (Outgrow). When integrated into your website, AI chatbots provide a unique opportunity to collect and analyze valuable user data. When users provide details about what they are looking for, the AI ​​chatbot spits out the right information to help them navigate on your website to the type of product or service according to the customer's needs. 57% of businesses responded that implementing chatbots delivers better ROI without significant investment (Outgrow). Therefore, AI chatbots significantly increase conversion rates for your business.

• Reduced operational costs.

AI chatbots can help you save money related to customer support while reducing the time invested in those activities. These include the costs of hiring competent support staff, maintaining a multilingual support team, training them regularly, and keeping them available 24/7.

“By 2026, conversational artificial intelligence (AI) deployments within contact centers will reduce agent labor costs by $80 billion.” ( 2022 Gartner​)

• Collect lead data with less friction

AI chatbots for websites are effective tools for collecting lead data with minimal friction due to their conversational interface, which feels more natural and less intrusive than traditional forms of communication. 

For example, instead of showing visitors a lengthy contact form, a chatbot can start with a friendly greeting: "Hello! I'm here to help you find the perfect product. Can you tell me what you're looking for today?" 

As the conversation progresses, the chatbot can naturally collect relevant information, such as name, email, and interests, and provide valuable support to potential customers. This strategy not only improves the efficiency of lead data collection but also the website's overall user experience.

How AI chatbots work on website

Your businesses can lower the frequency of human intervention in customer support by implementing chatbots to increase automation. Now, you have some following virtual assistants:

• Machine learning: Machine learning is important for chatbots to continuously improve their responses and performance. By analyzing large amounts of data from interactions, chatbots can learn user trends and preferences. This iterative process allows the chatbot to adapt and improve over time, providing more accurate and personalized responses to users. By 2024, ML will be one of the top SaaS trends.

• Natural language processing (NLP): Natural language processing (NLP) plays an important role in enhancing user interaction with chatbots. It allows chatbots to understand the nuances of human language, including slang, context, and variations in expression. NLP helps chatbots accurately interpret user queries and provide appropriate responses, leading to more effective communication.

AI-powered chatbots simulate communication by implementing the latest AI technologies. The AI ​​engine will query the company's knowledge base and provide the most accurate answers to questions from chatbot users. By integrating AI chatbots into your website, you can ensure consistent and personalized interactions with customers while also cutting response times. 

To gain a better understanding of how AI chatbots work on websites, observe how a typical chatbot interaction flow looks like this:

• Users initiate a conversation by typing a message or talking to the chatbot through the user interface.

• Chatbots use NLP to analyze words and phrases in messages to understand user intent.

• The chatbot will search a database of pre-programmed responses to find the right answer.

• The response is then sent back to the user through the user interface.

• The user can then choose the next response and the process will repeat until the conversation ends.

AI chatbot for website use cases

There are many potential applications of AI-based chatbots. In addition to supporting customer service, these tools are so versatile that they can help teams with tasks across a variety of industries. A typical real-life example is H&M's Kik chatbot.

H&M's Kik chatbot provides fashion advice and recommendations to users. Using natural language processing (NLP) technology, this chatbot understands user requests and provides personalized styling tips. The chatbot is built into the Kik Messenger app, which currently has more than 15 million monthly active users.

• Feature: 

H&M's Kik chatbot is equipped with many superior features to enhance user experience. First, it provides personality tests and style tips, helping users accurately determine their personal style. In addition, chatbots are capable of recommending personalized products, suggesting items that suit each customer's unique preferences and needs. Integrating chatbots into the Kik messaging application makes it easy for users to access and use. At the same time, the easy payment feature supports a seamless shopping process, creating favorable conditions for customers to complete transactions quickly.

• Successes achieved:

First, it increases customer engagement through direct interaction and personalization, thereby enhancing the user experience. 

Besides, chatbots improve the shopping experience by helping customers easily search and choose suitable products. 

This leads to higher conversion rates, with the Kik chatbot achieving an 86% engagement rate, users spending an average of four minutes interacting, and a click-through rate of up to 8%, significantly higher than 2%. of H&M's email marketing campaigns. 

This success proves the effectiveness of applying an AI chatbot in improving customer experience and boosting sales.

How to integrate an AI chatbot into your website?

You can integrate an AI chatbot into your website in two ways. The first way is to hire a development company that can create a chatbot with code. An easier alternative is to use a no-code chatbot platform.

1. Custom AI Chatbot Development: Hiring an AI development company to build a tailored AI chatbot for your website.

When opting for this approach, you will engage a specialized team or agency to handle every aspect of the development process, including:

• Selecting the appropriate AI model and technologies

• Custom development and training

• Integrating the chatbot with your organization's existing technology infrastructure and business applications

• Designing a user-friendly interface (UI/UX)

• Thorough testing and deployment.

Outsourcing chatbot development services is an ideal choice for businesses with specific needs that off-the-shelf solutions cannot meet. Although there may be an upfront investment required to implement a custom AI chatbot, the long-term benefits include a more engaging website, improved customer experience, and higher conversion rates.

2. Ready-made AI Chatbots: 

Many AI chatbot vendors offer ready-to-deploy products like Google Dialogflow, IBM Watson Assistant, Zendesk, Drift, Tidio, ect. These platforms often provide code-free options, allowing users to launch a chatbot with just a few clicks.

For training, specialized platforms pre-train their models on domain-specific data, such as conversations and knowledge bases, ensuring the AI chatbot performs as expected. Vendors also provide theme libraries to enhance future interactions between users and AI.

The key advantages of these solutions are their affordability and quick deployment. Being cloud-based SaaS platforms available via subscription, they eliminate the need for managing infrastructure—everything from training to updates, maintenance, and scaling is handled by the vendor.

However, these off-the-shelf solutions come with limitations. They cannot be customized to address specific business processes and tasks as effectively as custom-built chatbots. Additionally, relying on vendor support can sometimes be a drawback. Customers have limited control over the software, and in the event of an issue on the vendor's end, they can only wait for the problem to be resolved.

Conclusion 

In today's digital era, integrating AI chatbots into websites is not only a trend but also an essential requirement to enhance the user experience. With the ability to understand and answer complex questions and provide relevant information immediately, AI chatbots have become a powerful tool to help businesses grow their businesses.

With more than 10 years of experience in web development, BHSoft is proud to be a reliable partner to help you implement an AI chatbot into your website. Our dedicated team of skilled developers will help you leverage the full benefits of an AI chatbot for website, from providing a better user experience to enhancing business efficiency.