Chatbot vs Live Chat Software: Which is the Right Solution for Business.

As you brace yourself to integrate more customer self-service options on your website, it’s easy to land in a dilemma between live chat and chatbot.

Do you know that more than half of your customers prefer instant response through chat support when they reach out to you? Among all the customer support channels, chat has emerged as the most extensively used communication path for personal and business use.

Research from IBM reveals that as much as 70% of your customers appreciate enjoying the live chat feature while communicating with you. Also, brands can expect around 66% of customers interacting with them through a chat platform to make repeat purchases from their website.

As business minds explore the most viable self-service options for customers, it’s imperative to know the perks and drawbacks of both these chat platforms. Let’s explore how brands can deliver a better CX by integrating the right mix of chat support options.

What is a live chat software?

Live chat is a feature connecting your clients with human agents on your helpdesk. By interacting with the agents, customers can get relevant answers to their questions and resolve their issues. So, customers need to use a messaging or chat feature to connect to a human agent, not AI-backed bots.

Once the chat platform establishes the connection, both parties interact in real-time through chat messaging. Therefore, using live chat software requires you to entrust human agents 24/7 to respond to your clients instantly.

As much as 73% of customers consider live chat software to be the most gratifying means of communicating with your business.

What is a chatbot?

A chatbot is solely an automated self-service feature, where AI-backed systems interact with your customers. So, this mechanism doesn’t require businesses to entrust human agents to respond to queries. The AI-integrated chat tool largely banks on machine learning to answer queries in natural language.

Mostly, businesses use chatbots to answer less-complex answers for customers. Besides, chatbots have proven their benefits in providing quick answers to repetitive and mundane questions. By deploying chatbots, businesses can slash the average response time significantly.

By banking on the self-service help center eServeCloud, you can free up your support agents. This implies that they can channel their efforts to answer more complex tickets that call for a personalized approach.

What are the perks and drawbacks of live chat software?

Pros

1.   Since human agents respond to customers’ queries on live chat tools, they can resolve complex issues.
2.   Support agents can attend multiple clients simultaneously since it allows them to multitask.
3.   The customized approach to your clients significantly enhances the overall experience.
4.   Human agents are well-poised to cross-sell products and turn visitors into clients.

Cons

1. Customers don’t receive support after office hours when your agents are offline.
2. Hiring human agents to provide support 24/7 can be expensive.
3. The absence of automated features increases the number of tickets and resolution time.
4. Agents often need to answer repetitive questions.

What are the perks and drawbacks of a chatbot?

Pros

1. With automated chatbots in place, businesses can engage customers 24/7. A study reveals that 64% of customers believe this round-the-clock support to be the best feature of this system.
2. AI-enabled chatbots provide instant answers to general questions from customers. This might be related to enhancing customer experience, customer inquiries, etc.
3. In terms of cost-effectiveness, chatbots serve as the ideal chat solution. Businesses need not hire human agents in all three shifts to ensure 24-hour availability of support.
4. Chatbots answer common queries, mostly repetitive ones. This enables the agents to deliver a personalized experience to customers with complex problems.

Cons

1. Since chatbots are not capable of answering complex questions, human intervention might be necessary.
2. Automated responses lack the human essence during communication. This can negatively impact the satisfaction level of your customers.
3. The scope of personalizing services through chatbots is limited.
4. Chatbots may fail to provide exact answers as per the customer’s expectations, leading to frustration.

Choosing between the two chat options: Live chat vs chatbots

By being strategic with your choice between live chat software and chatbots, businesses can ensure maximum engagement and satisfaction for their customers. The latter can significantly benefit from self-service portals and customer communities that resolve their queries. Based on the parameters we have discussed below, you need to make a strategic decision.

Instant response

Are you aware that 90% of your customers expect an immediate response when they reach out to your support team? Also, 60% of your customers define this immediacy as a period of ‘less than 10 minutes’.

Integrating the self-service portal eServeCloud, this goal seems to be attainable. Once your chatbot engages your customers instantly, your agents can follow up and take over the interaction during office hours.

Resolving complex queries

• Live chat tools emerge as the clear winner while handling complex issues. This is due to human intervention in delivering customized experiences for customers.
• AI bots are trained only to answer specific questions or collect data. They are not meant to replace human agents. They are capable of answering questions based on the corresponding keywords.
• Your agents are capable of collaborating with different teams within your organization. In the process, they sort out the issues through human interactions to assure better experiences to customers.

Therefore, if a customer comes up with a complex question, the chatbot would redirect the query to a human agent.

Customer satisfaction and loyalty

Well, businesses have been equally deploying both these chat solutions to ensure customer loyalty and satisfaction.

With live chat, you can offer a human touch while responding to your clients in real-time. Human agents can understand the tone of the customer to feel their mood. Accordingly, they can enhance engagement and do the needful. By developing this rapport, they can fulfill customer expectations. Eventually, they can build brand value and loyalty through their commitment.

On the other hand, chatbots come in handy while providing instant responses to your customers. Besides engaging customers while human agents are away, chatbots can initiate conversations professionally. This way, they carry a proactive stance and take care of the probable needs of your customers.

Ultimately, both chatbots and human agents go a long way in ensuring customer satisfaction.

Cost-effectiveness

Given that the basic chatbot subscriptions start from as low as $20 a month, you can significantly slash your operational costs. Deploying a calculated mix of human agents and chatbots, businesses can expect a 30% reduction in these expenses.

A single AI-backed bot can perform the basic task that 20 human agents can do. For small businesses, a single bot might be equivalent to the entire support team.

Moreover, businesses can save on training, incentives, salary, and infrastructure by integrating chatbots.

Conclusion

Forward-thinking businesses are using both chatbots and live chat tools to assure a flawless CX while maintaining cost-effectiveness. Particularly, CEOs and business heads looking forward to scaling their operations can save costs by having bots in place. These chatbots can answer a sizable volume of inquiries.

It would be logical to check out the eServeCloud customer portal for relevant support options. With both these chat platforms operating simultaneously, businesses can take care of complex inquiries without compromising cost or customer satisfaction.