E-commerce Chatbots: Chatbot technology is quickly improving, but it’s only as good as the value it provides. The best way to determine the state of chatbots in 2020 is to assess its advantages in real-life situations.
A chatbot can look modern but sometimes offer no value to its customers. If a chatbot is too frustrating to use or unhelpful, companies risk hurting their image.
We compiled a list of nine chatbots across various industries that are setting a good example of how a chatbot should function in 2020. To qualify for this list, the chatbot has to be:
Useful: Does the chatbot solve a pre existing problem the business and its customers faced? Is it a viable solution?
E-commerce Chatbots Conversational: Do conversations flow and sound humanlike? Does the chatbot have a sense of humor? Can it understand typos and jargon?
Easy to use: Do you have to sign-up/download/install anything to use the chatbot? Is it free or does it have strings attached? Does it have a user-friendly design?
Based on these criteria, here are our picks for the best chatbots of 2020.
1. HelloFresh’s Freddy
HelloFresh tackles the ubiquitous question, “What should we eat for dinner?”.
Freddy Freshbot is a Facebook Messenger chatbot that avails customers with their recipe and ordering needs. For example, If users type in a dish or ingredient, Freddy searches for relevant recipes on the it’s blog .
This friendly bot even keeps users engaged with food-themed quizzes and questions.
HelloFresh reduces service wait times with its Chatfuel Messenger bot
Freddy was created with Chatfuel and is a button-based bot, but does understand food-related keywords.
It has button options to connect the user to customer service at their request.
Sumo
HelloFresh created Freddy to help monitor their high volume of Facebook messages and improve response times. The meal delivery service had a 47% increase in incoming messages and reduced their response time by 76% thanks to Freddy.
The brand smartly promotes chatbot-exclusive discount codes on their Facebook page, which are then delivered via message through Freddy. In 2018, HelloFresh experienced a 64% conversion rate from a Black Friday promo code and continues to award codes (often with “BOT” in the name to assess ROI) to customers when they interact with their quizzes and posts.
2. Capital One’s Eno – E-commerce Chatbots
Capital One sought to improve relationships with its banking customers, and its mobile app Eno was born. The friendly banking chatbot helps keep customers alert about suspicious transactions, duplicate charges and unusually high spending.
Customers can text Eno 24/7 via website, mobile app or SMS to check their bank balance and recent transactions or to report any card trouble.
Eno will even send alerts when a customer is charged more than usual for a bill.
Capital One
A lot of work and money went into the creation of this chatbot, which is unsurprising since Capital One is the eleventh largest bank in the United States. Eno can understand over 2,200 terms and emoji hence making it a contextual chatbot that speaks conversationally, not via commands. It doesn’t discuss much outside of banking, but is helpful, professional, and speaks with a gentle tone.
A unique feature of Eno is that it reviews the transactions of Capital One’s credit card customers for the year. If they’re eligible, Eno provides customers with a charitable donation summary. In 2019, Eno identified almost $2 billion in tax-deductible charitable donations from users’ accounts.
3. World Health Organization’s WHO Health Alert
Misinformation tends to spread during a crisis. While the coronavirus continues to permeate the world, and the population remains stuck indoors, plenty of people are seeking help and answers online.
The World Health Organization is helping people stay healthy and informed with their new WHO Health Alert chatbot. This WhatsApp-exclusive bot is designed to provide fast, reliable information about the coronavirus.
Users can select through various options to know more about coronavirus stats.
To get started, users need the WhatsApp app. From there, sending a simple message like “hi” or “hello” to the number +41 79 781 87 91 allows access to the free service.
The chatbot isn’t conversational, but it’s available 24/7 and constantly updated with the latest news and amount of infection cases. It’s currently available in English with plans to soon add Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish.
4. Amtrak’s Julie
Amtrak developed Julie to improve their online self-service for their 375,000+ site visitors. Julie can answer questions and help with transactions so customers don’t need to call or email an agent.
Developed by Next IT , chatbot Julie is Amtrak’s newest customer-friendly innovation to follow-up their successful voice service assistant .
Users can ask Julie in their own words for information on booking reservations, FAQs, station and route information, plus help with making hotel and rental car reservations.
Like a human agent (with an unfortunate human icon image — I wonder how many people this has tricked), Julie asks customers if they have any more questions instead of letting the conversation die.
Julie is only available on Amtrak.com, but this hasn’t hindered her success . The passenger railroad service experienced 30% more revenue generated per booking and 50% year-over-year growth with Julie.
5. OMQ Chatbot – E-commerce Chatbots
The OMQ chatbot is a pre-built conversational AI solution for businesses. Built-in 2019, the chatbot is designed to relieve workloads for customer service agents across industries.
Used by major companies such as EMP and Baby Walz , the fast, efficient chatbot solution works right out-of-the-box.
The chatbot is bridged to OMQ’s central data base and uses its AI to educate itself from every new request and interaction with service employees and customers.
It can also engage in small talk and understands customers’ intentions. However, OMQ wanted the chatbot to make it clear that it’s not a human despite its advanced Natural Language Understanding (NLU) engine.
It doesn’t require any training or configuration to get it set up, which is one of the reasons why it’s Userlike’s most popular chatbot partner. You can easily connect it to our live chat platform and start chatting with customers right away.
OMQ
The software works on instant messaging platforms such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Telegram, but can also be integrated into your own website.
Read More: The Future Of Chatbot From The Expert
