Gone are the days when customers need to make necessary calls, stay on hold for a long time, to get their desired answer to their question from the concerned representative. Thanks to the robotic process automation solutions like chatbots and live chat supports, that have made customer engagement easier for the brand. Both of them are well-known for providing optimum customer experience to the prospects or existing customers. As a consequence, selecting one amid the two RPA applications is pretty difficult.
As per the survey conducted by Econsultancy, 79% of customers prefer live chat functions whenever they need to make any query or interact with the brand for raising a complaint. At the same time, Oracle says that 80% of businesses prefer to have AI chatbot software & solutions integrated so as to manage their internal relationships and create a unique customer experience.
Now, coming to the topic, which one is better – chatbots or live chat support? It is indeed very hard to find a better RPA solution and so they are often interchangeably used to meet the business requirements. However, certain things create a sleek difference between the two.
We will focus on a few topics that can exaggerate the difference properly, but before that let us clear out two things:
- What is live chat support?
- What is an AI chatbot solution?
What is live chat support and solution?
Live chat functions allow visitors to interact with the brand in real-time. The users can simply make use of the messaging app to connect with the sales and support team and get their issues solved. This provides high customer satisfaction, encouraging the customers to reengage with the brand for any purchase.
What is AI chatbot software & solutions?
AI chatbots are utilized to provide both customer engagement and workforce management solutions. They are engineered to automate the mundane and repetitive tasks of the workforce and simultaneously improves the overall customer experience by utilizing bots to deliver relevant answers to the queries.
Live chat support vs Chatbots – let us put focus on the comparison factors
1. Response time: Response time is the time required for the brand to reply to the query or complaint raised by a customer. The robotic process automation solutions have reduced the response time and increased customer expectations to a wide extent. Around 59% of customers love to stay with the brand that takes hardly 1 minute to respond to any query. A single delay in the response causes a loss in customer retention rate.
Both live chat and chatbots offer instant support to the customers, assuring the lowest queue compared to other communicating channels like a voice call.
Live chat support takes the visitors to the page containing FAQs to get an instant response to their queries. They even connect the visitors or customers to the right support team to get a better response. However, they take time to present an answer whenever any complex query is raised.
Chatbots, on the other hand, are designed to provide prompt responses to simple queries. They are even utilized to gather prequalified leads and customer-related information. The bots assist the customers whenever they get stuck in between any purchase.
To conclude, if you want your customers to deliver instant responses within seconds, chatbots are the best fit. However, if your customers are ready to stay online and wait for the most accurate answer from the team itself, live chat support integration is always better.
2. Availability factor: As you can predict from the previous point, live chat support and chatbots are both used to provide an accurate answer to any query in no time. However, real-time chat support can’t deliver answers instantly and always.
In a live chat support system, the agents need to be online to keep the customer engaged and interact with them to learn about their issues and behavior. Whenever there is a miss, the brand loses its customers experiencing a reduction in customer satisfaction rate.
By automating the customer-business relationship with chatbots, you can assure having a good hike in the CSAT score. The chatbots, unlike the live chat agents, are available 24*7, representing round-the-clock service to the customers. No matter when they need an assistant, the bot is always ready to serve with the best possible service.
To conclude, chatbots are better solutions when it comes to enhanced customer experience as they have a positive impact on customer satisfaction and customer retention. Be it simple or complex, chatbots can be utilized in every complex conversation.
3. Cost consumption: Every marketer looks for a cost-effective business decision to grow its business revenue by reducing operational costs. That’s the reason why chatbots are integrated to offer workforce management solutions for the business. To leverage the same benefit, chatbots are incorporate into the websites, handling real-time conversations.
Many marketers disagree with this by saying chatbots require a pretty good investment to have a digital up-gradation in the business. They believe a live chat support system empowers a team to prevent sales funnel drop by keeping the customers engaged in real-time and delivering optimal business ROI.
Well, the research statistics on chatbots have clearly stated that chatbots have the power to save a huge cost of consumption. In fact, it will save over $8billion per year by the end of 2022. This is where the major difference lies.
To conclude, if you are a startup and deliberately looking forward to establishing a robust customer experience, automating your business operations with chatbots is a wise decision. However, for a detailed explanation, live chat agents support is equally needed.
The Bottom Line
Both the communication channels – live chat support & solutions and AI chatbot software & solutions are responsible for delivering superior customer service. The aim to provide prompt, accurate and instant reply is successfully achieved by both of them. However, when it comes to calculating the response time and availability factor, you need to think twice before preferring live chat options.
Are you ready to upgrade your business with robotic automation process solutions? Maybe companies offering digital support can bring the best way out.