Enterprise chatbots in 2024: benefits, types, use cases

Today all active internet users have a good understanding of what a chatbot is. However, enterprise chatbot solutions have a row of peculiarities that make them different from widely applied consumer-facing tools.

A chatbot for enterprises is an AI-powered software solution that can be accessed by employees via a messenger at any time and from anywhere. The launch of such chatbots is aimed at streamlining routing tasks and increasing the efficiency of multiple business processes.

At the same time, such tools still can be utilized for customer interactions. It means that the range of their use cases covers more areas than those of traditional chatbots.

Let’s take a closer look at how businesses can benefit from enterprise chatbots.

Benefits of using enterprise chatbots

Higher quality of customer service

While your customer care team can’t process dozens of inquiries within seconds in a 24/7 regime, a chatbot can do it for you. It means that customers can get the required support at any time, regardless of your opening hours.

Enhanced operational efficiency

An enterprise chatbot can deal with appointment scheduling, routine customer inquiries, internal HR requests, lead qualification, and other business tasks. As a result, its use will allow employees to focus on more complex processes.

Data-driven business insights

Enterprise chatbot platforms can accumulate and further analyze huge volumes of data related to the behavior and preferences of your customers and employees. These valuable insights play an important role in adjusting your processes to their needs and building your strategy in a more efficient way.

Cost optimization

With process automation, you can efficiently reduce labor and operating costs. Thanks to this, you will have an additional budget for innovations and business expansion.

Different types of enterprise chatbot solutions

Rule-based chatbots

These tools operate in accordance with predefined sets of rules. The complexity of these rules can vary depending on the tasks a chatbot has. However, the range of the possible tasks is limited due to a conditional if/then basis of operations. Overall, rule-based chatbots are cost-effective and can be used for simple basic processes.

AI-powered enterprise chatbots

These tools rely on such technologies as Machine Learning (ML) and Natural Language Processing (NLP). This allows them to be used in more sophisticated human-like conversations. The development and training of AI chatbots are more expensive than the work with rule-based tools. Nevertheless, their use provides more new opportunities for businesses in terms of automation.

Hybrid chatbots

These solutions represent a combination of the two previous types. They are powered by a set of rules and AI technologies. It means that they successfully deal with both simple inquiries and more complex tasks. Thus, they can ensure optimal flexibility and enhanced automation.

How can you use an enterprise AI chatbot?

1. Customer service

An enterprise chatbot can handle numerous tasks. For example, answering FAQs, collecting customer feedback, lead generation and nurturing, troubleshooting, and others. It can also re-direct an inquiry to human agents if their intervention is required.

2. Sales and marketing

An enterprise AI chatbot can be of great use for lead generation and qualification, driving your sales. It can also send customers personalized offers and product recommendations and provide post-purchase updates.

3. Technical support

An enterprise chatbot platform can be helpful in resolving technical problems that your employees can face on a regular basis. Such tools can provide step-by-step guides for addressing various issues.

4. HR assistance

AI-powered chatbots can also help to reduce the workload on your HR department. Such solutions can be responsible for dealing with benefits inquiries, replying to policy-related questions, and providing assistance to new employees at the onboarding stage.

What to think about before implementing an enterprise chatbot?

Seamless integrations

Your enterprise chatbot needs to get access to various types of your business data. That's why you should carefully consider its integration with your inner databases, CRM platform, and other software products.

Security concerns

Enterprise chatbot solutions deal with sensitive business and personal data. Given this, it is vital to implement strong security measures. Two-factor authentication and security protocols like Transparent Layer Security (TLS) or Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) are among the most commonly applied methods today.

Training and maintenance

It won’t be enough just to train your chatbot once and leave it as it is. Your databases are regularly updated. And the same should be done with the knowledge base of your chatbot for enterprises.

Connection with human agents

If your chatbot can’t handle an inquiry on its own, it should connect a customer with an authorized employee. This transition should be performed as smoothly as possible.

Enterprise chatbots: key trends

Progress in AI and NLP development

In the near future, chatbots are expected to deliver even more human-like experiences. Already today AI can conduct sentiment analysis. Nevertheless, there are still some areas for improvement. Future chatbots will be emotionally intelligent. They will be able to detect human moods and emotions and react to them in a proper way. This ability together with context awareness will help to bring customer support automation to a new level.

Virtual assistants

Advanced enterprise chatbot solutions will fulfill the role of virtual assistant in the workplace. Chatbots will be able to cover more tasks than today. For example, they will be able to analyze texts and provide their summary. They will be able to look for the freshest data on the internet, update presentations, and add graphs. For easier interaction, chatbots will have voice control features.

Higher personalization and proactivity

In the future, chatbots will better know and understand users’ needs. With this, they will be able to offer their assistance proactively. And users won’t need to spend extra time to assign tasks to chatbots. With this approach, the provided help and offered information will be better tailored to the requirements of every person.

Final word

The use of an enterprise chatbot platform can greatly boost business efficiency. Given this, companies from different industries demonstrate their interest in such solutions. Thus, it’s not surprising at all that the market offers a row of AI-powered products with highly-demanded functionality.

To achieve the desired results in automation, you should find a tool that fully corresponds to your needs—like Chatfuel.

Whether you need a simple chatbot to automate a specific task or a smart and powerful AI agent to handle processes end-to-end, Chatfuel has got you covered. It can help automate lead generation and qualification, sales, FAQs, post-purchase communication, and customer interaction. Chatfuel integrates with Stripe, Google Sheets, Calendly, Shopify, and many other platforms, allowing for omnichannel automation and streamlined workflows.

Sign up for a free trial to discover Chatfuel’s capabilities and see how it can benefit your business regardless of its scale.