Four Sectors That Can Benefit From Chatbots and How

A chatbot has become the most preferred choice for businesses across different sectors when it comes to the first line of communication with a customer. According to a research report published by US-based Opus Group in 2018, chatbots would register an investment of USD 4.5 billion by 2021. Currently with technology penetrating our lives like never before due to the pandemic, the number is expected to surpass the expectation for sure. A major reason for the surge in the acceptance of chatbots is that businesses have realized over the years that the tool can do much more than establishing the first line of communication. These bots can be customized to meet the respective challenges and requirements of different sectors such as education, healthcare, hospitality and real estate.

Abhinav Girdhar, who is the founder of world’s leading cloud based no-code app building platform that recently launched an all-new chatbot builder, said, “Chatbots have brought about a defining efficiency in the way things happen in the service industry. Of course, we need to give it a human touch and design the conversation in a personalized manner if we want the customers to stick around. However, the most important thing is to have clarity about the core functionality or the purpose of your chatbot before you start making one.”

Education

In the process of learning, what most students require is a tool that can enable a swift and instant resolution of their queries and doubts. A chatbot is the perfect tool for this purpose. While working on assessments or taking up a prep test, students can interact with teachers whenever and wherever they face any roadblock. By integrating a chatbot, one can add the element of interactivity in the learning process. Chatbots are loaded with features such as live document, texting, video conferencing etc and smart utilization of these can aid the education to a great extent. A bot can also be instrumental in tracking the progress as well as requirements of a learner, thanks to the advancements in artificial intelligence. While AI-powered chatbots are widely used for tutoring and helping students comprehend concepts 24x7, the best part is that a bot can learn itself, as it’s powered with machine learning technology, to meet the evolving needs.

Referring to the significance of chatbots in the education sector, pioneering Edtech platform Digital Aristotle’s founder Dev Roy said, “With the advent of models like GPT-3 that have shown an amazing ability at understanding and constructing sentences, we see a very large opportunity for them to be applied in the education sector especially for doubt clearing. However, these models have been shown to have various biases that first need to be dealt with before we can use it on a large scale basis among children.”

Healthcare

Healthcare chatbots are growing at a CAGR of 20.5% and studies suggest that the industry has the potential to save up to USD 150 billion by integrating chatbots. The last thing one wants to do is spending hours waiting to see the doctor in an OPD when unwell. With chatbots in place, the appointment system can be further streamlined and patients can interact with the same in case of last-minute hiccups to rearrange the appointments one over another, so that neither the patient nor the doctor should spend extra hours. Since chatbots do not have limitations with regard to number, they can handle hundreds of enquiries simultaneously, thereby scaling the customer service several notch. If implemented right, a chatbot can be used to provide timely medical advice. This would save the patients the trouble of dialing a helpline and waiting endlessly for response. The bots can further be used as daily medication reminders.

“Chatbot is an effective tech-powered tool to add might to the functioning in healthcare. These bots are efficient in scheduling appointments, providing timely information to the patient, better time management for the doctor and structured queue management for patients as well. A customized chatbot is something that all entities working in the sector must make adequate use of,” feels Nishant Gupta, the Director of NCR-based Med Harbour Clinics.

Hospitality

The very foundation of this sector is customer service. When customers check in into a hotel, they often dialing the front office or reception multiple times to inquire about different offerings and services provided by the property. The manual intervention and involvement can be minimized in this respect with AI-based chatbots, which would furnish all the details and that too at the earliest. Such chatbots can answer all standard questions and if needed, transfer the service request to the department concerned. This relieves the burden on call centres as well as in-house staff, which can be used to handle more complex requests. Most customers are bothered about their requests being fulfilled, irrespective of whether it’s a bot or a human taking their request.

Real Estate

Chatbots are believed to have revolutionized the real estate sector by making buying, selling and renting of properties more interactive than mundane. When people look at buying or selling properties, they want quick answers. Basic questions such as the purpose – buying, selling or renting, kind of property, price range, time in hand and location can be asked by chatbots to ascertain the exact need of any customer. With round-the-clock availability, a chatbot ensures that you don’t miss out on any leads even outside office hours. There’s no qualm in stating that such bots are powerful lead generating machines. The bots can further be used to schedule meetings and property tours, in addition to making the most of different social media platforms of real estate players. A quick virtual tour is also possible with the bot, so that the potential customers can have all prima facie details to decide whether to go ahead or back out. Real-time 24x7 and user specific enquiries are other significant benefits of real estate chatbot.